A Quote by Milan Kundera

Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament.

Milan Kundera

Quote Topics

Common Europe European Exist Fruit Immense Important Members More Parliament Than Thought Toil Translators Without Would

Quote Author

Milan Kundera
Czechoslovakian - Writer
Born: April 1, 1929

I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I've learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself.

Michael Cunningham

I have a deep love for the art of translation, and I couldn't find a novel that captured the fascinating, reckless adventure of it as I'd experienced it, or portrayed translators as the passionate risk-takers that so many of the translators I know are. So I wrote the book I couldn't find.

Idra Novey

Usually the German translators do something terrible, especially with Tom Wolfe, which is that they make it local. So if the characters are from Harlem, the translators put all this Berlin slang into their mouths, and that's just terrible. You cringe when you read that. But there really is no good solution to the problem, except learning English.

Daniel Kehlmann

It has to be said that one of the most impressive aspects of the parliament are the brilliant unsung translators, who ensure that whatever language you speak, you are understood.

Claire Fox

We are all mediators, translators.

Jacques Derrida

The writing I do makes great demands on translators.

W. G. Sebald

Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality.

Edith Sitwell

Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good.

Etgar Keret

Economically and politically, Germany is extremely stable. There are countries with functioning governments whose institutions don't work. My only concern is about Europe. There's a risk we will run out of time. We have been blessed with a pro-European French president, but we are also approaching the next elections for the European Parliament in 2019, and it will be important for pro-European parties present a credible answer to the anti-Europeans on the left and the right.

Sigmar Gabriel

I have a tendency to trust translators, mainly because nobody does it for the money.

Juan Gabriel

I come from a family of linguists. My maternal grandparents have been authors and translators.

Ishaan Khatter

My objective is that before the end of the millennium Europe should have a true federation. The Commission should become a political executive which can define essential common interests... responsible before the European Parliament and before the nation-states represented how you will, by the European Council or by a second chamber of national parliaments.

Jacques Delors

My most interesting correspondence is with my translators. I marvel at their sensitivity over certain passages that just anyone, even if he knows German well, would not appreciate.

Heinrich Boll

It is useless to read Greek in translation; translators can but offer us a vague equivalent.

Virginia Woolf

I was in the second year of my PhD when I first had the idea - I'd recently started working as a translator, which meant firstly that I was hearing about amazing-sounding books from other translators, and also that I was getting enough of an insider's view of the publishing industry to be aware of all the implicit biases that made it so difficult for these books to ever get published, especially if they weren't from European languages (harder to discover, editors can't read the original, lack of funding programmes, authors who don't speak English).