abby

“The poet runs untrammeled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“It revealed the sheer dependence of the British, who, astonishingly, could not manage to do basic things like bake bread or get safely from one place to another without words stolen from other countries.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Mande mwen yon ti kou ankò ma di ou,’ she’d told Anthony once, when he’d first asked her what she thought of Hermes, if she thought they might succeed. He’d tried his best to parse Kreyòl with what he knew of French, then he’d given up. ‘What’s that mean?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Victoire. ‘At least, we say it when we don’t know the answer, or don’t care to share the answer.’ ‘And what’s it literally mean?’ She’d winked at him. ‘Ask me a little later, and I’ll tell you.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel