Sellly > Sellly's Quotes

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“But what is the opposite of fidelity?' asked Professor Playfair. He was approaching the end of his dialitic; now he needed only to draw it to a close with a punch. 'Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, it means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So, where does that leave us? How can we conclude except by acknowledging that an act of translation is always an act of betrayal?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Be selfish," he whispered. "Be brave.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“How strange,’ said Ramy. ‘To love the stuff and the language, but to hate the country.’

‘Not as odd as you’d think,’ said Victoire. ‘There are people, after all, and then there are things.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Grief suffocated. Grief paralysed. Grief was a cruel, heavy boot pressed so hard against his chest that he could not breathe.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“She learned revolution is, in fact, always unimaginable. It shatters the world you know. The future is unwritten, brimming with potential. The colonizers have no idea what is coming, and that makes them panic. It terrifies them.

Good. It should.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Why, he wondered, did white people get so very upset when anyone disagreed with them?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“That's the beauty of learning a new language. It should feel like an enormous undertaking. It ought to intimidate you. It makes you appreciate the complexity of the ones you know already.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Words tell stories. Specifically, the history of those words - how they came into use, and how their meaning morphed into what they mean today - tell us just as much about a people, if not more, than any other kind of historical artefact.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“We are foreign because this nation has marked us so, and as long as we’re punished daily for our ties to our homelands, we might as well defend them. No, Letty, we can’t maintain this fantasy. The only one who can do that is you.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“What you don’t understand,’ said Ramy, ‘is how much people like you will excuse if it just means they can get tea and coffee on their breakfast tables. They don’t care, Letty. They just don’t care.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“I want to live,’ she repeated, ‘and live, and thrive, and survive them. I want a future. I don’t think death is a reprieve. I think it’s – it’s just the end. It forecloses everything – a future where I might be happy, and free. And it’s not about being brave. It’s about wanting another chance. Even if all I did was run away, even if I never lifted a finger to help anyone else as long as I lived – at least I would get to be happy. At least the world might be all right, just for a day, just for me. Is that selfish?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“They were men at Oxford; they were not Oxford men. But the enormity of this knowledge was so devastating, such a vicious antithesis to the three golden days they’d blindly enjoyed, that neither of them could say it out loud.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“How slender, how fragile, the foundations of an empire. Take away the centre, and what’s left? A gasping periphery, baseless, powerless, cut down at the roots.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“But that’s the great contradiction of colonialism.’ Cathy uttered this like a simple matter of fact. ‘It’s built to destroy that which it prizes most.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“We have eternity, beloved."
"You may have eternity. I have only now."
"But this is eternity.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“Dimmi il nome di un eroe che è stato felice."
Riflettei. Eracle era impazzito e aveva ucciso la sua famiglia; Teseo aveva perso la sua sposa e suo padre; i figli e la nuova consorte di Giasone erano stati uccisi dalla sua prima moglie; Bellerofonte aveva ucciso la chimera ma era caduto dal dorso di Pegaso ed era rimasto storpio.
"Non puoi." Si alzò a sedere e si sporse in avanti.
"Non posso."
"Lo so. Gli Dei non permettono a nessuno di essere famoso e felice." Inarcò un sopracciglio. "Ma voglio confidarti un segreto."
"Dimmi." Adoravo quando faceva così.
"Io sarò il primo.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He smiled, and his face was like the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Patroclus,' he said. He was always better with words than I.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Hope clouds observation.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune