Interesting quotes from a book

[groovlstk]

[size="3"]I'm plowing my way through a copy of Russia As It Is:  Transformation of a Lose/Lose Society by Matthew Maly, who was born and  raised in Russia.

I'd highly recommend it as a good glimpse into the character of Russian people. Here are two interesting quotes:

[/size]      [color="blue"][size="3"]Today, citizens of  Western democracies have everything; but one thing is becoming more  rare, and that thing is friendship. People are healthy and upwardly  mobile, their property is secure, laws protect their rights, and they  travel the world. In Russia, the situation is different: without  friends, Russians feel naked, exposed to the wind. And if you ask them  what they have friends for, you will never hear the Western response  "to have good company." In Russia, friends exist primarily to save you:  to bring you medicine when there is no doctor, to get you out of jail.  A Western city with 90% unemployment, no social services, and savings  would probably collapse: in Russia, where this is happening now, people  survive, because if a friend of a friend is guarding a potato  warehouse, you get potato shavings for your soup.[/size][/color][size="3"]            
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[/size]  [color="blue"][size="3"]A perceptive Russian writer…  once noted "Englishmen make good suitcases; in Russia, folk sayings are  good." Here is how Russians think: "What kind of person would you be if  you actually make good suitcases, if you put your mind to such a lowly  task? A boring, narrow-minded one." A Russian who had the bad luck and  permanent embarrassment of being a suitcase maker in real life would  purposefully make bad suitcases. In doing so (in most cases,  unconsciously!) would be saying: "Look how bad my suitcases are, me, a  poet who has been put to suitcase making! OK, I do not actually write  poetry, but I would, if I did not have to occupy myself with making  these g*ddamned suitcases![/size][/color][size="3"]
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