A COLLECTION OF GOOD WORDS
作家
Writer
Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.
一个作家对小说艺术或工艺的了解，只会使他对写作的需要或欲望减少一点点。最后他知道了所有的诀窍，却无话可说。
A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.
许多年轻的作家会犯这样的错误，把一个贴好邮票、写好地址的信封放在信封里，信封足够大，可以把手稿寄回来。这对编辑来说诱惑太大了。
It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers - for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you know what I mean.
我想，这本书和大多数书一样，都是作者为他们自己写的。有些东西是必须写出来的，以一种必须写出来的方式。如果你明白我的意思。
What makes me furious, not just because we're in an interview, but I don't like when writers take your words and put them somewhere else, in the wrong context in their own article about you.
让我愤怒的不仅仅是因为我们在接受采访，还因为我不喜欢作家把你的话放在其他地方，放在他们自己关于你的文章的错误语境中。
For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda.
对我这个作家来说，故事总是比其他任何事情都重要。我从来没有坐下来写东西的时候脑子里想的都是些宽泛的、包罗万象的想法，当然也从来没有一个具体的议程。
Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.
科幻小说作家，我很抱歉地说，真的什么都不知道。我们不能谈论科学，因为我们对科学的知识是有限的和非官方的，通常我们的小说是可怕的。
I'm not on the run from anything and I'm not at all clear about what I'm running towards. But as some great writer put it, I want to be certain that when I arrive at death, I'm totally exhausted.
我没有逃避任何事情，我也不清楚我要奔向什么。但正如一些伟大的作家所说，我想确定，当我到达死亡时，我已经筋疲力尽了。
A collection of short stories is generally thought to be a horrendous clinker; an enforced courtesy for the elderly writer who wants to display the trophies of his youth, along with his trout flies.
短篇小说集通常被认为是可怕的熟料;对这位想要展示自己年轻时的战利品和鳟鱼蝇的年长作家来说，这是一种强制性的礼貌。
But it also became the experience, or was the experience, of the writers who were attracted to this kind of humor. They're all men or women who come from the same kind of experience in their own lives.
但它也变成了一种经历，或者说，被这种幽默所吸引的作家的经历。他们都是来自于自己生活中同样经历的男人或女人。
Memory is not particularly linear - it is associative, repetitive, subjective and porous. But the writer needs to convey disorder and dysfunction without making the novel itself disorderly or dysfunctional.
记忆不是特别线性的——它是联想的、重复的、主观的、多孔的。但作者需要传达的是无序和功能失调，而不是让小说本身混乱或功能失调。
I really enjoy the writing process because I can do it from my house. I can create these characters and take them in the different directions that I want to take them. You have a lot of freedom as a writer.
我真的很享受写作的过程，因为我可以在家里写。我可以创造这些角色，把他们带到我想带他们去的不同方向。作为一名作家，你有很多自由。
The last motive in the world for acquiring vocabulary should be to impress. Words should be acquired because we urgently need them -- to convey, to reach, to express something within us, and to understand others.
学习词汇的最后一个动机应该是给人留下深刻印象。语言是需要后天习得的，因为我们迫切需要它们——去传达，去触及，去表达我们内心的某种东西，去理解他人。
KEEP EXPLORING
沿着这个主题，再读几句。
Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.
作家灵魂的每一个秘密，生活的每一次经历，思想的每一种品质都写在他的作品中。
I'm not the slowest writer that you know.
我不是你所知道的写得最慢的作家。
Brooklyn is kind of my writer's retreat.
布鲁克林是我的作家的隐居地。
I've been trying to find women writers for my staff for a while now and I have three women on my staff and three guys so it's pretty equal. I don't know why that is. It's been the same thing for a while. It's hard for female comedians to stand out. That's weird. That's a shame.
一段时间以来，我一直在为我的员工寻找女性作家，我的员工中有三名女性和三名男性，所以男女比例相当。我不知道为什么。一段时间以来都是一样的。女喜剧演员很难脱颖而出。这是奇怪的。这是一个耻辱。
I've learned so much as both a writer and a human.
作为一个作家和一个人，我学到了很多。
I have learned to respect ideas, wherever they come from. Often they come from clients. Account executives often have big creative ideas, regardless of what some writers think.
我学会了尊重思想，无论它们来自何方。他们通常来自客户。不管一些作家怎么想，客户经理通常都有很大的创意。