Herta Muller Quotes

Do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery.

I don't like writing - it's so difficult to say what you mean. It's much easier to edit other people's writing and help them say what they mean.

I did not think I would be able to do myself justice if I had to speak to the players in English. I would not be able to get my emotions and feelings across.

Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican.

You cannot write in more than one language. Words don't come out as well.

Writing is always harder than talking.

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.

The most difficult thing is that I don't speak Mandarin and I had this experience - of working in a language that I don't understand - before and it's really horrible. Eighteen years ago, I played a mute in one film because I couldn't speak Mandarin. There was another film where I had to speak Vietnamese. It's horrible!

Each language has its own take on the world. That's why a translation can never be absolutely exact, and therefore, when you enter another language and speak with its speakers, you become a slightly different person; you learn a different sort of world.

Well it is sometimes difficult to act in another language.

My language is what I use, and if I lost that, I wouldn't be able to say anything.

I look at myself, and I see a Spanish person who's trying to be understood by an English-speaking audience and is putting a lot of energy into that, instead of into expressing himself freely and feeling comfortable.

Everyone knows English is my second language and my vocabulary is not as broad as it is in Spanish, and because of this, sometimes I use the wrong words to express myself.

Fools, most linguists. Damn all to say in one language, so they learn another and say damn all in that.

It's funny because I've made a living off of words, but words get in the way of what you really want to say.

I can speak English on the field but it's difficult with media.

For me, it's a big challenge to translate everything in English.

I can identify with Riho because I was the talent that didn't speak the language in Japan. I'm very excited for the fans to kind of build a relationship with her because it's going to take work from both sides to understand one another.

I find vocabulary to be a great drawback.

It's always a unique challenge when you're working with somebody where English is their second language.

In India, whichever language you write in, the possibility of people not understanding irony or not understanding [remains there]. This as a writer is most terrifying!

The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.

However virile the English language may be, it can never become the language of the masses of India.

I'm a believer in the benefits of translation. It's a necessity and a privilege - it would be awful to be limited to reading authors who's work was composed in the languages I happen to have learned.

Things can be translated, but they become different.