Visa Quotes

If I'd learnt one thing from travelling, it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don't talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens.

Ok. don't panic. Don't panic. It's only a VISA bill. It's a piece of paper; a few numbers. I mean, just how scary can a few numbers be?

Some things are best left a blur. Births and Visa Bills.

My parents didn't raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. I think the Merryweather cheerleaders confuse me because I missed out on Sunday School. It has to be a miracle. There is no other explanation. How else could they sleep with the football team on Saturday night and be reincarnated as virginal goddesses on Monday?

Un, kad es paskatos uz rietiem, kāds roku man uz pleca liek : " Mums šajā dzīvē visa pietiek, mums tikai laika nepietiek.

Sleep was a country for which he could not obtain a visa.

Así que ahora soy una chica casi civilizada. Ya tengo Visa y teléfono móvil. ¿Qué será lo próximo? ¿Ropa chula hiperceñida? ¿Un coche? ¿Novio?

Estoy tan mal que no sé si cortarme las venas o fundir la Visa Oro.

Dreams heed no borders, the eyes need no visas With eyes shut I walk across the line in time All the time—

Wearing nothing but sweats and a sheer coat of lip gloss, she wiggle through her frosted window and jumped six feet to freedom, feeling more charged than a Visa card at Christmas time.

Hur svårt att tro på livet efter detta. Hur rätt att önska livet efter detta. Det är att visa glädje vid att leva och lust att till dess skönhet återvända.

The essence of community, its heart and soul, is the non-monetary exchange of value; things we do and share because we care for others, and for the good of the place.

And all the weird shit tumbles into perspective. It doesn't matter and it isn't real. No miracles. No magic. No dreams. Just pain and death, and Visa slips.

Back then, only select professionals from Asia were granted visas to the United States: doctors, engineers, and mechanics. This screening process, by the way, is how the whole model minority quackery began: the U.S. government only allowed the most educated and highly trained Asians in and then took all the credit for their success. See! Anyone can live the American Dream! they’d say about a doctor who came into the country already a doctor.

The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).

I tug on my graduation dress, that was my priest meeting dress, that is now my visa interview dress. I am clothed in beginnings & endings. A lucky & unlucky garment. But isn't every life adorned with both?

We are carrying contraband words with us, memorized, tucked away in tattered journals and stored magically on disks in Anna's left pocket. Canadian words, queer words that we spoke on-stage for money in the land of the brave. With no valid permit, license, visa or contract to do so. Felons, really, all of us, and now we intended to flee the scene without paying income tax on the twelve dollars and fifty American cents we each made. It's just this kind of shameless law-breaking that gives all poets a bad name.

It was as Nazruddin had said, when I asked him about visas and he had said that bank notes were better. 'You can always get into those places. What is hard is to get out. That is a private fight. Everybody has to find his own way.

mano namai yra visas pasaulis, visa naktis yra mano guolis.

Ak, visa, ką davei, trokštu išgyventi, kiekvieną daiktą ir pojūtį - visą save ir pasaulį - kol ateis mirtis, kol ateis kita.

Jaučiuosi, tarsi būtų nudirta mano oda ir visas kūnas kraujuotų prisiminimais.

We're not going to die. You're with me kiddo and it just happens I know a few survival skills." "Oh yeah right. Like carrying your Visa Gold in case the restaurant doesn't accept American Express.

And now, the waitress standing in front of them. She was beaming, as if Ian had just handed her a puppy with a Visa Black card in its mouth. "Can I get you anything else?" she asked as she cleared their untouched plates. "It doesn't look like enjoyed your breakfast very much!" "Just the bill, please." She smiled. "Are you going sightseeing today? The first stop on the Freedom Trail is just around the corner. If you go ask Bob over there at the front desk, he can–" "We have other plans," Ian interrupted. "That's great! Anything fun?" Natalie looked up at the waitress and gave her a fake smile. Except that on Natalie, it looked more demonic than cheerful. "Our mum's on trial for murder. Today's the verdict. But if it ends early, we'll be sure to pop by the Freedom Trail." The waitress's smile vanished.

Air travel reminds us who we are. It’s the means by which we recognize ourselves as modern. The process removes us from the world and sets us apart from each other. We wander in the ambient noise, checking one more time for the flight coupon, the boarding pass, the visa. The process convinces us that at any moment we may have to submit to the force that is implied in all this, the unknown authority behind it, behind the categories, the languages we don’t understand. This vast terminal has been erected to examine souls.

The problem is, it's just not enough to live according to the rules. Sure, you manage to live according to the rules. Sometimes it's tight, extremely tight, but on the whole you manage it. Your tax papers are up to date. Your bills paid on time. You never go out without your identity card (and the special little wallet for your Visa!). Yet you haven’t any friends. The rules are complex, multiform. There’s the shopping that needs doing out of working hours, the automatic dispensers where money has to be got (and where you so often have to wait). Above all there are the different payments you must make to the organizations that run different aspects of your life. You can fall ill into the bargain, which involves costs, and more formalities. Nevertheless, some free time remains. What’s to be done? How do you use your time? In dedicating yourself to helping people? But basically other people don’t interest you. Listening to records? That used to be a solution, but as the years go by you have to say that music moves you less and less. Taken in its widest sense, a spot of do-it-yourself can be a way out. But the fact is that nothing can halt the ever-increasing recurrence of those moments when your total isolation, the sensation of an all-consuming emptiness, the foreboding that your existence is nearing a painful and definitive end all combine to plunge you into a state of real suffering. And yet you haven’t always wanted to die. You have had a life. There have been moments when you were having a life. Of course you don't remember too much about it; but there are photographs to prove it. This was probably happening round about the time of your adolescence, or just after. How great your appetite for life was, then! Existence seemed so rich in new possibilities. You might become a pop singer, go off to Venezuela. More surprising still, you have had a childhood. Observe, now, a child of seven, playing with his little soldiers on the living room carpet. I want you to observe him closely. Since the divorce he no longer has a father. Only rarely does he see his mother, who occupies an important post in a cosmetics firm. And yet he plays with his little soldiers and the interest he takes in these representations of the world and of war seems very keen. He already lacks a bit of affection, that's for sure, but what an air he has of being interested in the world! You too, you took an interest in the world. That was long ago. I want you to cast your mind back to then. The domain of the rules was no longer enough for you; you were unable to live any longer in the domain of the rules; so you had to enter into the domain of the struggle. I ask you to go back to that precise moment. It was long ago, no? Cast your mind back: the water was cold.

Vieną knygą perskaitęs gal ir nepasikeisi. Bet perskaitęs 100 tapsi kitu žmogumi. Pavojaus pavirsti knygų žiurke šiais laikais nėra. Gyvenimas per daug dinamiškas. Gera literatūra, kartu su audringa aplinka ir visa ko kaita, žmogų nuteikia žygiams, netikėtiems ir išmintingiems sudėtingų problemų sprendimams.

Community is composed of that which we don't attempt to measure, for which we keep no record and ask no recompense. Most are things we cannot measure no matter how hard we try.

I'm a five-hundred-year-old born vampire with an ever-expanding wardrobe, a serious cosmetics addiction, and enough outstanding Visa charges to fund a small third-world country.

Tinha o cartão Gold Visa. Estava vivo. Talvez. Começava até a me sentir como Nick Belane. Cantalorei um trechinho de Coats. O Inferno era o que a gente fazia dele." (pág. 16)

If the Palace doesn’t like my art, then I lose my work visa, and believe me, I do not want to go back to doing teen soaps in Wilmington.

Begalė atsispindi grožyje, ir dėl to jis taip pagauna sielą. Nes kaip gėlė įtempia visas jėgas, stengdamos sugauti nors vieną saulės spindulėlį, be kurio negali gyvuoti, taip mūsų siela, šiame netobulybių pasaulyje būdama, veržias sugauti nors mažutę kibirkštėlę absoliuto, kurį nujaučia, kurio trokšta ir be kurio negali gyvuoti.

Vezi tu , uneori Dumnezeu asteapta de la tine sa pui si tu umarul.Iti poti dori anumite lucruri.Poti visa.Poti spera.Dar trebuie sa si actionezi in directia acelor dorinte , visuri si sperante.Trebuie sa te intinzi dincolo de locul in care te afli ca sa poti ajunge acolo unde vrei sa fi.

Man svarbu mokėti mylėti pasaulį, neniekinti jo, nejausti neapykantos jam ir sau, žvelgti į jį, į save ir į visas būtybes su meile, susižavėjimu ir didžia pagarba.

Nekas cilvēkam un tautām nedod tādu baudu kā visa sakrātā izputināšana vienā acumirklī.

Visa dzīve tam, lai iemīlētu dzīvi.

Ja cilvēks spēj kādu no visas sirds mīlēt, tad viņa dzīvība ir glābta. Pat ja nav iespējams būt kopā ar šo cilvēku.

Mums tālu nav jāiet un nevajag iet, dod man no sevis tikai mazliet no visa .

I am so happy migrating birds and animals do not have visa issues and fences in the sky to halt their efforts to survive, but humans with their mindful consciousness do actually build walls around themselves.

The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify(by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Taip būna miškuose, jie visada atrodo pažįstami, kadai prarasti, išblukę lyg seniai mirusio giminaičio veidas, tartum sena svajonė, tarsi nuotrupa pamirštos dainos, plaukiančios virš vandens, o labiau už viską - tarsi auksinės praėjusios vaikystės amžinybės ar preėjusios brandos, ir visa, kas gyva, visa, kas mirę, visa širdgėla, ištikusi prieš milijoną metų, ir debesys, plaukiantys tau virš galvos, liudija savo vienišu artimumu šį jausmą.

Nuostabus dalykas yra kelionė, jeigu keliauji neturė­damas jokio ypatingo tikslo, neturi nieko ypatinga atlikti, nie­kur neturi suspėti ir niekur negali pavėluoti; nieko laimėti ar pralaimėti; kuomet visas didelis pasaulis yra tavo ir visi tikslai yra ne kur kitur, bet vien tik tavyje; kuomet kiekvienas rytas nuplauja viską ir kuomet vėl gali viską pradėti iš naujo, lai­mingas, kad neturi nieko įsigyti ir nieko prarasti.

Years have passed, I suppose. I'm not really counting them anymore. But I think of this thing often: Perhaps there is a Golden Age someplace, a Renaissance for me sometime, a special time somewhere, somewhere but a ticket, a visa, a diary-page away. I don't know where or when. Who does? Where are all the rains of yesterday? In the invisible city? Inside me? It is cold and quiet outside and the horizon is infinity. There is no sense of movement. There is no moon, and the stars are very bright, like broken diamonds, all.

One goes wherever one is still admitted. Someone told me that I might be able to get a visa for Haiti or San Domingo here.

Un visa dzīve ir zaļa sula, kas šķīst gar kuģu sāniem! Un dzenskrūves smaržo pēc piparmētrām.

Pasaulis ir visas platus gyvenimas nebe man, nebe man jau svajoti apie kokį pasižymėjimą — ir kam nors patikti, ką nors sužavėti nebe man.

I listened to the static echoing in my ear and thought of those herds of horses you get in the vast wild spaces of America and Australia, the ones running free, fighting off bobcats or dingoes and living lean on what they find, gold and tangled in the fierce sun. My friend Alan from when I was a kid, he worked on a ranch in Wyoming one summer, on a J1 visa. He watched guys breaking those horses. He told me that every now and then there was one that couldn't be broken, one wild to the bone. Those horses fought the bridle and the fence till they were ripped up and streaming blood, till they smashed their legs or their necks to splinters, till they died of fighting to run.

I have a stand-up routine I do about masturbation and the unwanted thoughts that go through women's heads when they put their hands under their sheets. I need a story to think about. I need a fantasy that makes sense. I can't just finger myself and picture Johnny Depp's face. It needs a sense of realism, like how did I meet Johnny Depp? He lives in France. I don't have a work visa. Besides, he has children and I've made it quite clear that I don't want to be a mom and I don't want to be stepmom either.

Contrary to popular assumption, going on an expedition around the world is not merely a matter of obtaining a ship and charting a course. There are visas to be considered, and bureaucracy to navigate when those visas fail to arrive in time, expire too soon, or meet with blank stares on the receiving end. The politics of nations and their economic markets may interfere with your journey. In short, you may spend an appalling amount of time mired in stuffy little offices, trying to get permission to be where you are.

My delightful, my love, my life, I don’t understand anything: how can you not be with me? I’m so infinitely used to you that I now feel myself lost and empty: without you, my soul. You turn my life into something light, amazing, rainbowed—you put a glint of happiness on everything—always different: sometimes you can be smoky-pink, downy, sometimes dark, winged—and I don’t know when I love your eyes more—when they are open or shut. It’s eleven p.m. now: I’m trying with all the force of my soul to see you through space; my thoughts plead for a heavenly visa to Berlin via air . . . My sweet excitement . . . Today I can’t write about anything except my longing for you. I’m gloomy and fearful: silly thoughts are swarming—that you’ll stumble as you jump out of a carriage in the underground, or that someone will bump into you in the street . . . I don’t know how I’ll survive the week. My tenderness, my happiness, what words can I write for you? How strange that although my life’s work is moving a pen over paper, I don’t know how to tell you how I love, how I desire you. Such agitation—and such divine peace: melting clouds immersed in sunshine—mounds of happiness. And I am floating with you, in you, aflame and melting—and a whole life with you is like the movement of clouds, their airy, quiet falls, their lightness and smoothness, and the heavenly variety of outline and tint—my inexplicable love. I cannot express these cirrus-cumulus sensations. When you and I were at the cemetery last time, I felt it so piercingly and clearly: you know it all, you know what will happen after death—you know it absolutely simply and calmly—as a bird knows that, fluttering from a branch, it will fly and not fall down . . . And that’s why I am so happy with you, my lovely, my little one. And here’s more: you and I are so special; the miracles we know, no one knows, and no one loves the way we love. What are you doing now? For some reason I think you’re in the study: you’ve got up, walked to the door, you are pulling the door wings together and pausing for a moment—waiting to see if they’ll move apart again. I’m tired, I’m terribly tired, good night, my joy. Tomorrow I’ll write you about all kinds of everyday things. My love.

We routinely deport hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens every year whose sole offense is that they overstayed a visa or came without the right paperwork—but people who were involved in crimes against humanity get to stay?

Dievai visas gėrybes parduoda tikrąja kaina, yra pasakęs vienas senovės poetas. Jis būtų galėjęs pridurti, kad pačias verčiausias jie parduoda pigiausiai. Viskas, kas mums tikrai naudinga - nebrangu; tik už tai, be ko galima apsieiti, mokam didelius pinigus. Kas gražu - išvis neparduodama; visa tai nemirtingieji dievai mums duoda veltui.

Our White - Whites were a mixed crowd,including a well - known doctor,owner of a chateau near Versailles,an opera singer with an enormous belly and a chaplainbass;a homosexual architect with a beard,two night club porters,and a lawyer who sold Jewish refugees visas for a Central American Republic,which on arrival turned out to be non valid.

They were all there (at the airport) - the deaf ammoomas, the cantankerous, arthritic appoopas, the pining wives, scheming uncles, children with the runs. The fiancées to be reassessed. The teacher's husband still waiting for his Saudi visa. The teacher's husband's sisters waiting for their dowries. The wire-bender's pregnant wife. "Mostly sweeper class," Baby Kochamma said grimly, and looked away while a mother, no wanting to give up her good place near the railing, aimed her distracted baby's penis into an empty bottle while he smiled and waved at the people around him...

We've created a system that demands almost no engagement with our food; we've wrung all the responsibility and sweat equity from the process. It's not that we're getting something for nothing - after all, we do pay for our food, and we suffer the consequences of dining from the industrial trough. But charging a package of center-cut pork chops to your Visa is a hell of a lot different than facing down the source of those chops with a .22 in one hand and a well-honed knife in the other.

The Visa bill has been almost manageable lately." "Don't you think that maybe buying things was just her way of coping with her loneliness? Like when you both had to hide so much of yourselves; that couldn't have been easy." "Hmm, that's quite insightful. Have you been watching Dr.Phil again?

Every human being—each of us—is a like a country. You can build walls around yourself to protect yourself, to keep others out, never letting anybody visit you, never letting anybody in, never letting anybody see the beauty of the treasures you carry within. Building walls can lead to a sad and lonely existence. But we can also decide to give people visas and let them in so they can see for themselves all the wealth you have to offer. You can decide to let those who visit you see your pain and the courage it has taken you to survive. Letting other people in—letting them see your country—this is the key to happiness.

The kids are a guarantee of our relative longevity. We're safe as long as they're around. But once they get big and scatter, she wants to be the first to go. She is afraid I will die unexpectedly, sneakily, slipping away in the night. It isn't that she doesn't cherish life; it's being left alone that frightens her. The emptiness, the sense of cosmic darkness. Mastercard, Visa, American Express. I tell her I want to die first. I've gotten so used to her that I would feel miserably incomplete. We are two views of the same person. I would spend the rest of my life turning to speak to her. No one there, a hole in space and time.

I check my phone messages and email about forty-five times a day. I don’t even know what I’m expecting to get in these messages. Maybe Visa will call and say, “We just realized that we owe you money!” or I’ll get an email from a high school classmate that says, “We’ve reconsidered and we’ve decided you were cool after all.” Whatever

Mėgstu vaikščioti po kapines. Niekur kitur tokia gili ramybė nevaldo mano sielos, kaip čia, toje ašarų vietoje. Taip įvaizdžiai stovi čia prieš akis nepastovumas visų žemės daiktų, tas amžinasis faktas, kad viskas tik irios formos ir nykstantieji šešėliai. Kaipgi kvaila ir juokinga iš visų jėgų kibtis į irias formas ir nykstančius šešėlius! Kaip kvaila ir juokinga dėti savo širdį į tai, kas turi savyje mirties grūdą, gaudyti nykstančius šešėlius! Sukultos viltys, sugriauti sumanymai, neištarti žodžiai, neišgertos taurės, neišdainuotos dainos... Puvėsiai, dulkės, pelenai... Ir kiekviena ta dulkių sauja po kiekvienu kauburėliu - visas pasaulis pats savyje, vienintelis, kokio nebuvo ir nebus. O viršum jų žydi ir kvepia gėlės, paukšteliai čirena ir siaučia, senos pušys, lyg rūpestingos auklės, sergėdamos tuos, kurie miega jų ūksmėje, ošia jiems lopšio dainą. Gėlės, paukščiai, pušys, kurie šiandien yra, o rytoj nebebus. Ir aš, čia vaikščiojanti ir apie visa tai mąstanti, taip pat rytoj nebebūsiu.

Tad’s mission in life is to have more fun than anyone else in New York City, and this involves a lot of moving around, since there is always the likelihood that where you aren’t is more fun than where you are. You are awed by his strict refusal to acknowledge any goal higher than the pursuit of pleasure. You want to be like that. You also think he is shallow and dangerous. His friends are all rich and spoiled, like the cousin from Memphis you met earlier in the evening who would not accompany you below Fourteenth Street because, he said, he didn’t have a lowlife visa. This cousin has a girlfriend with cheekbones to break your heart, and you knew she was the real thing when she steadfastly refused to acknowledge your presence. She possessed secrets—about islands, about horses, about French pronunciation—that you would never know.

Are today's fears more or less founded than the fears of that time? When it comes to the future, we are just as blind as our fathers. Swiss and Swedes have their anti-nuclear shelters, but what will they find when they come out into the open? There are Polynesia, New Zealand, Tierra del Fuego, the Antarctic: perhaps they will remain unharmed. Obtaining a passport and entry visa is much easier than it was then, so why aren't we going? Why aren't 'we leaving our country? Why aren't we leaving "before"?

i almost do. i’d love to live in his musical cartoon world, where witches like maura get vanquished with one heroic word, and all the forest creatures are happy when two gay guys walk hand-in-hand through the meadow, and gideon is the himbo suitor you know the princess can’t marry, because her heart belongs to the beast. i’m sure it’s a lovely world, where these things happen. a rich, spoiled, colorful world. maybe one day i’ll get to visit, but i doubt it. worlds like that don’t tend to issue visas to fuckups like me.

For most of us, childhood is that special place, those memories of when there was someone to take care of us, protect us against the harshness of life while introducing us to its joys.

I can support Al-Qaeda, the Ku Klux Klan, buy weapons and drugs and all kinds of porn with my Visa card. There is nobody investigating this, but I cannot support a human rights organisation which is fighting for freedom of expression, - Olafur Sigurvinsson, supporter of wikileaks, taken from article by RT discussing a court battle over freedom to donate money to wikileaks.

,,Kartą šiame pasaulyje mums pasiseka, ir tada mes patenkinti sakom: ,,Na va, pagaliau laiminga pabaiga, taip ir turi būti" tarsi gyvenimas privalėtų duoti visokio gerumo [...] Tačiau visą gyvenimą tikėtis gero būtų tik savęs apgaudinėjimas. Gerumo būna nedaug, jis nekrinta iš dangaus" - guodžia ją geroji globėja, Meimė Troter, mylinti Gilę visa širdimi ir sugebėjusi išmokyti ją mylėti kitus.

If you tell a guy in the street you're hungry you scare the shit out of him, he runs like hell. That's something I never understood. I don't understand it yet. The whole thing is so simple - you just say Yes when some one comes up to you. And if you can't say Yes you can take him by the arm and ask some other bird to help you out. Why you have to don a uniform and kill men you don't know, just to get that crust of bread, is a mystery to me. That's what I think about, more than about whose trap it's going down or how much it costs. Why should I give a fuck about what anything costs ? I'm here to live, not to calculate. And that's just what the bastards don't want you to do - to live! They want you to spend your whole life adding up figures. That makes sense to them. That's reasonable. That's intelligent. If I were running the boat things wouldn't be so orderly perhaps, but it would be gayer, by Jesus! You wouldn't have to shit in your pants over trifles. Maybe there wouldn't be macadamized roads and streamlined cars and loudspeakers and gadgets of a million-billion varieties, maybe there wouldn't even be glass in the windows, maybe you'd have to sleep on the ground, maybe there wouldn't be French cooking and Italian cooking and Chinese cooking, maybe people would kill each other when their patience was exhausted and maybe nobody would stop them because there wouldn't be any jails or any cops or judges, and there certainly wouldn't be any cabinet ministers or legislatures because-there wouldn't be any goddamned laws to obey or disobey, and maybe it would take months and years to trek from place to place, but you wouldn't need a visa or a passport or a carte d'identite because you wouldn't be registered anywhere and you wouldn't bear a number and if you wanted to change your name every week you could do it because it wouldn't make any difference since you wouldn't own anything except what you could carry around with you and why would you want to own anything when everything would be free?

.. varbūt visa šī nodarbe patiešām līdzinās ūdens liešanai vecā katlā ar cauru dibenu, tomēr paliek viens nemainīgs fakts - esmu centies. Vai tas bijis noderīgs vai izskatījies labi, beigu beigās, mums svarīgākais lielākoties patiešām ir acīm nesaredzamais (bet dvēseles sajustais) kaut kas. Un itin bieži, lai iegūtu kaut ko vērtīgu, jārīkojas nelietderīgi. Un, pat ja ir jādara kaut kas veltīgs, beigu beigās tas izrādās bijis citāds.

Many of the politicians in Delhi and Karachi, too, had once fought together against the British; they had social and family ties going back decades. They did not intend to militarize the border between them with pillboxes and rolls of barbed wire. They laughed at the suggestion that Punjabi farmers might one day need visas to cross from one end of the province to the other. Pakistan would be a secular, not an Islamic, state, its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, promised: Hindus and Sikhs would be free to practice their faiths and would be treated equally under the law. India would be better off without two disgruntled corners of the subcontinent, its people were told, less

N-aş fi iubit-o niciodată pe D. dacă-ar fi fost numai (foarte) frumoasă sau dacă singurele ei mijloace de seducţie ar fi fost palatul în care mi se părea că locuieşte.N-aş fi iubit-o nici doar pentru că o dată, pe când o conduceam acasă, ca de obicei, într-un decembrie înzăpezit, s-a oprit cu mine într-o piaţetă triunghiulară, luminată doar de un bec chior, şi-a strecurat mânuţele ude în buzunarele paltonului meu şi m-a privit în ochi, în întuneric, fără să-mi spună nimic, pe când în lumina becului ningea cu o furie nemaipomenită. Pentru asta o iubesc abia acum. Adevărul este că D. m-a sedus (prin forţă şi persuasiune, mai mult aşa cum un bărbat seduce o femeie) prin puterea ei specială de a visa.

As the incidence and fear of rape on college campuses have increased, the term rape has been generalized to mean 'misuse; diminish the effects of; steal; defeat': "I just went to the mall and raped my VISA." "My dad phoned this morning and raped my buzz." "She raped my coat." "Michigan got raped by Carolina in the NCAA final." The extension of the term rape to such contexts ameliorates the word and appears a denial on the part of college students of the seriousness of the crime.

For the first time back then, I thought about everything seriously. The past and the future, both equally unknowable, and also this ongoing situation that the consulates call "transitory" but that we know in everyday language as "the present.

I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks.2 White privilege describes the unearned advantages that are granted because of one’s whiteness or ability to “pass” as white.

It is foolish to wish for beauty.  Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others.  If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior.  So said the teachers of our childhood; and so say we to the children of the present day.  All very judicious and proper, no doubt; but are such assertions supported by actual experience? We are naturally disposed to love what gives us pleasure, and what more pleasing than a beautiful face—when we know no harm of the possessor at least?  A little girl loves her bird—Why?  Because it lives and feels; because it is helpless and harmless?  A toad, likewise, lives and feels, and is equally helpless and harmless; but though she would not hurt a toad, she cannot love it like the bird, with its graceful form, soft feathers, and bright, speaking eyes.  If a woman is fair and amiable, she is praised for both qualities, but especially the former, by the bulk of mankind: if, on the other hand, she is disagreeable in person and character, her plainness is commonly inveighed against as her greatest crime, because, to common observers, it gives the greatest offence; while, if she is plain and good, provided she is a person of retired manners and secluded life, no one ever knows of her goodness, except her immediate connections.  Others, on the contrary, are disposed to form unfavourable opinions of her mind, and disposition, if it be but to excuse themselves for their instinctive dislike of one so unfavoured by nature; and visa versâ with her whose angel form conceals a vicious heart, or sheds a false, deceitful charm over defects and foibles that would not be tolerated in another. 

What’s your status now?” the legislator asked them. “I’m undocumented,” one Brazilian student answered, bewildered. “Why don’t you start the process to become a citizen?” he continued. “I can’t,” she explained. “Why not?” he asked, revealing his profound ignorance of immigration law. Just as the law forbids most residents of the Third World to travel here—by requiring visas, but refusing to grant them—it also forbids virtually all people who are undocumented to regularize their status.

Netrukus saulė, raudona kaip žarija, pasislėpė už dantytos kalno viršūnės, ir visa gyvybė bei šviesa geso. Tuojau slėnį apgaubė grėsminga tamsa. Stačios pilkų kalnų uolos vakaruose atrodė lyg pabaisos dantys, tykantys pagriebti auką ir nutempti ją į juodas gilaus slėnio žiotis, kur raudojo girios. <...> - Padre! Tai panašu į pragarą. – Ne, mano sūnau, tik į žmogaus sielą. – Į sielas tų, kurie klaidžioja tamsybėje ir mirties šešėly? – Į sielas tų, kurie kasdien praeina pro tave gatvėje.

Shortly before the United States entered World War II, I received an invitation to come to the American Consulate in Vienna to pick up my immigration visa. My old parents were overjoyed because they expected that I would soon be allowed to leave Austria. I suddenly hesitated, however. The question beset me: could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later, to a concentration camp, or even to a so-called extermination camp? Where did my responsibility lie? Should I foster my brain child, logotherapy, by emigrating to fertile soil where I could write my books? Or should I concentrate on my duties as a real child, the child of my parents who had to do whatever he could to protect them?

Jei kiekvienas mūsų suvoktų, kokia didelė jo vertė, pasikeistų visas pasaulis. Tačiau gyvename visuomenėje, kurioje nepriimtina žmonėms sakyti, ką gero apie juos galvojame. Labai varžomės ir nedrįstame tos atskleisti: kiekvienas teigiamą nuomonę tyliai pasilaiko sau - tarsi sėklas, kurios sudžiūva pamirštos kišenėje, nors buvo galima jas pasėti ir patikėti vėjui, žemei ir lietui. Galbūt kaip tik dėl to žmonės neįpratę girdėti šiltų žodžių, ir sunku kam nors pasakyti nuoširdų komplimentą: būsite neteisingai suprastas arba apkaltintas neteisingais ketinimais. O jeigu jums netikėtai pasiseks ir žmogus jūsų nuoširdumu nesuabejos, tuomet jis visomis išgalėmis stengsis sumenkinti giriamą savybę: po jo kuklumu slypi drovėjimasis priimti tokią neįprastą dovaną.

Identity politics forces those who ask for our support to do their jobs: To understand that the self-made man got zoned into a good school district and received a high-quality education, one that wouldn’t have existed if his zip code changed by a digit. To recognize that the woman on welfare with three kids is the product of divorce in a state where she risks losing food stamps if her low-wage job pays her too much. Or that the homeless junkie is an Iraq War veteran who was in the National Guard but lost his job due to multiple deployments and didn’t qualify for full VA care. And that the laborer is a migrant farmworker who overstayed his visa to care for his American-born children. Single-strand identities do not exist in a household, let alone in a nation.

Men would pass the long, dark nights thinking of home and dreaming of leave. Samizdat discovered by Russian soldiers on German bodies demonstrates that there were indeed cynics as well as sentimentalists. ‘Christmas’, ran one spoof order, ‘will not take place this year for the following reasons: Joseph has been called up for the army; Mary has joined the Red Cross; Baby Jesus has been sent with other children out into the countryside [to avoid the bombing]; the Three Wise Men could not get visas because they lacked proof of Aryan origin; there will be no star because of the blackout; the shepherds have been made into sentries and the angels have become Blitzmädeln [telephone operators]. Only the donkey is left, and one can’t have Christmas with just a donkey.’ 2

The bartender is Irish. Jumped a student visa about ten years ago but nothing for him to worry about. The cook, though, is Mexican. Some poor bastard at ten dollars an hour—and probably has to wash the dishes, too. La Migra take notice of his immigration status—they catch sight of his bowl cut on the way home to Queens and he’ll have a problem. He looks different than the Irish and the Canadians—and he’s got Lou Dobbs calling specifically for his head every night on the radio. (You notice, by the way, that you never hear Dobbs wringing his hands over our border to the North. Maybe the “white” in Great White North makes that particular “alien superhighway” more palatable.) The cook at the Irish bar, meanwhile, has the added difficulty of predators waiting by the subway exit for him (and any other Mexican cooks or dishwashers) when he comes home on Friday payday. He’s invariably cashed his check at a check-cashing store; he’s relatively small—and is unlikely to call the cops. The perfect victim. The guy serving my drinks, on the other hand, as most English-speaking illegal aliens, has been smartly gaming the system for years, a time-honored process everybody at the INS is fully familiar with: a couple of continuing education classes now and again (while working off the books) to get those student visas. Extensions. A work visa. A “farm” visa. Weekend across the border and repeat. Articulate, well-connected friends—the type of guys who own, for instance, lots of Irish bars—who can write letters of support lauding your invaluable and “specialized” skills, unavailable from homegrown bartenders. And nobody’s looking anyway. But I digress…

Uneori, câte o musculiţă nimerea în calea şuvoiului de apă, uneori reuşea să fugă şi îşi lua zborul, un zbor puțin derutat, amețit, greu și cleios, alteori se îneca. Îmi părea rău de cele care se înecau, dar nu aveam cum să le ajut, eram de partea cealaltă a geamului. De multe ori aveam să mai fiu de partea cealaltă a geamului, izolat, inutil, prins în capcană de un monstru urât care se bucură că nu pot fi decât un banal spectator. Mă uitam la oamenii care mergeau grăbiţi, impasibili, cu multe sacoşe, unii cu copii de mână de-abia luaţi de la şcoală, inevitabil precipitaţi, cu aerul că ştiu foarte bine încotro se îndreaptă, oameni cu responsabilităţi, griji şi vieţi cu un sens solid, bine stabilit. M-a fulgerat, pentru prima dată sub forma asta atât de explicită, venit de nicăieri, poate din picături de ploaie, muște și macazul ce trebuia schimbat la câteva stații, gândul că eu într-o zi nu voi mai fi absolut deloc. Că nu voi mai putea privi ca acum ce se întâmplă în jurul meu, că nu voi mai gândi, voi fi nimic, va fi ca într-un somn definitiv, dar atât de diferit de un somn obişnuit, pentru că nu voi visa nimic, nu voi mai avea amintiri. Şi nu mă voi mai trezi. EU nu am să mai exist, şi nici nu am să mă transform în altceva, nici nu voi pleca într-un loc mai frumos sau mai urât, ci am să dispar pentru totdeauna fără să las în urmă niciun semn, nicio bucată din mine. Nu-mi voi mai putea privi ghetele, corpul, mâinile, unghiile. Se va termina totul, complet, definitiv şi, faţă de oroarea de a şti acest fapt, nu mai conta amănuntul că asta se va întâmpla mâine, peste trei săptămâni sau peste 65 de ani. Într-o zi, ea, asta, va fi realitatea, asta va fi tot, totul. Voi fi nimic, în locul meu va fi un gol și va rămâne așa pentru totdeauna.

Kad negaiss pārgāja, es lēnām sataustīju durvis. Viss pagalms bija pilns baltiem krusas graudiem. Un visa mūsu labība, cik nu viņas bija, sasita zemē... - Dieva sods, - teica Kārļa tēvs, iznācis un noņēmis cepuri. Es pacēlu dažas vārpas. Es zināju, ka Dievs mani pārbauda. Viņš gribēja zināt, cik man ir spēka tai dzīvei, ko es labprātīgi jaunības neprātā biju uzņēmusies. Viņš gribēja man dot visas bēdas, lai es redzētu, kā jādzīvo cilvēkam, kas iet pret savu sirdi. Un man tas bija viss jāiztur. Savu dzīvi es biju izvēlējusies pati. Man nebija neviena, kam pārmest, neviena, ko sodīt, kā tikai es pati.

Tror du inte jag förstår? Den hopplösa drömmen om att vara. Inte verka utan vara. I varje ögonblick medveten, vaksam. Och samtidigt avgrunden mellan vad du är inför andra och vad du är inför dig själv. Svindelkänslan och den ständiga hungern att äntligen få bli avslöjad. Att få bli genomskådad, reducerad, kanske till och med utplånad. Varje tonfall en lögn, varje gest en förfalskning, varje leende en grimas. Ta livet av sig? Nej då, det är för otäckt. Det gör man inte. Men man kan bli orörlig, man kan bli tyst. Då ljuger man åtminstone inte. Man kan stänga in sig, skärma av. Då behöver man inte spela några roller, visa några ansikten, göra några falska gester – tror man. Men ser du, verkligheten jävlas. Ditt gömställe, det är inte tillräckligt tätt. Överallt sipprar det in livsyttringar. Du tvingas reagera. Det är ingen som frågar efter om det är äkta eller oäkta, om du är sann eller förljugen. Det är bara på teatern som sådant är en fråga av vikt. Knappt där heller för den delen. Jag förstår dig, Elisabet. Jag förstår att du tiger, jag förstår att du är orörlig, att du har satt viljelösheten i ett fantastiskt system. Jag förstår och jag beundrar. Jag tycker att du ska hålla på med den rollen tills den är färdigspelad, tills den inte längre är intressant. Då kan du ju lämna den, precis som du undan för undan lämnar alla dina andra roller.

Moreover, even at elite colleges, the personnel attracted to college admissions are seldom themselves part of the intellectual elite. Yet their job is to select students unlike themselves, to be taught by professors unlike themselves, for careers unlike theirs. It can hardly be surprising that admissions personnel are drawn toward non-intellectual criteria and toward ideas not unlike the notion of judging “the whole person,” as found among educators at the pre-college level. Over the years, all sorts of criteria from popular psychology and sociological speculation have assumed increasing weight visa-vis such standard intellectual criteria as academic records and test scores. The

Since the very beginning of the Communist regime, I had carefully studied books on Marxism and pronouncements by Chinese Communist Party leaders. It seemed to me that socialism in China was still very much an experiment nad had no fixed course of development for the country had yet been decided upon. This, I thought, was why the government's policy was always changing, like a pendulum swinging from left to right and back again. When things went to extremes and problems emerged. Beijing would take corrective measures. Then these very corrective measures went too far and had to be corrected. The real difficulty was, of course, that a state-controlled economy only stifled productivity, and economic planning from Beijing ignored local conditions and killed incentive. When a policy changed from above, the standards of values changed with it. What was right yesterday became wrong today, and visa versa. Thus the words and actions of a Communist Party official at the lower level were valid for a limited time only... The Cultural Revolution seemed to me to be a swing to the left. Sooner or later, when it had gone too far, corrective measures would be taken. The people would have a few months or a few years of respite until the next political campaign. Mao Zedong believed that political campaigns were the motivating force for progress. So I thought the Proletarian Cultural Revolution was just one of an endless series of upheavals the Chinese people must learn to put up with.

When the Nazis overran France in the spring of 1940, much of its Jewish population tried to escape the country. In order to cross the border south, they needed visas to Spain and Portugal, and tens of thousands of Jews, along with many other refugees, besieged the Portuguese consulate in Bordeaux in a desperate attempt to get the life-saving piece of paper. The Portuguese government forbade its consuls in France to issue visas without prior approval from the Foreign Ministry, but the consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, decided to disregard the order, throwing to the wind a thirty-year diplomatic career. As Nazi tanks were closing in on Bordeaux, Sousa Mendes and his team worked around the clock for ten days and nights, barely stopping to sleep, just issuing visas and stamping pieces of paper. Sousa Mendes issued thousands of visas before collapsing from exhaustion. The Portuguese government – which had little desire to accept any of these refugees – sent agents to escort the disobedient consul back home, and fired him from the foreign office. Yet officials who cared little for the plight of human beings nevertheless had deep respect for documents, and the visas Sousa Mendes issued against orders were respected by French, Spanish and Portuguese bureaucrats alike, spiriting up to 30,000 people out of the Nazi death trap. Sousa Mendes, armed with little more than a rubber stamp, was responsible for the largest rescue operation by a single individual during the Holocaust.

This idea about crossing borders many times a day on the internet…Well, imagine there’s a blogger in Australia and they’ve written a nice article and actually they want to be paid a little bit of money when people read their thing. He’s not set up on Visa, you don’t want to type out all this stuff on a credit card. Surely, if you were to pay him 50p’s worth of bitcoin for this incredible article that he’s written, or a piece of data that he’s calculated that for some reason has value to you, it enables little transactions like that to happen on a vast scale. You can do it quickly and simply and get rid of all this noise in the middle. Ironically, I think cryptos are more likely to push the world towards paid content than the other way around – because they enable it in a way that wasn’t possible before.

We were offered visas, you know, to Australia, and we turned them down, my husband said no, plain and simple, he said it was impossible to go at the time and I suppose he was right, and how could he have known anyhow, how could any of us have known what was going to happen, I suppose other people seemed to know, but I never understood how they were so certain, what I mean is, you could never have imagined it, not in a million years, all that was to happen, and I could never understand those that left, how they could just leave like that, leave everything behind, all that life, all that living, it was absolutely impossible for us to do so at the time and the more I look at it the more it seems there was nothing we could do anyhow, what I mean is, there was never any real room for action, that time with the visas, how were we supposed to go when we had so many commitments, so many responsibilities, and when things got worse there was just no room for manoeuvre, I think what I’m trying to say is that I used to believe in free will, if you had asked me before all this I would have told you I was free as a bird, but now I’m not so sure, now, I don’t see how free will is possible when you are caught up within such a monstrosity, one thing leads to another thing until the damn thing has its own momentum and there is nothing you can do, I can see now that what I thought of as freedom was really just struggle and that there was no freedom all along, but look, she says, taking Ben by the hand and dancing him, we are here now aren’t we and so many other people are gone, we’re the lucky ones seeking a better life, there is only looking forward now, isn’t that

Mes norime, kad visa tai, kas mums patinka, niekada nesibaigtų ir mums brangūs žmonės niekada nemirtų. Bet nesuprantame, kad iš tikrųjų išsaugome tai, ką mylime, tik tuomet, kai iš mūsų tai atimama, ir atimama netikėtai, negailestingai ir negrįžtamai. Tada tas, kuris atimtas, daugiau nebesikeičia ir visada mums lieka toks, kokį mylėjome. Tai, ką turime, ilgainiui praranda šviežumą ir aromatą, įkyri, varo nuobodulį, vargina ir netgi erzina. O kiek tokių, be kurių neįsivaizduojame savo gyvenimo, dingo iš horizonto, kiek nutraukė su mumis santykius, su kiek žmonių mes patys liovėmės bendrauti, kartais net be jokios akivaizdžios priežasties? Vieninteliai, kurie visada pasilieka su mumis, kurie niekada nepaveda ir neišduoda – tai tie, kuriuos iš mūsų kas nors atėmė. Vieninteliai, su kuriais niekada neišsiskiriame – tai tie, kurie mus paliko prieš mūsų valią. Jie mus paliko kai to visai nesitikėjome, todėl nesuspėjo mūsų nuvilti arba nustoti patikti, jų netekę mes puolame į neviltį, nes esame įsitikinę: su jais būtume galėję būti kartu dar labai ilgai, galbūt net visada. Tai – nesusipratimas, nors jį galima paaiškinti. Jeigu jie būtų su mumis pasilikę ilgiau, viskas būtų galėję pasikeisti. Tai, kas mums atrodė laimė, rytoj galėtų virsti kančia. „

Han säger: "Låt mig få visa dig." Och sedan kysser vi varandra. Eller jag tror åtminstone att vi kysser varandra - jag har bara sett det göras ett par gånger, snabba pickanden med stängda munnar, på bröllop eller vid högtidliga tilldragelser. Men det här liknar ingenting jag någonsin har sett eller föreställt mig eller ens drömt. Det här är som musik eller dans, fast bättre än båda. Hans mun är aningen öppen så jag öppnar min också. Hans läppar är mjuka, samma mjuka tryck som den tyst envisa rösten i mitt huvud som upprepar ordet ja. Värmen bara växer inom mig, vågor av ljus välver sig och bryts och får mig att känna mig som om jag sväver. Han trär fingrarna genom mitt hår, kupar handen om nacke och bakhuvud, rör den fjäderlätt över axlarna, och utan att tänka eller vilja det hittar mina händer till hans bröst, rör sig över hudens hetta, skulderbladens ben som liknar vingspetsar, käkens krökning, nätt och jämnt täckt av skäggstubb - allt så underligt och obekant, och överdådigt ljuvligt nytt. Mitt hjärta trummar så hårt att det värker i bröstet, men det är den goda sortens smärta, som känslan man får den första riktiga höstdagen när luften är frisk och klar och löven krullar sig i kanterna och vinden doftar svagt av rök - som slutet och början av något på en och samma gång. Jag kan svära på att jag känner hans hjärta dunka ett svar under min hand, ett omedelbart eko av mitt eget hjärta, som om våra kroppar talade med varandra.

Even when the income disparity is very much greater, people are sticky. Micronesians mostly stay where they were born, even though they are free to live and work in the US without a visa, where the average income is twenty times higher. Niger, next to Nigeria, is not depopulated even though it is six times poorer and there are no border controls between the countries. People like to stay in the communities they were born in, where everything is familiar and easy, and many require a substantial push to migrate – even to another location in the same nation, and even when it would be obviously beneficial. One study in Bangladesh found that a programme that offered subsidies to help rural people migrate to the city for work during the lean season didn’t work, even when workers could make substantially more money through seasonal migration.22 One problem is the lack of affordable housing and other facilities in cities, meaning people end up living illegally in cramped, unregulated spaces or in tents.

On September 11, it was government that failed. Law enforcement agencies didn't detect the plot. The FBI had reports that said young men on the terrorist watch list were going from flight school to flight school, trying to find an instructor who would teach them how to fly a commercial jet. But the FBI never acted on it. The INS let the hijackers in. Three of them had expired visas. Months after the attack, the government issued visas to two dead hijackers. The solution to such government incompetence is to give the government more power? Congress could have done what Amsterdam, Belfast, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Paris, and Rome did: set tough standards and let private companies compete to meet them. Many of those cities switched to private companies because they realized government-run security wasn't working very well. Private-sector competition keeps the screeners alert because the airport can fire them. No one can fire the government; that's a reason government agencies gradually deteriorate. There's no competition.

Mes žinom, kad mirsim - tiesą sakant, vien tą ir težinom apie savo ateitį. Visa kita yra tik spėliojimai, kurie dažniausiai nepasitvirtina. Kaip vaikai neįžengiamoj girioj kiūtinam apgraibom per gyvenimą, laimingi, kad nežinom, kas mums nutiks rytoj, su kokiais susidursime negandais, kokie šiurpūs išmėginimai mūsų laukia prieš patį šiurpiausią išmėginimą - Mirtį. Kartkarčiais apstulbę ryžtamės baikščiai prašnekinti savo likimą, bet atsakymo į klausimą negauname, nes žvaigždės per toli. Juo greičiau suprasime, kad mūsų likimas pareina nuo mūsų pačių, o ne nuo žvaigždžių, juo mums bus geriau. Laimę galime rasti tik patys savyje, nesitikėkite jos sulaukti iš kitų - laimės taip mažai, jog retas gali ja dalytis. Skausmą turime pakelti vieni - nesąžininga užkrauti jį kitam, vis tiek, ar tai būtų vyras, ar moteris. Kiekvienas iš mūsų turi pats savo jėgomis kvėpuoti ir kirsti iš paskutiniųjų, kaip pridera kovotojams, nes mes tokie ir esame gimę. Visi mes vieną dieną sulauksime taikos, - taikos, kuri bus garbinga net nugalėtajam, jeigu jis ištvėrė iki galo.

Prin metoda asocierii libere si prin tehnica de interpretare care i se adauga, psihanaliza reuseste sa faca un lucru care nu parea pre important din punct de vedere practic, dar care trebuia in realitate sa duca la o pozitie si o valorificare cu totul noi in evolutia stiintei. A devenit posibil sa se dovedeasca ca visurile au un sens si sa se ghiceasca acest sens. In antichitatea clasica, visurile erau considerate adesea previziuni ale viitorului; stiinta moderna nu voia sa auda de visuri, le lega de domeniul superstitiei, declarandu-le un simplu act «corporal», un soi de tresarire a vietii psihice, de altfel adormite. Parea sa fie exclusa posibilitatea ca un savant care a facut deja lucrari stiintifice serioase sa poata aparea ca un «interpretator de visuri». Dar din moment ce nu era luata in seama dispretuirea visului si era tratat ca un simptom nevrotic neinteles, ca o idee deliranta sau obsesiva care, indepartandu-se de continutul sau aparent, lua ca obiect al asocierii libere imaginile sale izolate, atunci se ajungea la un cu totul alt rezultat. Se ajungea prin urmatoarele asocieri ale celui care visa, la constientizarea unor ansambluri de ganduri care nu mai puteau fi numite absurde sau confuze, care corespuneau unui act psihic de mare valoare si ale carui vis manifest nu era decat o traducere deformata, trunchiata sau rau inteleasa, cel mai adesea o traducere in imagini vizuale. Aceste ganduri latente ale visului contineau sensul visului, continutul manifest al visului nefiind decat o iluzie, o fatada de unde putea pleca asocierea cu adevarul dar nu si interpretarea.

<...> pasislėpusi Uršulė iš choro vėl stebėjo, kaip jis liūdnai žiūri, ir jis jai kažkodėl priminė tą kitą, apie kurį bijojo net pagalvoti ir kurį norėjo pamiršti, nes, kaip liepė regula ir vienuolės, jai derėjo nutraukti visus saitus su pasauliu, o tas vyras iš įvilktuvių jai buvo ir saitas su pasauliu, ir visas pasaulis, nes kai pradėdavo apie jį galvoti, tai galo jos mintims apie žemiškąjį pasaulį nebebūdavo, nes tada galvodavo ir apie mirą, kuria jis dvelkia, ir apie jo geriamo vyno skonį, ir apie daiktus, kuriuos jis liečia, ir apie gatves, kuriom jis vaikšto, ir kad gal kartais praeina pro vienuolyną jai nežinant, vos už keliolikos sieksnių nuo jos, o gal tik šiaip buvo užklydęs atvykėlis, gal koks prašalaitis, betgi ne, sėdėjo su jos šeima, sėdėjo šalia Kazimiero, gal koks draugas, tai turbūt gal ne koks nusikaltėlis ar plevėsa, ir, Viešpatie, kažką jis skleidė, kažkokią keistą niūrumą ir pavojų, bet ir švelnumą kartu, ir tokį pasitikėjimą savimi ir jis į ją taip žiūrėjo, ir kažkodėl jai atrodė, kad jis kaip tik ir galėtų ją apginti nuo vienuolių engimo, ji atsistotų jam už nugaros ir prisiglaustų;

It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior. So said the teachers of our childhood; and so say we to the children of the present day. All very judicious and proper, no doubt; but are such assertions supported by actual experience? We are naturally disposed to love what gives us pleasure, and what more pleasing than a beautiful face--when we know no harm of the possessor at least? A little girl loves her bird--Why? Because it lives and feels; because it is helpless and harmless? A toad, likewise, lives and feels, and is equally helpless and harmless; but though she would not hurt a toad, she cannot love it like the bird, with its graceful form, soft feathers, and bright, speaking eyes. If a woman is fair and amiable, she is praised for both qualities, but especially the former, by the bulk of mankind: if, on the other hand, she is disagreeable in person and character, her plainness is commonly inveighed against as her greatest crime, because, to common observers, it gives the greatest offence; while, if she is plain and good, provided she is a person of retired manners and secluded life, no one ever knows of her goodness, except her immediate connections. Others, on the contrary, are disposed to form unfavourable opinions of her mind, and disposition, if it be but to excuse themselves for their instinctive dislike of one so unfavoured by nature; and visa versa with her whose angel form conceals a vicious heart, or sheds a false, deceitful charm over defects and foibles that would not be tolerated in another. They that have beauty, let them be thankful for it, and make a good use of it, like any other talent; they that have it not, let them console themselves, and do the best they can without it: certainly, though liable to be over-estimated, it is a gift of God, and not to be despised.

Why two (or whole groups) of people can come up with the same story or idea at the same time, even when across the world from each-other: "A field is a region of influence, where a force will influence objects at a distance with nothing in between. We and our universe live in a Quantum sea of light. Scientists have found that the real currency of the universe is an exchange of energy. Life radiates light, even when grown in the dark. Creation takes place amidst a background sea of energy, which metaphysics might call the Force, and scientists call the "Field." (Officially the Zero Point Field) There is no empty space, even the darkest empty space is actually a cauldron of energies. Matter is simply concentrations of this energy (particles are just little knots of energy.) All life is energy (light) interacting. The universe is self-regenreating and eternal, constantly refreshing itself and in touch with every other part of itself instantaneously. Everything in it is giving, exchanging and interacting with energy, coming in and out of existence at every level. The self has a field of influence on the world and visa versa based on this energy. Biology has more and more been determined a quantum process, and consciousness as well, functions at the quantum level (connected to a universe of energy that underlies and connects everything). Scientist Walter Schempp's showed that long and short term memory is stored not in our brain but in this "Field" of energy or light that pervades and creates the universe and world we live in. A number of scientists since him would go on to argue that the brain is simply the retrieval and read-out mechanism of the ultimate storage medium - the Field. Associates from Japan would hypothesize that what we think of as memory is simply a coherent emission of signals from the "Field," and that longer memories are a structured grouping of this wave information. If this were true, it would explain why one tiny association often triggers a riot of sights, sounds and smells. It would also explain why, with long-term memory in particular, recall is instantaneous and doesn't require any scanning mechanism to sift through years and years of memory. If they are correct, our brain is not a storage medium but a receiving mechanism in every sense, and memory is simply a distant cousin of perception. Some scientists went as far as to suggest that all of our higher cognitive processes result from an interaction with the Field. This kind of constant interaction might account for intuition or creativity - and how ideas come to us in bursts of insight, sometimes in fragments but often as a miraculous whole. An intuitive leap might simply be a sudden coalescence of coherence in the Field. The fact that the human body was exchanging information with a mutable field of quantum fluctuation suggested something profound about the world. It hinted at human capabilities for knowledge and communication far deeper and more extended than we presently understand. It also blurred the boundary lines of our individuality - our very sense of separateness. If living things boil down to charged particles interacting with a Field and sending out and receiving quantum information, where did we end and the rest of the world began? Where was consciousness-encased inside our bodies or out there in the Field? Indeed, there was no more 'out there' if we and the rest of the world were so intrinsically interconnected. In ignoring the effect of the "Field" modern physicists set mankind back, by eliminating the possibility of interconnectedness and obscuring a scientific explanation for many kinds of miracles. In re-normalizing their equations (to leave this part out) what they'd been doing was a little like subtracting God.

Pastebėjau, kad didžiausios abejonės (už jas jau tapau pasmerkta, pasmerkta, pasmerkta 100 000 metų pragaruose) mane visada apima tuomet, kai esu pasiekusi ar bent jau bepasiekianti išsvajotą ramybę. Bet ar tikrai išsvajotą ramybę, o gal tik kokį vis subtilesnės ir subtilesnės saviapgaulės lygmenį?! Alanas Wattsas, buvęs anglikonų kunigas, vėliau tapęs vienu poetiškiausių dzenbudizmo skelbėjų Vakaruose, dažnai pateikdavo parabolę apie Mėnulį ir pirštą. Mėnulis jo prilyginamas tai Didžiajai Neįmenamybei, kuri vadinama Absoliutu, Dievu, Demiurgu, Viso, kas Esti, Esme, Šunjata, Vaiskiąja šviesa, Budos prigimtimi ir dar daugybe šventų, transcendentinių dalykų, į kuriuos rodo pirštas – bet kuri religinė doktrina. Parabolės moralas yra tas, kad dažniausiai rodantis pirštas yra supainiojamas su Mėnuliu arba net Juo palaikomas. Žmonės tik tą pirštą temato, į jį įsikimba, jį čiulpia jausdamiesi teisūs, ramūs ir saugūs. O Mėnulis šviečia kaip švietęs, bet į Jį jau niekas nė akių nebepakelia. Tik kartais beveik kiekvienas iš mūsų vis dėlto žvilgteli dangun ir Mėnulį išvysta. Ir apimta jį nuostaba, tikrų tikriausias apstulbimas, kaip galėjo to šviesulio nepastebėti anksčiau. Pirštas ištirpsta visa persmelkiančiame švytėjime, nes, pasak A. Wattso, religinė doktrina išnyksta, kai ji tampa tikrai reali ir veiksminga. Tą akimirką Mėnulį regėdamas žmogus staiga pamato visas savo paties sielos ir Visatos paslaptis. Atrodo, kad jis daugiau niekada nepamirš absoliutaus, lyg žaibas trenkusio aiškumo. Bet… dar po poros akimirkų visagalis žinojimas išsisklaido, pradingsta, lieka tik nenumalšinamas ilgesys.

Anita Rožkalne: Vai, jūsuprāt, latviešu valoda ir bagāta valoda, vai ar to var izteikt visu, kas jums jāizsaka? Dace Meiere: Var. Protams, ka var, bet reizēm gadās ierobežojumi. Trakums ir tas, ka mēs latviešu valodā, sevišķi pēdējās desmitgadēs, nemitīgi nodarbojamies ar ārprātīgu paškastrēšanos vai kā to varētu nosaukt, ka mēs nemitīgi sev aizliedzam lietot tādus vai citus vārdus, kādas zudīgas politiskas vai vēl kādas gaumes dēļ, ka liela daļa leksikas tās izcelsmes dēļ tiek pasludināta par nelietojamu. Ir interesanti to vērot arī saskarsmē ar redaktoriem un korektoriem. Es jau tulkoju laikam gadus septiņpadsmit, un gaume mainās. Ir lietas, ko visas korektores mēģina labot, un tad pēc pieciem gadiem kaut kas mainās, un viņas labo atkal kaut ko citu, un tad vēl. Tad nāk nākamā direktīva no augšas, un viņas atkal skauž nākamos vārdus ārā. Tas ir tik jocīgi. Ja autors lieto sešus sinonīmus, tad kāpēc latviski es drīkstu lietot tikai divus, jo kādam liekas, ka tas ir dialektisms, un tas varbūt pēc izcelsmes ir nepareizs. Sevišķi, piemēram, cīņa ar ģermānismiem. Tas reizēm ir tik komiski. Piedodiet, manas "bikses" ir ģermānisms. Es saku: "jā", un to reāli plaši sāka lietot latviešu valodā tikai XIX gs. vidū. Stenders rakstīja, ka mamzeles, kuras grib iztaisīties par tādām kā no Rīgas, tās saka: "jā, jā". Pirms tam latviešu valodā tāda vārda nebija, tas ieviesās tikai caur reliģiskajiem tekstiem. Es saku: "un, un, un". Tas ir ļoti jauns ģermānisms. Valodas ainā tas taču ir tik jauns! Es saku "nieres" vai es saku "īkstis"?! Nē! Ja mēs tā ņemam, tad lielākā daļa – kas nav ģermānisms, tas mums ir kalks. Kāpēc dažiem kalkiem tiek ļauts dzīvot, bet citiem ne?! Mēs nemitīgi sev uzliekam kaut kādas robežas, turklāt tās ir kādas īslaicīgas gaumes diktētas. Un vēl: ja aizguvums ir grieķiskas vai latīniskas cilmes, tas, protams, ir svešvārds. Ja tas nāk no kādām mūsdienu valodām, kas tas mums ir?! Tas ir, fui, barbarisms, vai ne?! Nedod Dievs to lietot. Regulāri ir grāmatas, kuras latviski nevar un nedrīkst tulkot tikai tāpēc, ka latviski mēs to nevaram uzrakstīt, jo mēs nedrīkstam rakstīt tā, kā mēs runājam. Es ļoti ceru, ka beidzot nāks kāda jaunā paaudze, kas rakstīs latviski, tajā īstajā latviešu valodā, kurā cilvēki runā, nevis tādā ideālajā, izdomātajā valodas mūmijā, kura guļ stikla zārciņā ļoti skaisti ar krauklīšiem apkārt. Es pati jau arī... pati sev esmu kā tāds krauklītis, jo tas iekšējais cenzors šo gadu laikā arī ir izstrādājies un reizēm neļauj rakstīt tā, kā varbūt vajadzētu – daudz brīvāk. Nemitīgi sev tiek uzlikti kādi ierobežojumi. Mēs latviski cenšamies rakstīt tā, kā būtu jāraksta. Nemitīgi grāmatu valodai tiek uzspiestas kaut kādas didaktiskās funkcijas – mācīt, kā būtu pareizi. To līdzsvaru atrast ir ļoti grūti. Kāpēc lielākā daļa latviski tulkoto krimiķu nav lasāma, piedodiet! – jo lielākā daļa varoņu runā kā latviešu valodas skolotājas pirmspensijas vecumā. To nevar lasīt! Tas falšums tik ļoti sit cauri katram teikumam.

While these tactics were aggressive and crude, they confirmed that our legislation had touched a nerve. I wasn’t the only one who recognized this. Many other victims of human rights abuses in Russia saw the same thing. After the bill was introduced they came to Washington or wrote letters to the Magnitsky Act’s cosponsors with the same basic message: “You have found the Achilles’ heel of the Putin regime.” Then, one by one, they would ask, “Can you add the people who killed my brother to the Magnitsky Act?” “Can you add the people who tortured my mother?” “How about the people who kidnapped my husband?” And on and on. The senators quickly realized that they’d stumbled onto something much bigger than one horrific case. They had inadvertently discovered a new method for fighting human rights abuses in authoritarian regimes in the twenty-first century: targeted visa sanctions and asset freezes. After a dozen or so of these visits and letters, Senator Cardin and his cosponsors conferred and decided to expand the law, adding sixty-five words to the Magnitsky Act. Those new words said that in addition to sanctioning Sergei’s tormentors, the Magnitsky Act would sanction all other gross human rights abusers in Russia. With those extra sixty-five words, my personal fight for justice had become everyone’s fight. The revised bill was officially introduced on May 19, 2011, less than a month after we posted the Olga Stepanova YouTube video. Following its introduction, a small army of Russian activists descended on Capitol Hill, pushing for the bill’s passage. They pressed every senator who would talk to them to sign on. There was Garry Kasparov, the famous chess grand master and human rights activist; there was Alexei Navalny, the most popular Russian opposition leader; and there was Evgenia Chirikova, a well-known Russian environmental activist. I didn’t have to recruit any of these people. They just showed up by themselves. This uncoordinated initiative worked beautifully. The number of Senate cosponsors grew quickly, with three or four new senators signing on every month. It was an easy sell. There wasn’t a pro-Russian-torture-and-murder lobby in Washington to oppose it. No senator, whether the most liberal Democrat or the most conservative Republican, would lose a single vote for banning Russian torturers and murderers from coming to America. The Magnitsky Act was gathering so much momentum that it appeared it might be unstoppable. From the day that Kyle Scott at the State Department stonewalled me, I knew that the administration was dead set against this, but now they were in a tough spot. If they openly opposed the law, it would look as if they were siding with the Russians. However, if they publicly supported it, it would threaten Obama’s “reset” with Russia. They needed to come up with some other solution. On July 20, 2011, the State Department showed its cards. They sent a memo to the Senate entitled “Administration Comments on S.1039 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law.” Though not meant to be made public, within a day it was leaked.

Except then a local high school journalism class decided to investigate the story. Not having attended Columbia Journalism School, the young scribes were unaware of the prohibition on committing journalism that reflects poorly on Third World immigrants. Thanks to the teenagers’ reporting, it was discovered that Reddy had become a multimillionaire by using H-1B visas to bring in slave labor from his native India. Dozens of Indian slaves were working in his buildings and at his restaurant. Apparently, some of those “brainy” high-tech workers America so desperately needs include busboys and janitors. And concubines. The pubescent girls Reddy brought in on H-1B visas were not his nieces: They were his concubines, purchased from their parents in India when they were twelve years old. The sixty-four-year-old Reddy flew the girls to America so he could have sex with them—often several of them at once. (We can only hope this is not why Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on H-1B visas.) The third roommate—the crying girl—had escaped the carbon monoxide poisoning only because she had been at Reddy’s house having sex with him, which, judging by the looks of him, might be worse than death. As soon as a translator other than Reddy was found, she admitted that “the primary purpose for her to enter the U.S. was to continue to have sex with Reddy.” The day her roommates arrived from India, she was forced to watch as the old, balding immigrant had sex with both underage girls at once.3 She also said her dead roommate had been pregnant with Reddy’s child. That could not be confirmed by the court because Reddy had already cremated the girl, in the Hindu tradition—even though her parents were Christian. In all, Reddy had brought seven underage girls to the United States for sex—smuggled in by his brother and sister-in-law, who lied to immigration authorities by posing as the girls’ parents.4 Reddy’s “high-tech” workers were just doing the slavery Americans won’t do. No really—we’ve tried getting American slaves! We’ve advertised for slaves at all the local high schools and didn’t get a single taker. We even posted flyers at the grade schools, asking for prepubescent girls to have sex with Reddy. Nothing. Not even on Craigslist. Reddy’s slaves and concubines were considered “untouchables” in India, treated as “subhuman”—“so low that they are not even considered part of Hinduism’s caste system,” as the Los Angeles Times explained. To put it in layman’s terms, in India they’re considered lower than a Kardashian. According to the Indian American magazine India Currents: “Modern slavery is on display every day in India: children forced to beg, young girls recruited into brothels, and men in debt bondage toiling away in agricultural fields.” More than half of the estimated 20.9 million slaves worldwide live in Asia.5 Thanks to American immigration policies, slavery is making a comeback in the United States! A San Francisco couple “active in the Indian community” bought a slave from a New Delhi recruiter to clean house for them, took away her passport when she arrived, and refused to let her call her family or leave their home.6 In New York, Indian immigrants Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani were convicted in 2006 of bringing in two Indonesian illegal aliens as slaves to be domestics in their Long Island, New York, home.7 In addition to helping reintroduce slavery to America, Reddy sends millions of dollars out of the country in order to build monuments to himself in India. “The more money Reddy made in the States,” the Los Angeles Times chirped, “the more good he seemed to do in his hometown.” That’s great for India, but what is America getting out of this model immigrant? Slavery: Check. Sickening caste system: Check. Purchasing twelve-year-old girls for sex: Check. Draining millions of dollars from the American economy: Check. Smuggling half-dead sex slaves out of his slums in rolled-up carpets right under the nose of the Berkeley police: Priceless.