Ella’s Reviews > Babel > Status Update

‘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.’p537

‘Reality was, after all, just so malleable- facts could be forgotten, truths suppressed, lives seen only from one angle like a trick prism, if only one resolved never to look too closely.’ p260

‘… But the future, vague as it was frightening, was easily ignored for now; it paled so against the brilliance of the present.’ p257

‘… For simple ink on paper was not enough to describe this golden afternoon; the warmth of uncomplicated friendship, all fights forgotten, all sins forgiven; the sunlight melting away the memory of the classroom chill; the sticky taste of lemon on their touches and their startled, delighted relief.’ p238

‘… They could no longer look at the world and not see stories, histories, layered everywhere like centuries’ worth of sediment.’ p169