" About her family she had taken a superior view. She considered them somewhat childlike since her power over them in the form of language had given her the privilege of viewing them in this way. And her distance from them, as the distance of all translators from their subjects, allowed her to see that so much of the raison d'etre of their lives was taken up negotiating their way around the small objects of foreignness laced in their way. Either they could not see the larger space of commonality or it was denied them. "

― Dionne Brand , What We All Long For