Noiseuse Translation Quotes

#1. We find "Nirvana" rendered by "annihilation" (no one stops to ask of what?), though the word means "despiration", as Meister Eckhart uses the term. I accuse the majority of Christian writers of a certain irresponsibility, or even levity, in their references to other religions. I should never dream of making use of a Gospel text without referring to the Greek, and considering also the earlier history of the Greek words employed, and I demand as much of Christian writers.
To THE NEW ENGLISH WEEKLY, LONDON - January 8, 1946 #Quote by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

#2. There is an old Italian proverb about the nature of translation: "Traddutore, traditore!" This means simply, "Translators-traitors!" Of course, as you can see, something is lost in the translation of this pithy expression: there is great similarity in both the spelling and the pronunciation of the original saying, but these get diluted once they are put in English dress. Even the translation of this proverb illustrates its truth! #Quote by Daniel Wallace

#3. There's a Cuban saying: Bicho malo nunca muere. Loose translation: The good die young but the wicked live forever. It seems to apply to Fidel. I hope it applies to me. #Quote by Gustavo Perez Firmat

#4. Of the 193 recognized countries in the world, only politically isolated North Korea is considered monolingual. #Quote by Nataly Kelly

#5. Translations
A literary translation is like a spouse who thinks they can cheat on you because business has brought them to a foreign city. #Quote by Beryl Dov

#6. But Spanish and English aren't different languages, only extreme dialects of Latin. It's almost possible to translate word for word. Translation from a language unrelated to English is nothing to do with equivalent words. Whenever I'd tried to do that in Chinese I'd come out with unbroken nonsense. I had to forget the English, hang the meaning up in a well-lit gallery, stare at it hard, then describe it afresh. #Quote by Natasha Pulley

#7. She looked at Connor. "How old are you?"
His jaw shifted. "I doona discuss my private life."
"I can translate that for you," Phineas offered. "It means he's embarrassed he was a caveman and ate brontosaurus burgers for lunch."
Connor arched an eyebrow at him. "The correct translation is 'sod off.' #Quote by Kerrelyn Sparks

#8. It soon became obvious, even with9in the stedding, that the Pattern was grwoing frail. The sky darkened. Our dead appeared, standing in rings outside the broders of the stedding, looking in. Most troubingly, trees fell ill, and no song would heal them.
It was in this time of sorrows that I stepped up to the Great Stump. At first, I was forbidden, but my mother, covril, demanded I have my chance. I do not know wht sparked her change of heart, as she herself had argued quite decisvely for the opposing side. My hands shook. I would be the last speaker, and most seemed to have already made up their minds to open the Book of Translation. They considered me an afterthought.
And I knew that unless I spoke true, humanity would be left along to face the Shadow. In that moment, my nervousness fled. I felt only a stilness, a calm sense of purpose. I opened my mouth, and I began to speak.
-from The Dragon Reborn, by Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, of Stedding Shangtai #Quote by Brandon Sanderson

#9. I've wanted so many things in life," he says softly, "but you're the one that has meant the most to me."
Translation: I love you. #Quote by Krista Ritchie

#10. When you finish anything, people want you to then talk about it. And I think it's almost like a crime. A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it's not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language – it's not going to translate. It's going to lose. #Quote by David Lynch

#11. Few people realize that the Bible discourages people from studying foreign languages. They story of the tower of Babel informs us that there is one humanity (God's one), only that "our languages are confused." That has always meant that, say, any German philosopher could know exactly what the Chinese people were thinking, only that he couldn't understand them. So instead of learning the foreign language, he demanded a translation. #Quote by Thorsten J. Pattberg

#12. In any Arthurian text, whether a rewriting, a translation or a complication of episodes, engages implicitly as well as explicitly with the surrounding context provided by this corpus, and the reader cannot help but situate their reading in relation to this #Quote by Laura Chuchan Campbell

#13. Translation presents not merely a paradigm but the utmost case of engaged literary interpretation #Quote by John Felstiner

#14. Something may have been lost in translation, but it certainly wasn't love #Quote by Erich Segal

#15. And after I started working for the Bureau, most of my translation duties included translations of documents and investigations that actually started way before 9/11. #Quote by Sibel Edmonds

#16. There exists a chance of every poem getting changed while reaching every reader. This 'getting changed' is a form of 'getting translated', in a way. So, every assimilation of any poem is a translation. #Quote by Suman Pokhrel

#17. Translation is at best an echo. #Quote by George Borrow

#18. I fixed her a drink, then lowered myself on the spider's silk of my attention back into One Hundred Years of Solitude and the adventures of the Buendia family. The scene where the prodigal Jose Arcadio hoisted his adopted sister by her waist into his hammock and, in my translation, 'quartered her like a little bird' made my face hot. I bent down the page, whose small triangle marks the instant.
Touching that triangle of yellowed paper today is like sliding my hand into the glove of my seventeen-year-old hand. Through magic, there are the Iowa fields slipping by ... And there is my mother, not yet born into the ziplock baggie of ash my sister sent me years ago with the frank message 'Mom 1/2', written in laundry pen, since no-one in our family ever stood on ceremony. #Quote by Mary Karr

#19. [T]he only luxury he allows himself is buying books, paperback books, mostly novels, American novels, British novels, foreign novels in translation, but in the end books are not luxuries so much as necessities, and reading is an addiction he has no wish to be cured of. #Quote by Paul Auster

#20. I'm not a collector. I don't keep letters, or books, or souvenirs. But I do keep one copy of each translation of my books into a foreign language. Have you ever seen a murder story printed in Singhalese? Wow! #Quote by Rex Stout

#21. Art lovers collect paintings that demonstrate some form of imperceptible complexity. Abstract images with vague messages and symbols that keep you guessing and wondering what it all means, if anything. What these art buffs don't seem to realize is that true complexity - the real abstract image - lies in something as simple and as random as a family photo. If they bothered to look deeply and closely enough into these unremarkable images, they would see the lies, the sorrow and the dark secrets that hide behind the superficial smiles and forced joviality. A picture is worth a thousand words, but most of those words get lost in translation. #Quote by Mindy Fordham

#22. In the kitchens of love, after all, vice is like the pepper in a good sauce; it brings out the flavor, it's indispensable. #Quote by Louis Ferdinand Celine

#23. What's this bit in Chinese that keeps popping up?" he said. "Xuĕ Lóng?"
"It's the codename for the operation."
"What does it mean?"
"Xuĕ Lóng is a mythical Chinese creature said to bring darkness, cold, and death."
"What's the translation?"
"In English, it would be called a snow dragon. #Quote by Brad Thor

#24. The magic gets lost in translation. #Quote by Richard Roeper

#25. TRULY, "thoughts are things," and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a BURNING DESIRE for their translation into riches, or other material objects. A #Quote by Napoleon Hill

#26. There is no rule that says we must translate a word as a word; we can translate a word as a phrase, or even as a sentence. The crucial point here is that we need to understand the source and nature of the difficulty in order to come up with viable translation candidates from which to choose. #Quote by Mustafa Mughazy

#27. Men talk of "the mistakes of Scripture." I thank God that I have never met with any. Mistakes of translation there may be, for translators are men. But mistakes of the original word there never can be, for the God who spoke it is infallible, and so is every word he speaks, and in that confidence we find delightful rest. #Quote by Charles Spurgeon

#28. We could go up to the top of the hill,
and restructure our entrance,
do away
with the contradiction of being
nowhere but here,
the assumed proportion of a presence
that will always escape,
of being nowhere
but near
the presumed indifference
that solicits our wakefulness.
Day begins
its indiscreet translation
once again,
flowing through the pearl white of loss,
or the indelible deep blue
of fractured words.
Remove emptiness.
Replace nothing. #Quote by Jay Wright

#29. I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.
***
Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue. Where is the frenzy with which you should be inoculated. Behold. I give you the Ubermensch. He is this lightning. He is this frenzy. #Quote by Friedrich Nietzsche

#30. A translator is a reader, an interpreter and a creator all in one. #Quote by Bijay Kumar Das

#31. I was very lucky. I don't know German, or Dutch, or Chinese, or Thai. I don't know them, so I can't judge, so I have to go on the word of the publisher that it's a good translation. #Quote by Sandra Cisneros