Here among the clouds, humanity had worn the trappings of godhood for so long they had almost forgotten they were animals, though still they snarled and bit.
“Trying, he thought, to express some unutterable truth about themselves. Which was that translation was impossible. That the realm of pure meaning they captured and manifested would and could not ever be known. That the enterprise of this tower had been impossible from inception. For how could there ever be an Adamic language? The thought now made him laugh. There was no innate, perfectly comprehensible language. There was no candidate - not English, not French - that could bully and absorb enough to become one. Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No, a thousand worlds within one. And translation, a necessary endeavor however futile, to move between them.”
― Babel
― Babel
“It’s not the life I used to imagine for myself either. But it’s the life I have, the only one.”
― Beautiful World, Where Are You
― Beautiful World, Where Are You
“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.”
― Babel
― Babel
“Be selfish," he whispered. "Be brave.”
― Babel
― Babel
“Memories can also be thought of as dreamlike. They’re more a romantic story than a faithful document of a life event. And there’s good content to be found in these dreamy recollections we have of past experiences.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Cole’s 2025 Year in Books
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