Hard Quote by Judith Thurman

Our chronic discomfort with ambiguity - which, ironically, is critical to both our creativity and the richness of our lives - leads us to…

— Maria Popova

There are multiple descriptions of the same real world situation. The only justification for language is to empower yourself. If the verbal description you…

— Moshe Feldenkrais

“My goal is to act as a faithful interpreter, preserving as much of the original's nuances of meaning as possible without embellishment or omission.…

— Ken Liu

“Description begins with visualization of what it is you want the reader to experience. It ends with you translating what you see in your…

— Stephen King

The moment we shake our addiction to narrative and give up our strong-headed intent that language must say something "meaningful," we open ourselves up…

— Kenneth Goldsmith

“It is the nature of languages that a pretty translation is not accurate, and an accurate translation finds its own beauty without help.”

— Fraus-Dolus

So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.

— John Locke

Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey his notions…

— Samuel Johnson

“To perceive how language works, what pitfalls it conceals, what its possibilities are, is to comprehend a crucial aspect of the complicated business of…

— S.I. Hayakawa

I subject my sentences and the words to a kind of Grand Inquisition. I'm trying always to leave out what I think is extraneous.…

— Lynne Tillman

Fidelity to meaning alone in translation is a kind of betrayal.

— Paul Valery

“To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world—in order to set up a shadow world of “meanings.”

— Susan Sontag