GTE Localize > GTE's Quotes

“Translator is a journey over a sea from one shore to the other.
Sometimes I think of myself as a smuggler: I cross the frontier of language with my booty of words, ideas, images, and metaphors.”
― Amara Lakhous

“Translation is not a matter of words only; it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.”
― Anthony Burgess

“Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.”
― Chomsky, Noam

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
― Nelson Mandela

“Without translation, we would be living in provinces bordering on silence.”
― George Steiner

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
― Mark Twain, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations

“Writers make national literature, while translators make universal literature.”
― José Saramago

“Do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery.”
― Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother