Lin

“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

“it was better to be alone than to be stuck with people who were supposed to love you, yet couldn’t.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“It takes a special kind of cruelty to make a baby now, knowing that the world it’ll inhabit and inherit will be dirty and diseased and unjust and difficult.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, To Paradise

“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