Quotes About Adaptation

Every time my surroundings change I feel enormous sadness. It's not greater when I leave a place tied to memories, grief, or happiness. It's the change itself that unsettles me, just as liquid in a jar turns cloudy when you shake it. —italo svevo, essays and uncollected writings

When Deepa poured Bela some water from the urn that stood on a little stool, in the corner of the room, her grandmother reproached her. Not that water. Give her the boiled water. She's not made to survive here.

He especially enjoyed watching Mrs. Sen as she chopped things, seated on newspapers on the living room floor. Instead of a knife she used a blade that curved like the prow of a Viking ship, sailing to battle in distant seas. The blade was hinged at one end to a narrow wooden base.

It's easier to surrender to confinement.

The moments of transition, in which something changes, constitute the backbone of all of us. Whether they are a salvation or a loss, they are moments that we tend to remember.

He was proud to have come alone to America. To learn it, as he once must have learned to stand and walk and speak. He'd wanted so much to leave Calcutta, not only for the sake of his education but also—he could admit this to himself now—to take a step that Udayan never would.

And so the eight months are put behind them, quickly shed, quickly forgotten, like clothes worn for a special occasion, or for a season that has passed, suddenly cumbersome, irrelevant to their lives.

Certain creatures laid eggs that were able to endure the dry season. Others survived by burying themselves in mud, simulating death, waiting for the return of rain.

Glowing screens, increasingly foldable, portable, companionable, anticipating any possible question the human brain might generate.

Still, for the next three weeks, even though his new driver's license says "Nikhil," even though he's sliced up the old one with his mother's sewing scissors

Als je zonder je eigen taal leeft, voel je je gewichtloos en tegelijkertijd overbeladen. Je ademt een andere lucht in, op een andere hoogte. Je bent je altijd bewust van het verschil.

Voleva generare un'altra versione di se stessa, nello stesso modo in cui poteva trasformare un testo da una lingua a un'altra.

Wanneer je als mens sterk geworteld bent, zoals mijn ouders dat waren, kan migratie werken als een zaag en een levenslang trauma veroorzaken. Ik ben meer als de waterplanten in het moerasland, het lowland dat ik in mijn boek beschrijf. Mijn wortels hebben geleerd in het water te dwarrelen, beweeglijk te zijn. Migratie betekent voor mij geen ontworteling meer.

Gogol and Sonia] call up their American friends, who are happy enough to see them but ask them nothing about where they've been. And so the eight months are put behind them, quickly shed, quickly forgotten, like clothes worn for a special occasion, or for a season that has passed, suddenly cumbersome, irrelevant to their lives.

In American, when I was young, my parents always seemed to be in mourning for something. Now I understand: it must have been the language.

To translate is to alter one's linguistic coordinates, to grab on to what has slipped away, to cope with exile.

It was only by self-translating that I finally understood what Paul Valéry meant when he said that a work of art was never finished, only abandoned... The act of self-translation enables the author to restore a previously published work to its most vital and dynamic state—that of a work-in-progress—and to repair and recalibrate as needed.

L'inglese rimane il presente: permanente, indelebile. la matrigna non mi abbandona. Per quanto sia una lingua imposta, mi ha regalato una voce pulita, corretta, per sempre.

Una lingua nuova è quasi una vita nuova, grammatica e sintassi ti rifondo, scivoli dentro un'altra logica e un altro sentimento.

Any system of government will work when everything is going well. It's the system that functions in the pinches that survive

That's how writing works, at least for me: even the stuff that doesn't work out gets funneled into the stuff that does work out.

I initially moved to Switzerland for work on an animated feature film, and have been here ever since.

It's amazing how quickly human beings adapt, isn't it? It was such a great crew, and David [Lynch] was wonderful to work with [on 'The Elephant Man']. It was a very thrilling time, actually.

Faced with having to change our views or prove that there is no need to do so, most of us immediately get busy on the proof.