The
test of a given phrase would be: Is it worthy to be
immortal? To ''make a beeline'' for something.
That's worthy of being immortal and is immortal in
English idiom. ''I guess I'll split'' is not going
to be immortal and is excludable, therefore
excluded.
-- Robert Fitzgerald
1910-1985, American
Scholar, Translator
To
translate, one must have a style of his own, for
otherwise 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
1911-1972, American
Author, Poet, Critic
Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I
have felt that the art of writing is itself
translating, or more like translating than it is
like anything else. What is the other text, the
original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the
source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one
catches them in nets of words and swings them
shining into the boat... where in this metaphor they
die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.
-- Ursula K. Le Guin
1929-, American
Author
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
1867-1963, American
Classical Scholar, Translator
