Quotes About Translation

Translated poetry filled the no-man's-land between my own work and other writers', and I found this fascinating to explore.

I wish more Italian literature were translated and read in English. I've discovered so many extraordinary and diverse writers: Lalla Romano, Carlo Cassola. Beppe Fenoglio, Giorgio Manganelli, just to name a few.

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.

As pessoas dizem «meu Deus!» a toda a hora, mas habitualmente querem dizer «ora bolas».

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.

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)

She would speak her story in Spanish and la señora Maureen would tell hers in English; it was obvious to her that the two languages did not carry equal weight.

and worst of all, the unmentionable Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, in Olaus Wormius' forbidden Latin translation; a book which I had never seen, but of which I had heard monstrous things whispered.

Das den Nürnberger Prozessen zugrunde liegende Londoner Statut hat, wie bereits erwähnt, die Verbrechen gegen die Menschheit als unmenschliche Handlungen definiert, woraus dann in der deutschen Übersetzung die bekannten Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit geworden sind - als hätten es die Nazis lediglich an Menschlichkeit fehlen lassen, als sie Millionen in die Gaskammern schickten, wahrhaftig das Understatement des Jahrhunderts.

There is something about the way that Greek poets, say Aeschylus, use metaphor that really attracts me. I don't think I can imitate it, but there's a density to it that I think I'm always trying to push towards in English.

Translation makes me look at how a poem is put together in a different way, without the personal investment of the poem I'm writing myself, but equally closely technically.

In language gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English?

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.

The verb 'to love' in Persian is 'to have a friend.' 'I love you' translated literally is 'I have you as a friend,' and 'I don't like you' simply means 'I don't have you as a friend.'

Maybe all the secrets of life were written on the surface of leaves, waiting to be translated. If I touched them long enough, I might be given some information no one else had.

I would love mainland Chinese to read my book. There is a Chinese translation which I worked on myself, published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many copies have gone into China but it is still banned.

Something may have been lost in translation, but it certainly wasn't love

On this platform of peace, we can create a language to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

Cementerio El Encinal meant Cemetery of Many Oaks (I'm taking Spanish so that when Jesse and I have kids, I'll understand what he's saying when he yells at them in his mother tongue).

I believe she imbued my body thus, finding every touch enhanced by ambiguity of intention, as if it too required translation, and so each touch branched out, became a variety of touches.

at the Catholic DePaul University, Michael Naas and Pascale-Anne Brault were faithful translators as well as friends.

Latin! The language of God! Or perhaps He speaks Hebrew? I suppose that's more likely and it will make things rather awkward in heaven, won't it? Will we all have to learn Hebrew?

Sigtryggr had been given an honorable place at the table, as had my daughter. "It was her fault," Sigtryggr said, nodding toward Stiorra. I translated for Æthelflaed. "Why her fault?" she asked. "He saw her and was distracted," I explained.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand. I would rather be reported by my bitterest enemy among philosophers than by a friend innocent of philosophy.