Jaqi

“Freud, who spoke German, used the term zwangsneurose (obsessional neurosis). The word zwang was translated as ‘obsession’ in London, but ‘compulsion’ in New York. Faced with confusion, scientists introduced the hybrid term ‘obsessive-compulsive’, a label subsequently given to millions of people, as a compromise.”
― David Adam, The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought

“a complex hierarchy of cells for concubines opens up: the least desirable women are transferred upward, as though their bodies, forgotten by men, were undergoing a mysterious process of angelification;”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

“From then on, the river was like a needle inserted into my formerly safe and stable surroundings, the landscape composed of the park, the greenhouses with their vegetables that grew in sad little rows, and the sidewalk with its concrete slabs where we would go to play hopscotch. This needle went all the way through, marking a vertical third dimension; so pierced, the landscape of my childhood world turned out to be nothing more than a toy made of rubber from which all the air was escaping, with a hiss.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

“Graham states, “Because average country income levels do not matter to happiness, but relative distances from the average do, the poor Honduran is happier because their distance from mean income is smaller.” And in Honduras, the poor are much closer in wealth to the middle class than the poor are in Chile, so they feel better off.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants