A COLLECTION OF GOOD WORDS
小说
Fiction
So I wrote what I hoped would be science fiction, I was not at all sure if what I wrote would be acceptable even. But I don't say that I consciously wrote with humour. Humour is a part of you that comes out.
所以我写了我希望是科幻小说的东西，我甚至不确定我写的东西是否可以被接受。但我并不是说我有意识地用幽默写作。幽默是你与生俱来的一部分。
Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.
写小说使我对人的一生中未知的东西产生了一种持久的敬意，让我有了一种去哪里寻找线索、如何追随、如何联系的感觉，在错综复杂的世界中找到一条清晰的线。
I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line.
我有一些朋友，他们能够写一个非常粗略的草稿，然后回去刺绣——他们有点像小说的大教堂建造者。我从来都不知道自己在做什么，我所有的快乐都在这条线上。
One of the things that writing has taught me is that fiction has a life of its own. Fictional places are sometimes more real than the view from our bedroom window. Fictional people can sometimes become as close to us as our loved ones.
写作教会我的一件事是，小说有自己的生命。虚构的地方有时比我们卧室窗外的景色更真实。虚构的人有时会变得和我们所爱的人一样亲近。
The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you.
从作家的角度来看，小说的有趣之处在于，人物在你体内栩栩如生。然而他们是谁，在哪里?他们似乎和你周围的人一样，拥有或更多的活力和复杂性。
The chief difference between horror fans and science fiction fans lies in why they won't walk backwards. A horror fan won't walk backwards because he knows he'll be knifed by a madman. A science fiction fan won't walk backwards because he knows he'll step on the cat.
恐怖迷和科幻迷之间的主要区别在于他们不会后退。恐怖迷不会后退，因为他知道自己会被疯子刺伤。科幻迷不会后退，因为他知道自己会踩到猫。
My problem is that the audience is more fiction-literate than ever. In Shakespeare's day, you probably expected to see a play once or twice in your life; today you experience four or five different kinds of fiction every day. So staying ahead of the audience is impossible.
我的问题是，观众比以往任何时候都更懂小说。在莎士比亚的时代，你可能希望一生中看一两次戏剧;今天，你每天都会经历四五种不同的小说。所以要想在观众面前保持领先是不可能的。
I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application.
我认为小说在总体上不太擅长支持或反对事物——一个短篇小说所能提出的修辞论点，只有通过增加特定的细节才能实现，而这些细节的特殊性使得故事得出的任何结论在更广泛的应用中都是无效的。
The hardest part about writing fiction is finding long stretches of time to do it: for me, this means writing mostly on Saturdays and Sundays. But I am always thinking about my characters, jotting down ideas in stolen moments and hoping I'll be able to make sense of them when the weekend rolls around.
写小说最难的部分是找到很长的时间来写作:对我来说，这意味着大部分时间都要在周六和周日写作。但我总是在想我的角色，在偷来的瞬间写下我的想法，希望周末到来时我能弄懂它们。
I started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer. I had no idea how to write fiction. So I did journalism because there were rules I could learn. You can teach someone to write a news story. They might not write a great one, but you can teach that pretty easily.
我开始写作的时候，只是做一些与写作相关的小事情，而不是写作本身。我不知道怎么写小说。所以我做新闻是因为我可以学到一些规则。你可以教别人写新闻故事。他们可能写得不好，但你可以很容易地教他们。
KEEP EXPLORING
沿着这个主题，再读几句。
There's more fiction in my life than in books, so I don't bother with them.
我的生活中虚构的东西比书里的要多，所以我不去管它们。
Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.
当乔纳斯回到家，告诉他的妻子他迟到了三天，因为他被鲸鱼吞了。
The doctrine that all men are, in any sense, or have been, at any time, free and equal, is an utterly baseless fiction.
所有人在任何意义上都是自由平等的，或在任何时候都是自由平等的，这一学说是完全没有根据的。
Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction.
电影永远是虚构的，而不是纪录片。甚至纪录片也是一种虚构。
Today's recording techniques would have been regarded as science fiction forty years ago.
今天的录音技术在四十年前会被认为是科幻小说。