Edith Grossman Quotes
Fidelity is surely our highest aim, but a translation is not made with tracing paper. It is an act of critical interpretation. Let me insist on the obvious: Languages trail immense, individual histories behind them, and no two languages, with all their accretions of tradition and culture, ever dovetail perfectly. They can be linked by translation, as a photograph can link movement and stasis, but it is disingenuous to assume that either translation or photography, or acting for that matter, are representational in any narrow sense of the term. Fidelity is our noble purpose, but it does not have much, if anything, to do with what is called literal meaning. A translation can be faithful to tone and intention, to meaning. It can rarely be faithful to words or syntax, for these are peculiar to specific languages and are not transferable.
Edith Grossman
Quotes to Explore
People should be able to express their culture without getting into all that chauvinistic thing.
Irvine Welsh
The music is just so rich and part of the culture there. I suddenly felt like I needed to go on this mission to make sure we save New Orleans because - not that I can save anything - but it's so much part of what this country is, this whole mix of people coming together and doing this thing.
Harold Perrineau
I come from a country and also a continent whose identity is in the making. We're a very young culture, and I think that things are not yet crystallised.
Walter Salles
I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.
Salma Hayek
If you live only in one culture for the first 20 years of your life, you become conditioned without knowing it.
Eckhart Tolle
You don't have to spend much time in Shanghai before you start to get all existential about the meaning of authenticity. Did you know that Shanghai is building nine satellite towns, each designed to mimic the architecture and culture of a different country?
Patricia Marx
Giving up at something that no longer serves a purpose, or protects you, or helps you, isn't giving up at all, it's growing up.
Laurell K. Hamilton
Our self-esteem and conceit are European, but our culture and actions are Asiatic.
Anton Chekhov
I say to my industrialist friends, when you have guests from out of town, I don't care how important they are, you should feed them the essence of Italian culture: spaghetti, bread and olive oil.
Brunello Cucinelli
A lot of my friends have tattoos; I realized that it's not only just a part of pop culture, but a bit of a map on someone's body, which says something about people. A part of their life, like an armor or a crest.
Christian Louboutin
Kinsey was trying to study sex scientifically, get rid of the overlay of culture and religion.
Bill Condon
A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
David Hume
I've been interested in terrorism from the very beginning. My first novel is about that, too, and I think one reason I've been so interested in terrorism is because I have a deep interest - one of my deepest interests - in image culture and how it works. And terrorism is an epiphenomenon of image culture.
Jennifer Egan
I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn't in Berlin to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I'd learned long ago... the only victory that counts is the one over yourself.
Jesse Owens
I am first of all from La Castellane and Marseille.
Zinedine Zidane
If God had not intended that Women shou'd use their Reason, He wou'd not have given them any, 'for He does nothing in vain.'
Mary Astell
Fidelity is surely our highest aim, but a translation is not made with tracing paper. It is an act of critical interpretation. Let me insist on the obvious: Languages trail immense, individual histories behind them, and no two languages, with all their accretions of tradition and culture, ever dovetail perfectly. They can be linked by translation, as a photograph can link movement and stasis, but it is disingenuous to assume that either translation or photography, or acting for that matter, are representational in any narrow sense of the term. Fidelity is our noble purpose, but it does not have much, if anything, to do with what is called literal meaning. A translation can be faithful to tone and intention, to meaning. It can rarely be faithful to words or syntax, for these are peculiar to specific languages and are not transferable.
Edith Grossman
