American Translator Quotes

The shadows of twilight grow,
And the tiger's ancient fierceness
In my veins begins to flow.

William Wetmore Story

Offspring were a joy or a shame, but still the crown of their elders, nature's unpredictable creatures.

The Hindus are busy letting themselves be seen riding in Cadillacs instead of smearing themselves with sandalwood paste and bowing in front of Ganpati. The Moslems would rather miss evening prayer than the new Disney movie. The Buddhists think it's more important to take over in the name of Stalin and Progress than to meditate on the four basic sorrows. And we don't even have to mention Christianity or Judaism.

No one warns young people to follow Adam's example. He waited till God saw his need. Then God made Adam sleep, prepared for his mate, and brought her to him. We need more of this 'being asleep' in the will of God. Then we can receive what He brings us in His own time, if at all. Instead we are set as bloodhounds after a partner, considering everyone we see until our minds are so concerned with the sex problem that we can talk of nothing else when bull-session time comes around. It is true that a fellow cannot ignore women — but he can think of them as he ought — as sisters, not as sparring partners!

I manage a toast to the Christmas tree and one to the sweet absurdity in the miracle of the verb to be. Lucky you, lucky me.

Miller Williams

No man can establish title to an idea — at most he can only claim possession. The stream of thought that irrigates the mind of each of us is a confluent of the intellectual river that drains the whole of the living universe.

Maurice Valency

Would I be able to transfer my contemporary experience as a translator to the past and feel some measure of ease as I brought the Spanish of the seventeenth century over into the English of the twenty-first?

The moon, appearing every month in several phases, is symbolic of the Jewish people whose history has assumed a variety of phases. Like the moon, they reappear aftern being eclipsed.

Philip Birnbaum

Like the best convenience store in the world, / the mind is always open.

Throughout my life, I have always found that events which seemed at the time disastrous ultimately developed into positive blessings.

Elisabeth Marbury

Wherever the Jew is found he is a problem, a source of unhappiness to himself and to those around him. Ever since he has been scattered in your midst he has had to maintain a continuous struggle for the conservation of his identity.