“We sleep in language if language does not come to wake us up with its strangeness.”

“It is thus with our life. We silently glide along, little dreaming about the waves which will so soon sweep over us, dashing us up against the rocks, or stranding us forever. we do not dream that we shall ever wreck, until the greater wave comes over us, and we bend beneath its power.”

“We are the creature of language, and through language we affirm ourselves, we find out about the world, including ourselves, through words, and we share with one another through language.”

“As long as human beings speak different languages, the need for translation will continue.”

“It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code. Most of these jokers don't even want to use language you and I know or can learn . . . they would rather sneer at us and be smug, because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at. If indeed they are driving at anything--obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence.”

“Not everyone who knows how to write can be a writer. Not everyone who knows two languages can be a translator.”

“My beautiful, my Isobel. My Love. You ask me to wait. And so I wait.For all of this, I know, is but a dream.And when, in sleep, at last we wake,I will see you again.”