Translators Quotes

• Translators are the shadow heroes of literature, the often forgotten instruments that make it possible for different cultures to talk to one another, who have enabled us to understand that we all, from every part of the world, live in one world.

  Paul Auster

  Hero, Shadow, Different

  "To Be Translated or Not to Be, PEN/IRL Report on the International Situation of Literary Translation". Book by Esther Allan (ed.), Preface, 2011.

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• Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.

  Italo Calvino

  Country, Important, World

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• The first rule of translation: make sure you know at least one of the bloody languages!

  Faiz Ahmad Faiz

  Firsts, Language, Bloody

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• It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ...But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.

  John Dryden

  Beautiful, Latin, Expression

  "William Gilbert of Colchester". Book by P. Fleury Mottelay, 1893.

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• It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.

  Walter Benjamin

  Tasks, Language, Creation

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.90, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence.

  George Steiner

  Silence, Borders, World

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• Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.

  Anthony Burgess

  Design, Culture, Matter

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• To translate, one must have a style of his own, for the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.

  Paul Goodman

  Thinking, Style, Nuance

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• The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one's own style and creatively adjust this to one's author.

  Paul Goodman

  Style, Retreat, Language

  Paul Goodman (1966). “Five years”

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• There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.

  Edith Hamilton

  Book, Humility, Unique

  "Three Greek Plays". Book by Edith Hamilton, 1937.

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• A translator is to be like his author; it is not his business to excel him.

  Samuel Johnson

  Samuel Johnson, Roger H. Lonsdale (2006). “Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets”, p.125, Oxford University Press

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• God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.

  John Donne

  War, Justice, Age

  John Donne (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of John Donne (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

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• Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament.

  Milan Kundera

  Europe, Important, Toil

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• Translation is a kind of transubstantiation; one poem becomes another. You can choose your philosophy of translation just as you choose how to live: the free adaptation that sacrifices detail to meaning, the strict crib that sacrifices meaning to exactitude. The poet moves from life to language, the translator moves from language to life; both, like the immigrant, try to identify the invisible, what's between the lines, the mysterious implications.

  Anne Michaels

  Philosophy, Moving, Sacrifice

  Anne Michaels (2010). “Fugitive Pieces”, p.109, Emblem Editions

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• I've translated a lot of American literature into Japanese, and I think that what makes a good translator is, above all, a feel for language and also a great affection for the work you're translating. If one of those elements is missing the translation won't be worth much.

  Haruki Murakami

  Thinking, Missing, Elements

  Source: www.bookbrowse.com

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• Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes.

  Gunter Grass

  Things Change, Translations

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• The best thing on translation was said by Cervantes: translation is the other side of a tapestry.

  Leonardo Sciascia

  Sides, Language, Said

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• Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.

  Friedrich Schleiermacher

  Moving, Reader

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• Translators have to prove to themselves as to others that they are in control of what they do; that they do not just translate well because they have a "flair" for translation, but rather because, like other professionals, they have made a conscious effort to understand various aspects of their work.

  Mona Baker

  Effort, Language, Conscious

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• We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

  Mark Strand

  Life, Thinking, Pay

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• Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.

  Paul Celan

  Inspirational, Writing, Hands

  Paul Celan, Rosemarie Waldrop (2003). “Collected Prose”, p.26, Psychology Press

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• There was - there still is - a big shortage of good Chinese-English literary translators. So for two years in London, I was stuck waiting, not writing, with several Chinese books I couldn't get translated. That's when I decided to write in English, since I had been living here and had decided to reconstruct my life here. Even if I wrote in broken English, it was better than getting bored and weary and bitter on the long queue of authors waiting to be translated by a stranger.

  Xiaolu Guo

  Book, Writing, Long

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I've learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself.

  Michael Cunningham

  Book, Years, Needs

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• Above all, translators must be native speakers. It’s not because they speak the language better – I understand that sometimes a foreigner can learn a language better than native speakers. It has more to do with intimate knowledge of the society for which the book is being translated.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Book, Language, Sometimes

  "Interview with a Vampire Writer". Interview with Tatyana Shenkova, www.rbth.com. September 5, 2012.

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• Writer's make national literature, while translators make universal literature.

  Jose Saramago

  Literature, Universal

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