Quote from Proust

Translators unfortunately get used to people looking down on us and thinking that what we do is less important or creative than what writers do. So that’s one reason why I like this quote from Proust, because it equates writing with translating. And of course I always say that translators have to be great writers themselves, which many people seem to forget.

To write that essential book, a great writer does not need to invent it but merely to translate it, since it already exists in each one of us. The duty and task of a writer are those of translator. -Marcel Proust