Mica M. Tumaric comes from the anarchic, acerbic, antic aphoristic alembic that is the Balkans. Born in Novi Sad in 1949, he is a journalist by profession and, like most of his fellow Serbian aphorists, a satirist by vocation. His work has been translated into English, Russian, Hungarian, Romanian, Ruthenian, Slovak, Macedonian and Bulgarian, among other languages.

If you had to pay for stupidity, many would go bankrupt.

After all the doors opened, we were left with a draft.

The hungry have had their fill of promises.

He’s in great shape; he keeps running from the truth.

We struggled to gain freedom of speech; now we can’t get a word in edgewise.