The Translator Quotes & Sayings

However, there is one great temptation and that is that you can forget that the aim of the writer was to reject all other worlds and to construct one of his own and that the aim of the translator is to re-embody himself into the world of the various writers. — Ventseslav Konstantinov

I ran this through my "girl talk" translator and said, "I could eat him, if either of you'd like. Seems like it might be the easiest thing to do."
-Bram to Nora & Pamela — Lia Habel

Judge: And what is your occupation in general?
Brodsky: Poet, poet-translator.
Judge: And who recognized you to be a poet? Who put you in the ranks of poet?
Brodsky: No one. And who put me in the ranks of humanity?
Judge: Did you study it? ... How to be a poet? Did you attempt to finish an insitute of higher learning ... where they prepare ... teach
Brodsky: I did not think that it is given to one by education.
Judge: By what then?
Brodsky: I think that it is from God. — Joseph Brodsky

So what you're saying [...] is that the translator has a lot of decisions to make. That there are multiple meanings to be found in any word, in any sentence. In any situation. — Stephanie Perkins

What the translator - myself in particular - does is not comparable to what the Homeric performer was doing. — Robert Fitzgerald

Passion for books is the most important thing in being an editor/translator. Work with love. — Listiana Srisanti

To me a translator is very, very important. If the fixer is also the translator, so much the better. I have known photographers who didn't speak the language and would work in a place for weeks without one, getting by on common sense and smiles. But how many situations did they miss because they couldn't talk to someone and get the back story on details, small daily life things, etc. — Peter Menzel

Junius was one of the most highly regarded Reformed theologians in Europe. Junius was renowned for his labors as an exegete and translator of the New Testament and for a series of major treatises, the most influential of which, De theologia vera (True Theology), is here for the first time translated into English. — Franciscus Junius

Words accrue and lose meaning through a semantic mobility dependent on the community in which they thrive, and these meanings cannot be divorced from bodily sensation and emotion. Slang emerges among a circle of speakers. Irony requires double consciousness, reading one meaning and understanding another. Elegant prose involves a feeling for the rhythms and the music of sentences, a product of the sensual pleasure a writer takes in the sounds of words and the varying metric beats of sentences. Creative translation must take all this into account. If a meaning is lost in one sentence, it might be gained or added to the next one. Such considerations are not strictly logical. They do not involve a step-by-step plan but come from the translator's felt understanding of the two languages involved. Rodney — Siri Hustvedt

I think that if you are sticking to the text, essentially, you're not trying to write your own version of it. I mean, of course, it is your own version of it. And every translator would probably have a different version. But I think that that's what keeps the writers from being individual in English. They may be my English, but I don't think that Ferrante sounds like Levi. — Ann Goldstein

In some sense the text and the translator are locked in struggle - 'I attacked that sentence, it resisted me, I attacked another, it eluded me' - a struggle in which, curiously, when the translator wins, the text wins too ... — Lydia Davis

They say nothing!" the little captain raged. "They only putrid gunner, ship engineer. I, Ba-Karkar, must speak for all!"

Ogu kicked him again. "Then ask what kind help Asahel wants, untranslatable epithet male. Or no more untranslatable for you! Never again in putrid boomer prison."

Her husband gave a choked gasp. "Cruel female!"

"No more sex, either," she added. — Julian May

... the only difference between carnivores and plants is that the latter eat meat through 'translator' organisms. Maggots and bacteria 'pre-chew' dead animal matter, which plants then absorb as nutrients. So if eating pre-chewed food does not change the fact that a baby is human, why should a plant be any less of a carnivore because it out-sources the digestion of animal protein to organisms of decay? — Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

(from Diana to Deborah, 8 May 1998)
Talking of language difficulty Tony Lambton says Selwyn Lloyd introduced him to Khrushchev saying 'He's the best shot in England,' and the translator said 'Lord Lambton is to be shot tomorrow.' Khrushchev thought it quite normal but patted him on the shoulder kindly. — Charlotte Mosley

It is natural for a translator to be prejudiced in favour of his adopted work. More impartial readers may not be so much struck with the beauties of this piece as I was. Yet I am not blind to my author's defects. — Horace Walpole

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

So many people consider their work a daily punishment. Whereas I love my work as a translator. Translation is a journey over a sea from one shore to the other. Sometimes I think of myself as a smuggler: I cross the frontier of language with my booty of words, ideas, images, and metaphors. — Amara Lakhous

Or showed mercy to his numerous enemies. "Guys," Chayden said to the boys, "she's at least a commander. Can't you tell?" The boys whooped as they ran to Chayden and jumped into his arms while rattling off their rapid-fire words. The bewildered look on the pirate's face was hysterical as he met Nykyrian's gaze. "Help! I don't speak small-human Andarion. I need a translator." Kiara — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I always read the translator's draft all the way through - a very laborious business. — W.G. Sebald

The revolt in Asia Minor was snugged out in 494, and the Athenians realized that they had acquired a dangerous enemy. Darius I's first attempt at invasion in 492 was abortive: a huge storm wrecked his fleet. In 491 the Persians demanded 'earth and water'
signs of submission
from the Aegean islands and mainland cities. Many submitted. Athens and Sparta not only stood firm but murdered the Persian ambassadors. The Athenians put them on trial and killed both the ambassadors and their translator for offenses against the Greek language; the Spartans simply thew them down a well. — Alan Ryan

An actor's life is the shadow of a cloud, the echo of a sound, the memory of a dream, nothing come of nothing. The finest actor does not create, he is but a translator of another man's work. — Fanny Kemble

The translator, a lonely sort of acrobat, becomes confused in a labyrinth of paradox, or climbs a pyramid of dependent clauses and has to invent a way down from it in his own language. — Lydia Davis

While still in Beijing Gao wrote a brief postscript for his seventeen-story collection in which he warns readers that his fiction does not set out to tell a story. There is no plot, as is found in most fiction, and anything of interest to be found in it is inherent in the language itself. More explicit is his proposal that the art of fiction is "the actualisation of language and not the imitation of reality in writing", and that its power to fascinate lies in the fact that, simply by using language, it is able to evoke genuine feeling. — Mabel Lee

My best friend Madison keeps a list on her phone of all of the different English slang that I say, so she has kind of like a translator so she can understand without having to ask me, "What on Earth are you talking about when you say 'nackered'?" — Emma Watson

I traveled the world ten times over doing something I never thought I'd do in a million years. I found myself in Tokyo, Japan. I (was in) a Dell Computer commercial, the first thing I had ever done, and I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the green screens, I fell in love with (everything). The translator was explaining everything to me. It was a passion like I had never felt before. I came back and it took me five years to really accept that that was okay. — Drew Waters

I would suggest that what the translator has to give up is the temptation to translate history by making sense of it, that is, by using an apologetic or apocalyptic discourse. What the translator fails to do is to erase the body, to erase the murder of the original. — Shoshana Felman

If I make a speech, I need a translator. But music does not need a translation. People understand me through the sound. That I think is very important. This is just one planet, like one family. — Mstislav Rostropovich

I have two friends named Matt. They're both scouts in the cavalry. They both served in the same section of Iraq. They both worked with the same Iraqi translator. And yet, if you talk to them, their stories couldn't be more different, because one was there in 2006. One was there in 2008. — Phil Klay

And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it. — Cornelia Funke

The existence of another, competing translation is a good thing, in general, and only immediately discouraging to one person - the translator who, after one, two, or three years of more or less careful work, sees another, and perhaps superior, version appear as if overnight. — Lydia Davis

The translator constantly learns new things about himself. — Ventseslav Konstantinov

Preface WITH THE ADVENT OF multiple modern English translations of the Bible being published over the last fifty years, Christians have come to realize that there can be a wide range of meanings and renderings of various words from the Bible in the original language. As a Hebrew teacher and student of ancient languages one of the most common questions I get is, "What is the best translation?" This is usually followed by the question, "Which translation is the closest to the original Biblical language?" The answer I give to both questions is, "All of them." With few exceptions, every translation and paraphrase of the Bible is done with much scholarship and prayer by the translators. Every translator is convinced that he or she has presented the best renderings for each word and firmly believes they have given the rendering that is closest to the original language. So we now ask the question as to why there are — Chaim Bentorah

My lesbian translator must be on the fritz. Is that code for your period? Instead of calling it an Alexandria Tampon how about a bloody Mary?" He snaps his fingers and continues, "This bloody Mary is giving me the cramps or Damn you, bloody Mary for ruining my sex life."
Robert Marshall, Flapper Girls — Candace Cloud

Because of my schooling, my fate would always be a little different from my friends. — Daoud Hari

Whenever I write a paragraph in English, I first check it with the Google Translator, and most often it says no language detected. — M.F. Moonzajer

To write that essential book, a great writer does not need to invent it but merely to translate it, since it already exists in each one of us. The duty and task of a writer are those of translator. — Marcel Proust

Please, never despise the translator. He's the mailman of human civilization. — Alexander Pushkin

The translator ... Peculiar outcast, ghost in the world of literature, recreating in another form something already created, creating and not creating, writing words that are his own and not his own, writing a work not original to him, composing with utmost pains and without recognition of his pains or the fact that the composition really is his own. — Lydia Davis

Changing words isn't so hard. Recognizing a particular sound, swapping it for another - that was easy even for your ancestors. Reading what happens in your head and the heads of all the beings around you, now that is difficult. Finding equivalents in one culture for the basic concepts of another - that is really difficult. I say the word vegetable and the translator tells you something like 'edible moss'. So, yes, it's a miracle, but it's a dangerous miracle. It makes you think you understand beasts and you never do. When it comes down to it, you can't even understand your own species. — Peadar O'Guilin

That Steuben, who needed a translator, what with his English vocabulary consisting almost entirely of swear words, ended up being the perfect hire to upgrade the Continental Army should rattle every search committee, small-business owner, casting director, college admissions officer, headhunter, and voter. — Sarah Vowell

I was in the second year of my PhD when I first had the idea - I'd recently started working as a translator, which meant firstly that I was hearing about amazing-sounding books from other translators, and also that I was getting enough of an insider's view of the publishing industry to be aware of all the implicit biases that made it so difficult for these books to ever get published, especially if they weren't from European languages (harder to discover, editors can't read the original, lack of funding programmes, authors who don't speak English). — Deborah Smith

What is more important for the world right now than preserving ways of living in balance with the earth? — Daoud Hari

These are not my people." The neutrality of the vocalizer makes his words more poignant for their lack of vehemence. "This is my race, but these are not my people." I don't know what to say to that, but he goes on, so I don't need to deal with my inadequacy. "I left here because I did not fit. I traveled, but never did I ... " He pauses, as the translator seeks a word - or perhaps he is thinking. "Belong. In more turns than you can imagine, the closest I have ever come to a home is with you, Sirantha. — Ann Aguirre

So much of translating, Gil once told me, takes place in an imaginary space where the writer and the translator come together. It is not necessary to sympathize with the writer, to agree with what he's written. But it is necessary to walk alongside and stay in step. It's harder, he says, when the other person has a bad limp or stops and starts all the time or moves erratically. It is hardest of all when the story comes from a place the translator himself can't go. — Meg Rosoff

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

I think the close work I do as a translator pays off in my writing - I'm always searching for multiple ways to say things. — Lydia Davis

No matter how great the book is, Its translator will never be famous as the author!Better Write! — Me

( ... ) the translator of prose is the slave of the author and the translator of poetry is his rival. — Andrei Makine

Fine," Vanto said. The musculature of his throat relaxes partially, but not fully. "Personally, I'd be a lot more concerned about him, but that's up to you. But I'm still the bottom man on the roster. Why do you even care about me?" "You are my translator. You hold my words in your hand, and their meanings. A misjudged translation will confuse or anger. A deliberate error could lead to death. — Timothy Zahn

Yes, ma'am," he said, and folded his hands and stopped where he was, listening, waiting while a very sick woman tried to gather her faculties.
"First off, tell the dowager she's a right damn bastard."
It was no time for a translator to argue. Mitigation, however, was a reasonable tactic. "Aiji-ma, Sabin-aiji has heard our suspicions regarding Tamun and received assurances from me and Gin-aiji that we have not arranged a coup of our own. She addresses you with an untranslatable term sometimes meaning extreme disrepute, sometimes indicating respect for an opponent."
Ilisidi's mouth drew down in wicked satisfaction. "Return the compliment, paidhi."
"Captain, she says you're a right damn bastard, too. — C.J. Cherryh

On the rare occasions when a reporter asks if a criminal is an immigrant, government officials summarily dismiss the question as if it would be racist to discuss the defendant's nation of birth. Ricardo DeLeon Flores killed a teenaged girl in Kansas after speeding through a stop sign and crashing into two cars. "When asked whether Flores was a U.S. citizen," the local Kansas newspaper reported, "Deborah Owens of the Leavenworth County Attorney's Office said she had no knowledge of his citizenship status."33 Was the Spanish translator a hint? The ICE officials showing up in court? His Oakland Raiders T-shirt? Two families' lives were forever changed by the reckless behavior of someone who should not have been in this country, but the prosecutor refused to tell a reporter that Flores was an illegal immigrant. Owens must have felt a warm rush of self-righteousness, thinking how much better she is than all those blood-and-soil types who want to know when foreigners kill Americans. — Ann Coulter

In addition to pumping the blood of life within our bodies, we may think of the heart as a belief-to-matter translator. It converts the perceptions of our experiences, beliefs, and imagination into the coded language of waves that communicate with the world beyond our bodies. Perhaps this is what philosopher and poet John Mackenzie meant when he stated, "The distinction between what is real and what is imaginary is not one that can be finely maintained ... all existing thing are ... imaginary." — Gregg Braden

Alex was a historian by education, a translator of centuries-old scripts by training, and a savant when it came to inane trivia, which she tended to offer up without encouragement and much to the annoyance of everyone around her. Three months ago, Bran, LT, Mason, and the other three guys from their SEAL Team - now the owners of the Deep Six Salvage Company - had hired her to translate the historical documents housed in the Spanish Archives that pertained to the hurricane of 1624. They'd hoped she could give them a leg up on their hunt for the Santa Cristina. — Julie Ann Walker

To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally. — W. H. Auden

I lowered my hands to try to save from disorder the arrangement of the tleaves and flowers; meanwhile, she was also dealing with the branches, leaning forward; and so it happened that at the very moment when one of my hands slipped in confusion between Madame Miyagi's kimono and her bare skin and found itself clasping a soft and warm breast, elongated in form, one of the lady's hands, from among the branches keiyaki [translator's note: in Europe called Caucasian elm], had reached my member and was holding it in a firm, frank grasp, drawing it from my garments as if she were performing the operation of stripping away leaves. — Italo Calvino

which had previously provided the translator safe haven. Pretending — Thomas Cahill

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

The choices that bedevil the writer bedevil the translator ten times over. — Margaret Atwood

Freud's translator accidentally omitted 'fashion' in the psychoanalytic list of primary instinctual drives; along with the drive to sexuality there is the drive to wear odd garments that may cut off circulation, occlude vision, make toes grow sideways, cause riots. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

My father, a Russian translator, wanted to distinguish me by calling me Misha, the Russian diminutive of his name, Michael. My name and work as a writer specialising in the Balkans has created a myth that I have Slavic connections, but actually I am British. — Misha Glenny

When I was 16 years old, I assembled a 2.3 million electron volt beta particle accelerator. I went to Westinghouse, I got 400 pounds of translator steel, 22 miles of copper wire, and I assembled a 6-kilowatt, 2.3 million electron accelerator in the garage. — Michio Kaku

My mom's a translator, my dad's a woodworker; that's the world I grew up in, that's the world I'm most comfortable in. The whole idea of Hollywood or any of that other stuff that unfortunately goes along with film, that wasn't part of my upbringing, thankfully. — Tatiana Maslany

The head is in charge of thinking; the heart is in charge of feeling; and the spirit realizes the creative, infinitely thriving power of life while imagination acts as translator and synthesizer. — Deborah Sandella

An engineer can look at the data, but he needs a translator from the cockpit - the driver - to understand it completely. For example, only the driver can tell you why he abruptly takes his foot off the gas pedal at a certain point. The data doesn't necessarily tell the engineer whether the driver made a mistake at that point or the car was acting up. The information the driver provides often helps determine the direction of development. — Michael Schumacher

When you entered the cavern of another language, you could leave certain people behind, for they had no interest in following you in. You could, by way of translation, emerge from the cavern and share your adventures with them. You didn't have to be an intellectual in a black beret smoking clove cigarettes to be a translator, not at all. You could become one in your blue flannel pajamas, your face smeared with Clearsil. You did. — Elizabeth Mckenzie

Zembla is a site devoted to the life and works of author, translator, and lepidopterist. — Vladimir Nabokov

There are more of you and he than you can probably imagine, but most are ashamed and seek to disappear in the foliage of American life. But your numbers are growing, and democracy gives you the best chance of finding your voice. Here you can learn how not to be torn apart by your opposing sides, but rather to balance them and benefit from both. Reconcile your divided allegiances and you will be the ideal translator between two sides, a goodwill ambassador to bring opposing nations to peace! — Viet Thanh Nguyen

The novelist's intuition for the sacred differs from the translator's interrogation of the sacred. — Cynthia Ozick

These are crystalline - oftentimes incandescent - translations of Juarroz's powerful metaphysical poems where eternity and silence jut up against a world where "writing infects the landscape" and there are "more letters than leaves" - The kind of match one hopes for where both the translator and the poet are in luck; new poems which don't leak and yet old poems in which the original passion shines. — Jorie Graham

It is only logical for the translator to become a part of the world of the author. — Ventseslav Konstantinov

Commemoration of Pandita Mary Ramabai, Translator of the Scriptures, 1922 A memory of yesterday's pleasures, a fear of tomorrow's dangers, a straw under my knees, a noise in my ear, a light in my eye, an anything, a nothing, a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayers. — John Donne

Actually, I'm frequently described as the UK's only translator of Korean literature, but even that isn't accurate - Agnita Tennant is UK-based, Janet Poole is British though lives in Toronto, Brother Anthony was born here though is now a naturalised Korean citizen. There's also Chi-young Kim and Sora Kim-Russell, who are younger and do fiction for commercial houses. — Deborah Smith

My name is Lev," said Lev.
"My name is Lydia," said the woman. And they shook hands, Lev's hand holding the scrunched-up kerchief and Lydia's hand rough with salt and smelling of egg, and then Lev asked, "What are you planning to do in En gland?" and Lydia said, "I have some interviews in London for jobs as a translator."
"That sounds promising."
"I hope so. I was a teacher of English at School 237 in Yarbl, so my language is very colloquial."
Lev looked at Lydia. It wasn't difficult to imagine her standing in front of a class and writing words on a blackboard. He said, "I wonder why you're leaving our country when you had a good job at School 237 in Yarbl?"
"Well," said Lydia, "I became very tired of the view from my window. Every day, summer and winter, I looked out at the schoolyard and the high fence and the apartment block beyond, and I began to imagine I would die seeing these things, and I didn't want this. I expect you understand what I mean? — Rose Tremain

The translator, we should know, is a writer too. As a matter of fact, he could be called the ideal writer because all he has to do is write; plot, theme, characters, and all other essentials have already been provided, so he can just sit down and write his ass off. (p. 8) — Gregory Rabassa

A good editor fixes. A superb editor fixes without ruining the original message of your book as a superb translator does as well. — B.A. Gabrielle

Eve talking to someone on her computer and having trouble with the language translator.
... "I have two like crimes. Your data and your input on Leclerk would be very helpful"
Marie pursed her lips and humor danced in her eyes.
"It says you would like to have sex with me. I don't think that is correct"
"Oh, for Christ sake" Eve slammed a fist against the machine ... — J.D. Robb

Thomas Teal, a luminous translator of Jansson's twin talent for surface and depth, simplicity and reverberation in language, and someone who knows exactly how to convey her gift for sensing the meaning embedded in the most mundane act or turn of phrase. — Ali Smith

We're like two dogs in battle on their own;
They fought all day but neither got the bone,
There came a kite above them, nothing loth,
And while they fought he took it from them both."
From Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale — Geoffrey Chaucer

As a physician and as a pilot, I think it lets me be a pretty good translator having one foot in the medical world and one foot in the flying world. Sometimes when the medical guys come in and speak medical stuff to the pilots, the pilots really don't know what they're saying. — David M. Brown

I have always maintained that translation is essentially the closest reading one can possibly give a text. The translator cannot ignore "lesser" words, but must consider every jot and tittle. — Gregory Rabassa

One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked. — Anita Diament

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

The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. 'Impeccable credentials' means you've never lived outside the United States. — Michael Bloomberg

The troll rumbled away in the direction of the coal store and his place in front of Billy was taken by a smartly dressed young lady with an air of authority. 'Sir, I think the railway is going to need a translator. I know every language and dialect on the Disc.' Her voice was firm but there was a glint of excitement in her eyes as she looked at Iron Girder and the other engines in the compound and Billy knew she was hooked. He also knew that 'translator' was not on his list of vacancies and sent her off to Sir Harry's office, while he returned to his search for shunters, tappers and other workers. And so the line moved on again. It seemed everybody wanted to be part of the railway. — Terry Pratchett

Robin Buss is a writer and translator who contributes regularly to The Times Educational Supplement, The Times Literary Supplement and other papers. — Alexandre Dumas

Intrinsic to the concept of a translator's fidelity to the effect and impact of the original is making the second version of the work as close to the first writer's intention as possible. A good translator's devotion to that goal is unwavering. But what never should be forgotten or overlooked is the obvious fact that what we read in a translation is the translator's writing. The inspiration is the original work, certainly, and thoughtful literary translators approach that work with great deference and respect, but the execution of the book in another language is the task of the translator, and that work should be judged and evaluated on its own terms. Still, most reviewers do not acknowledge the fact of translation except in the most perfunctory way, and a significant majority seem incapable of shedding light on the value of the translation or on how it reflects or illuminates the original. — Edith Grossman

Raimon Casellas is the writer (not Raimoun)
Alan Yates the translator
Eva Bosch the editor — Casellas Raimoun Yates Alan

There is a book to be written, for instance, on small errors in subtitles. In the Fred Astaire musical Royal Wedding, for instance, the English girl he falls for, played by Sarah Churchill (daughter of Sir Winston), is engaged to an American, whom we never see but who's called Hal - like Falstaff's prince, like a good high Englishman. That English H, though, was completely inaudible to the French translator who did the subtitles, and so throughout the film the absent lover is referred to in the subtitles as Al - Al like a stagehand, Al like my grandfather. If you have the habit of print addiction, so that you are listening and reading at the same time, this guy Al keeps forcing his way into the movie. "But what shall I say to Hal - that I have never loved him?" Patricia says to Fred. Down below it says, "Et Al - qu'est-ce que je vais lui dire? — Adam Gopnik

I wanted to be her north star. I wanted to be her map. I wanted to drink coffee with her in the cafes in the morning and do things, as you do, as she did, instead of just philosophizing about them and deconstructing their endless Russian-doll layers of meaning. I was alone before I met her. I wanted to disappear with her, and fold her into my life. I wanted to be her compass. I wanted to be her last speaker, her interpreter, her language. I wanted to be her translator, Zed, but none of the languages we knew were the same. — Emily St. John Mandel

No one is charismatic. Someone becomes charismatic in history, socially. The question for me is once again the problem of humility. If the leader discovers that he is becoming charismatic not because of his or her qualities but because mainly he or she is being able to express the expectations of a great mass of people, then he or she is much more of a translator of the aspirations and dreams of the people, instead of being the creator of the dreams. In expressing the dreams, he or she is recreating these dreams. If he or she is humble, I think that the danger of power would diminish. — Myles Horton

So the poor translator must not just go back and forth between two languages, but if he is worthy of his calling must shift between two selves, with all the perils of this induced schizophrenia. — Gregory Rabassa

To have the translator be a figure in the book's presentation seems like a big thing, especially for a book that's really popular. — Ann Goldstein

He pondered that a little while and then he asked, do Black people have to pay for their doctors, too? Because that's what TV programs had said. I smiled a little at this and told him it's not only Black people who have to pay for doctors and medical care; all people in America have to. Ah, he said. And suppose you don't have the money to pay? Well, I said, if you don't have the money to pay, sometimes you died. And there was no mistaking my gesture, even though he had to wait for the translator to translate it. We left him looking absolutely nonplussed, standing in the middle of the square with his mouth open and his hand under his chin staring after me, as in utter amazement that human beings could die from lack of medical care. It's things like that that keep me dreaming about Russia long after I've returned. — Audre Lorde

All nonfiction writers, whether they like it or not, are translators. The translator is the perfect journalist. The best journalism endeavors to convey an essential idea or story to an audience that knows very little about it, and that requires translation. To do this successfully, the writer must filter the idea through the prism of his eye, and his mind, and his writing style. — Ilan Stavans

Glory, for the translator, is borrowed glory. There is no way around this. Translators are celebrated when they translate celebrated books. — Tim Parks

A poet is the translator of the silent language of nature to the world. — Rufus Wilmot Griswold

They were beautiful books, sometimes very thick, sometimes very thin, always typographically exhilarating, with their welter of title pages, subheads, epigraphs, emphatic italics, italicized catchwords taken from German philosophy and too subtle for translation, translator's prefaces and footnotes, and Kierkegaard's own endless footnotes, blanketing pages at a time as, crippled, agonized by distinctions, he scribbled on and on, heaping irony on irony, curse on curse, gnashing, sneering, praising Jehovah in the privacy of his empty home in Copenhagen. — John Updike

The arts are not a frill. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature, and help to shape our identity. What is there that can transcend deep difference and stubborn divisions? The arts. They have a wonderful universality. Art has the potential to unify. It can speak in many languages without a translator. The arts do not discriminate. The arts lift us up. — Barbara Jordan

It's important to get a translator who will ask the questions in a sensitive and thoughtful way. Knowing the ethnicity issues, the tribal issues in some places ... who your translator is can mean a lot. — Peter Menzel

Now it's the age for the translator. It's the age for the bridge builder. It's the age for Velcro. It's the age for Lego. It's the age for combining what we already have into what we need. — Van Jones