“Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence.”— Tahar Ben Jelloun
“Translation is one of the most important and difficult of all literary exercises.”— August Wilhelm von Schlegel
“The writer is creating something out of nothing, whereas the translator is recreating something that’s already there.”— William Weaver
“You have to be a little bit of an actor. You have to be able to hear the author’s voice and then reproduce it in your own language.”— William Weaver
“Translation is a mysterious thing. The reader is the protagonist, the true hero of this story.”— Jhumpa Lahiri
“Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.”— George Steiner
“Translation is a kind of drawing from the life, where there is not so much need of fancy as of faithfulness.”— Abraham Tucker
“Sometimes you find a word that is exactly right, and it’s a wonderful feeling. It’s like finding a four-leaf clover.”— William Weaver
“You try to get the flavor of the original, but you have to be aware that you're creating something new.”— William Weaver