Martin Amis Quotes

In the last 1,000 years, the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in just one year.

The English book world is relatively closed to translation, so only a small amount of foreign language work can come in.

For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.

Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved both with poetry and with the language that I've found myself living in much of the time. I think the two feed each other.

Being published in Arabic is a strong and consistent wish I have. I live in the Middle East and want to be in some sort of an unpragmatic dialogue with my neighbors.

I have friends who read my books in Greek.

I am the only British writer who writes in Spanish.

I want my words to survive translation.

One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages.

A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with singing it in Spanish. The point is it’s the United States national anthem and what people want is it to be sung in a way that respects the United States and our culture. At the same time, we are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of many, many languages, because immigrants come and bring their languages.

For the benefit of those who are not bilingual, I will now continue in English.

We shall now cease using the eloquent language (Arabic) …. We would fain speak in the Persian tongue that perchance the people of Persia, one and all, may become aware of the utterances of the merciful Lord, and come forth to discover the Truth.

The Christians love to read the poems and romances of the Arabs…. Christians have even forgotten their own language. There are a thousand who can express themselves with elegance, and write better poems in Arabic than the Arabs themselves.

Mine is a European imagination, shaped largely by my very promiscuous reading in German, French, English and, with greater difficulty, Italian.

I cherish our songs in both Japanese and English.

Visit any bookshop in Europe, and the shelves are filled with English novels and non-fiction books in translation - while British bookshops stock mainly English and American works.

Poetry is what is gained in translation.

There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.

Of course my books are translated into many languages. I have here, in my home, translations on my shelf of my books into forty-five different languages. Almost none of them I can read. I can read only the English editions. But, I know that a translation of a work of literature is like playing a violin concerto on the piano. You can do this. You can do this very successfully on one strict condition: never try to force the piano to produce the sounds of the violin. This will be grotesque. So, different musical instruments provide for different music.

It is my huge pleasure that my novels are translated into languages that are read among small numbers of people.

My book would come out in one language, then it would come out in another language, then it would come out in One City, One Read, and I was always being called away from my desk.

I do not hesitate to read. all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable-any real insight or broad human sentiment.

I'm not a collector. I don't keep letters, or books, or souvenirs. But I do keep one copy of each translation of my books into a foreign language. Have you ever seen a murder story printed in Singhalese? Wow!

Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican.