Dictators fall when they're overconfident; they stay in power when they're paranoid.
Masha GessenRead
I think that when you emigrate, when everything you took for granted disappears, it's a kind of loss of innocence. When you're a kid, the world as you know it is just there. Suddenly, you emigrate and that's no longer the case. It's a break in reality that parachutes you into adulthood.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Emigrating can lead to a profound shift in one's understanding of the world, marking the end of innocence.
This quote by Masha Gessen reflects on the transformative experience of emigration, suggesting that it brings about a significant change in one's perception of reality. The loss of familiarity and the comforts of home can create a sense of disillusionment, propelling individuals into a more complex and often challenging adulthood, where they must navigate new cultures, norms, and identities.
Themes
EmigrationChangeLossInnocenceAdulthood
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a talk about the challenges and experiences of immigrants.
More from Masha Gessen
All quotes →When you lose your freedom, you lose, first and foremost, the opportunity to choose the company you keep.
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There's the hypothesis that things just keep happening to Russians, things that keep turning them into the same kind of subjects, as opposed to citizens. The more credible hypothesis, I think, is that there is a kind of trauma, a social trauma that is passed on from generation to generation.
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We learn to think of history as something that has already happened, to other people. Our own moment, filled as it is with minutiae destined to be forgotten, always looks smaller in comparison.
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Russia, at the start of the 21st century, at least in its larger cities, very much resembled the United States of the early 1990s: being gay was no longer criminal or shameful, but it was still not a topic for polite conversation or public discussion.
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... fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there-because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don't think it should exist.
Masha GessenRead
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