237 Quotes About Translation

There is no such thing as a perfect, ideal, or 'correct' translation. A translator is always trying to extend his knowledge and improve his means of expression; he is always pursuing facts and words.

I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you will allow it. Brackets are exciting. Even though you are approaching Sappho in translation, that is no reason you should miss the drama of trying to read a papyrus torn in half or riddled with holes or smaller than a postage stamp--brackets imply a free space of imaginal adventure.

Overly literal translations, far from being faithful, actually distort meaning by obscuring sense.

Translation is a two-edged instrument: it has the special purpose of demonstrating the learner's knowledge of the foreign language, either as a form of control or to exercise his intelligence in order to develop his competence.

There can never be an absolutely final translation.

In antiquity , for instance, one of the dominant images of the translators was that of a builder: his (usually it was him, not her) task was to carefully demolish a building, a structure (the source text), carry the bricks somewhere else (into the target culture), and construct a new building - with the same bricks.

Larinas – profesorius, kuris moka lietuvių kalbą, o Šišova – poetė, kuri kiaurai pažįsta Cvirkiuką ir girdi, kaip skleidžiasi gėlelė. (Larinas is a professor who knows the Lithuanian language, but Šišova is a poet who understands Cvirka completely, and hears the flower blossoming)(Laiškas Z. Šišovai, Vilnius, 1947 m. balandžio 29 d., iš Petras Cvirka Raštai VII, Vilnius: Vaga, 1986.)

Oh my goodness!!!I’ve wasted too many years trying to translate who I am to a bunch of people who weren’t meant to decipher me.

Never refuse wine. I'm telling you,people come smiling in spring winds:peach and plum like old friends, theiropen blossoms scattering toward me,singing orioles in jade-green trees,and moonlight probing gold winejars.