A Quote by Per Petterson

I worked in a bookstore in Oslo, importing the English-language books.

Per Petterson

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Books Bookstore English Language Oslo Worked

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Per Petterson
Norwegian - Novelist
Born: July 18, 1952

Sometimes I wonder how my life would have worked out if my books had been translated into English sooner, because English is the language that's spoken worldwide, and when a book appears in English it is made universal, it becomes a global publication.

Olga Tokarczuk

I have a funny relationship to language. When I came to California when I was three I spoke Urdu fluently and I didn't speak a word of English. Within a few months I lost all my Urdu and spoke only English and then I learned Urdu all over again when I was nine. Urdu is my first language but it's not as good as my English and it's sort of become my third language. English is my best language but was the second language I learned.

Mohsin Hamid

James Joyce's English was based on the rhythm of the Irish language. He wrote things that shocked English language speakers but he was thinking in Gaelic. I've sung songs that if they were in English, would have been banned too. The psyche of the Irish language is completely different to the English-speaking world.

Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh

My parents both worked full-time flipping burgers at the local fast-food joint, and my grandmother looked after us. English was her second language, so instead of books, I learned spoken French nursery rhymes and curse words.

Kameron Hurley

Writing is a bit like walking into a big bookstore. It's the bookstore of your brain, and you know you're never going to read all those books. It makes you happy you're in the bookstore, and you're nervous because you know you're never going to read all those books. So the nervousness is also happy. Once I get going writing poetry is one of the happiest things I do, but it is also fraught with all of these anxieties.

Mary Jo Salter

Sometimes, looking at the many books I have at home, I feel I shall die before I come to the end of them, yet I cannot resist the temptation of buying new books. Whenever I walk into a bookstore and find a book on one of my hobbies — for example, Old English or Old Norse poetry — I say to myself, “What a pity I can’t buy that book, for I already have a copy at home.

Jorge Luis Borges

In terms of language, English is very dominant vis-Ã-vis African language. That in itself is a power relationship - between languages and communities - because the English language is a determinant of the ladder to achievement.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.

Gordon Getty

The U.S. is excellent at importing cheap products from the rest of the world. Let's try importing some human capital instead.

James Surowiecki

The Oslo airport used to be a kilometer away from where I grew up. They moved it outside Oslo the year I was born, but they kept the runway there as a historic site.

Casper Ruud

If Snowden really claims that his actions amounted to genuine civil disobedience, he should go to some English language bookstore in Moscow and get a copy of Henry David Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'.

Michael Hayden

English, for me, is an acquired language. I started with English at the age of 10. At the time, it was my third language.

Elif Safak

I'm keen on making English language movies. English is still the global language and we can't change that.

Bruno Zheng Wu

Of course, English is a very powerful language, a colonizer's language and a gift to a writer. English has destroyed and sucked up the languages of other cultures - its cruelty is its vitality.

Louise Erdrich

I worked as a restaurant hostess and tutored English-as-a-second-language without a formal work visa.

Kim Brooks

I don't hate language. I have my own language, but I also enjoy the English language. Obviously, you don't read a lot of literature and not care about language.

Twyla Tharp

A Quote by Per Petterson

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