LOOKING The world goes by, and what have I to do with it? I merely observe how the geese stretch their necks towards the orange rim of sky. I watch how light fades and children make their way home, hungry and tired. The bushes outside become ghosts w...
When World War II erupted, colonialism was at its apogee. The courde of the war, however, its symbolic undertones, would sow the seeds of the system's defeat and demise. [...] The central subject, the essence, the core relations between Europeans and...
In high school, we barely brushed against Ogden Nash, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, or any of the other so-unserious writers who delight everyone they touch. This was, after all, a very expensive and important school. Instead, I was force-fed a few of ...
He held her and rocked her, believing, rightly or wrongly, that Ellie wept for the very intractability of death, its imperviousness to argument or to a little girl’s tears; that she wept over its cruel unpredictability; and that she wept because of...
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium a...
In the first book of the Bible it is written that: "The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” In another translation it is written like this: "God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first ...
They must talk to each other directly, Ender, mind to mind. What one thinks, another can also think; what one remembers, another can also re-member. Why would they ever develop language? Why would they ever learn to read and write? How would they kno...
He showed me a sketch he'd drawn once during meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standing up, hands clasped in prayer. But this figure had four legs, and no head. Where the head should have been, there was only a wild foliage of ferns and...
It's asking us our names," Falkor reported. "I'm Atreyu!" Atreyu cried. "I'm Falkor!" cried Falkor. The boy without a name was silent. Atreyu looked at him, then took him by the hand and cried: "He's Bastian Balthazar Bux!" "It asks," Falkor translat...
Henceforth the crisis of urbanism is all the more concretely a social and political one, even though today no force born of traditional politics is any longer capable of dealing with it. Medico-sociological banalities on the 'pathology of housing pro...
In the English language, we have one word for love, which translates into our sexual drive. The ancient Greeks had more than one word for it, including the word agape. It means to compromise or sacrifice, and it’s a kind of love I’ve seen in all ...
Charlotte: [after Bob tells her of his back pain] I'm in pain, I got my foot banged up. Wanna see it? Bob: [to Chef, sarcastically] How do you say no? [sees the foot] Bob: Oh, my gosh! When did you do this? Charlotte: I did it the other day, it hurts...
Adso of Melk: And what was the word you both kept mentioning? William of Baskerville: Penitenziagite. Adso of Melk: What does it mean? William of Baskerville: It means that the hunchback undoubtedly was once a heretic. Penitenziagite was a rallying c...
Maybe this was a male-female translation problem. I read an article once that said that when women have a conversation, they're communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they're actually having, the conversation that is specific...
Nuclear deterrence will remain a vital aspect of security. or Nuclear deterrence will have a smaller role in future security. Sources are split in their assessment of the importance of nuclear weapons and the validity of traditional nuclear deterrenc...
Translation error is compounded by bias error. We distort others by forcing into them our preferred ideas and gestalts, a process Proust beautifully describes: We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we already formed a...
Nine times out of ten, when a woman says, "I have a boyfriend," what this translates to is, "You just telegraphed too much interest." It has nothing to do with whether she actually has a boyfriend. In fact, if she is attracted to you, she will often ...
O Divine Poesy, goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song of the various-minded man who, after he had plundered the innermost citadel of hallowed Troy, was made to stay grievously about the coasts of men, the sport of their customs, good an...
What I tried to make clear in Good Calories, Bad Calories was that nutrition and obesity research lost its way after the Second World War with the evaporation of the European community of scientists and physicians that did pioneering work in those di...
[speaking to Billy Fish in Kafiri] Billy Fish: Ootah say take your pick. He have twenty three daughters. Danny: Those are his daughters? Why the dirty old beggar! Peachy Carnehan: Now, now Danny. Different countries, different ways. He's only being h...
Being nearly four years old, she was certainly a child: and children are human (if one allows the term "human" a wide sense): but she had not altogether ceased to be a baby: and babies are of course not human--they are animals, and have a very ancien...
