A COLLECTION OF GOOD WORDS
小说家
Novelists
Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.
小说家的写作并不像鸟儿歌唱那样，是受自然的推动。这是工作的一部分，应该有很多例行公事和一些木工水平的日常事务。
I wanted nothing less than to be a fiction writer when I was a kid. If you had told me I would be an artist or novelist when I grew up, I would have laughed in your face.
当我还是个孩子的时候，我最想做的就是成为一名小说家。如果你告诉我长大后要当艺术家或小说家，我会当面笑话你。
Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment.
短篇小说写作需要细腻的平衡感。坦率地说，小说家可以获得更多。一部小说可能会有一两个乏味的地方，因为读者已经做出了不同的承诺。
Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.
嗯，说实话，我认为我比小说家更擅长写短篇小说。我发现小说非常难读，长时间、长时间、长时间、长时间地有意识地思考，而短篇小说几天就能毫无痛苦地脱口而出。
All novels are about crime. You'd be hard pressed to find any novel that does not have an element of crime. I don't see myself as a crime novelist, but there are crimes in my books. That's the nature of storytelling, if you want to reflect the real world.
所有的小说都是关于犯罪的。你很难找到没有犯罪元素的小说。我不认为自己是犯罪小说家，但我的书中也有犯罪。如果你想反映真实世界，这就是讲故事的本质。
I'm a very good storyteller; I have a lot of compassion for people. That's very useful for a novelist. A lot of novelists are snots. They're just mean people. I'm not a terribly skilled stylist, nor do I want to be. I want a lot of people to read one of my stories and go, 'That was pretty cool.'
我很会讲故事;我对人很有同情心。这对小说家来说非常有用。许多小说家都是势利小人。他们只是些卑鄙的人。我不是一个非常熟练的造型师，我也不想成为。我想让很多人读我的故事，然后说，‘那太酷了。’
KEEP EXPLORING
沿着这个主题，再读几句。
For me, as a beginning novelist, all other living writers form a control group for whom the world is a placebo.
对我来说，作为一个初出茅庐的小说家，所有其他在世的作家组成了一个对照组，对他们来说，世界就是安慰剂。
Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist.
就我个人而言，我从未希望自己是一名男性小说家。
Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.
历史学家讲述过去的故事，小说家讲述现在的故事。
Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.
不要玩弄悖论。你为了烧灼别人而使用的那种腐蚀性物质，可能会烧灼到你自己的手指，使它们在质量上死去。
The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
这本小说对我来说是个意外。我真的不认为自己是个小说家。