One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.
Bio: Gregory Rabassa, ComM was an American literary translator from Spanish and Portuguese to English. He taught for many years at Columbia University and Queens College.
