Kehinde Wiley Quotes

When I was living in China, I learned to make things hyper-explicit because often they were being read by people whose command of English kept them from picking up what I thought were obvious signals.

Compared with U.S. cities, Japanese cities bend over backward to help foreigners. The countryside is another matter.

From 'Embracing the Wide Sky', I went to the States, to Canada and to different parts of Europe as well. I gave interviews in several languages.

My new play 'Chinglish,' which will go to Broadway, is about a white American businessman who goes to a provincial capital in China, hoping to make a deal there. It's bilingual. And it's about trying to communicate across language and cultural barriers.

I board with a poor Scotchman: his wife can talk scarce any English.

I only saw one English-speaking person all the way across Siberia.

The greatest obstacle to international understanding is the barrier of language.

The difficulty that many foreign authors face in having their works translated into English has effects far beyond the United States.

I don't really have that much contact with Americans. I mean, I see the oddest things on the Internet, I suppose. And I've got a couple of American friends, but they are Anglophiles anyway because they've decided to come live here.

Even when well translated. can we really understand what other cultures are talking about?

You never know how you're going to go down as an English commentator in Australia.

I felt like the Germans were being mean to me at training, but they were actually just trying to help. I learned really quick - which made me a better player. I'm appreciative of the way they treated me. It's just the language and, of course, as an American, I had to learn that. No offense to them; I love them to death, and I love my teammates.

When you go to another country, you can work with different players in different situations, in a different culture.

As an American married to an Englishman and living in France, I've spent much of my adult life trying to decode the rules of conversation in three countries. Paradoxically, these rules are almost always unspoken.

I would have never dreamt in a million years I would go out with a ballroom dancer from Russia, as, when we were younger, we did not even speak the same language.

I'm getting to enjoy the mentality of the British, the sarcasm, the dry humour. There are so many more ways of articulating yourself than in German.

In Italy, you're in your comfort zone when it comes to language, lifestyle, your habits and preparations, and moving abroad is not easy. It's not easy to carry over your own ideas about football, your own methods. You have to get everything across in a different language, and that wastes a lot of energy.

When I came to Chelsea and worked with Mourinho, it was my first time abroad, so that was an important stage for me.

To be a foreigner may be an advantage but disadvantage as well. It was advantage for me for sure.

I think that a lot of teams aren't as close-knit as we are because a lot of the Spanish speakers don't know English and some of the English guys don't care to try and learn Spanish and relate to Latin players.

The last thing an Englishman wants to hear is a man from Brussels trying to imitate his language - you want to hear a different point of view. You may not be able to understand the details, but you can understand the feeling.

I came first to America in 1977 at the invitation of a man who wanted to make my life story into a musical. But my agent said it was not to be and it was never done. So I went back, but I'd seen New York, and I wanted to live there. Because everybody talks to you in the street. See, nobody talks to you in England.

Of course my books are translated into many languages. I have here, in my home, translations on my shelf of my books into forty-five different languages. Almost none of them I can read. I can read only the English editions. But, I know that a translation of a work of literature is like playing a violin concerto on the piano. You can do this. You can do this very successfully on one strict condition: never try to force the piano to produce the sounds of the violin. This will be grotesque. So, different musical instruments provide for different music.

I have traveled more than anyone else, and I have noticed that even the angels speak English with an accent.

I do not hesitate to read. all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable-any real insight or broad human sentiment.