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Johnny
https://www.goodreads.com/johnnymk
“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.”
― Babel
― Babel
“Words and phrases you think are carved into your bones can disappear in no time.”
― Babel
― Babel
“Tell me what you do with the food you eat, and I'll tell you who you are. Some turn their food into fat and manure, some into work and good humor, and others, I'm told, into God. So there must be three sorts of men. I'm not one of the worst, boss, nor yet one of the best. I'm somewhere in between the two. What I eat I turn into work and good humor. That's not too bad, after all!”
― Zorba the Greek
― Zorba the Greek
“I was very deliberate in my choice to not use italics for the Kannada, Urdu and Arabic words that remain untranslated in English. Italics serve to not only distract visually, but more importantly, they announce words as imported from another language, exoticising them and keeping them alien to English. By not italicising them, I hope the reader can come to these words without interference, and in the process of reading with the flow, perhaps even learn a new word or two in another language. Same goes for footnotes - there are none.
Against Italics: Translator's Notes”
― Heart Lamp: Selected Stories
Against Italics: Translator's Notes”
― Heart Lamp: Selected Stories
“Irimiás: God is not made manifest in language, you dope. He's not manifest in anything. He doesn't exist... God was a mistake. I've long understood there is zero difference between me and a bug, or a bug and a river, or a river and a voice shouting above it. There's no sense or meaning in anything. It's nothing but a network of dependency under enormous fluctuating pressures. It's only our imaginations, not our senses, that continually confront us with failure and the false belief that we can raise ourselves by our own bootstraps from the miserable pulp of delay. There's no escaping that, stupid.”
― Satantango
― Satantango
Johnny’s 2025 Year in Books
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