Also, whenever you have direct speech, and I don't quite know why, but it always gets better in English. Dialogue, the flow of dialogue, English just has a better way with it. — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share Image
English has a better way with colloquialisms. It has colloquialisms that are colorful and expressive but not too heavy or distracting. In German, if you use colloquialisms, it quickly descends into some kind of dialect literature. — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share Image
When I look at life I try to be as agnostic and unmetaphysical as possible. So I have to admit that, most probably, we… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
“Sweat was running down my face. The next turn wasn’t too bad, and I noticed an old barn on the roadside, the roof caved-in,… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
A neglect of one's sentimental education early in life could bear the most unfortunate fruit. — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
It was both odd and unjust, a real example of pitiful arbitrariness of existance, that you were born into a particular time & held… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
You say fate is almost indispensable to literature - I think it's completely indispensable, at least in a novel, because a novel always has… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
When I write a book I'm always questioning the project as a whole. I always feel I might have to just throw it away… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
Also, whenever you have direct speech, and I don't quite know why, but it always gets better in English. Dialogue, the flow of dialogue,… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
One of the points where the art world is at its most metaphysical is in this weird aspect of the power of the expert.… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
Usually I work out the plot before I start. This time I thought: Writers always talk about not knowing where a book is going… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
For a while I never show anybody what I'm writing, and during that time I need the feeling that publishing is only an option.… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
German can take a lot more pathos than English can. When you say "pathetic" in English it's a disparaging term, but when you say… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
English has a better way with colloquialisms. It has colloquialisms that are colorful and expressive but not too heavy or distracting. In German, if… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
It's also one of these strange points where metaphysics converges with economy. Because really what the experts are doing is creating value by banishing… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
Usually the German translators do something terrible, especially with Tom Wolfe, which is that they make it local. So if the characters are from… — Daniel Kehlmann Copy Share
