Authors:
  1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. V
  4. Vladimir Nabokov
  5. The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more...

The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.

Vladimir Nabokov
Thousand, Paraphrase, Prettiest
Vladimir Nabokov (2012). “Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977”, p.179, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.