（辑自8月的微博 http://www.weibo.com/2138515221 ）

 

这次回老家前，我语重心长地跟Mickey谈了一次，要他多留心、多体会，毕竟老家也是他的根。回来后我问他：“怎么样？收获大吗？”他说：“大！”我正感欣慰时，他开始数起来这位长辈给他几百，那位长辈给他上千，算下来有几千元了，然后要求我尽快存入他的私人账户。

 

A different world cannot be built by indifferent people. - Peter Marshall

 

We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before police. - Jeff Marder

 

We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it, including the thorns. - Orison Sweet Marden

 

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life - happiness, freedom and peace of mind - are always attained by giving them to someone else. - Peyton Conway March

 

Forgive me for saying so, but I think it takes a translator to really appreciate another translator. I’ve learned a lot from other translators by studying their works.

 

the two men exchanged glances. 两人对视了一眼。

 

gumdrop, 橡皮糖

 

Don't act wise. “别耍小聪明”。想起以前有时我说Mickey：“小聪明。”他总是回以：“大聪明!”

 

Phobe: You know what? There are other fish in the sea.

 

What is it now? 又咋了？

 

If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.

- Michelangelo

 

It is only after living a fair portion of one's life that one really knows what are the things that matter, the things that will remain unto the end. - Esther Meynell

 

Love is a medicine for the sickness of the world; a prescription often given, too rarely taken.

- Dr. Karl Menninger

 

The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you. - Bette Midler

 

crab apple, 沙果，野苹果

 

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable. - Henry Louis Mencken

 

Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.

- Golda Meir

 

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome. - Golda Meir

 

It is highly significant, and indeed almost a rule, that moral courage has its source in identification through one's own sensitivity with the suffering of one's fellow human beings. - Rollo May

 

Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness. - Rollo May

 

The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. - Benjamin Mays

 

If you have a great ambition, take as big a step as possible in the direction of fulfilling it. The step may only be a tiny one, but trust that it may be the largest one possible for now. - Mildred McAfee

 

One of the oldest human needs is to have someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night. - Margaret Mead

 

Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant. - Rollo May

 

One of the finest virtues is generosity - a quality characteristic of the person who thinks more highly of others than he does of himself. - D. Malcolm Maxwell

 

Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. - Andre Maurois

 

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it. - W. Somerset Maugham

 

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception. - Groucho Marx

 

Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen. - Peter Marshall

 

 

译普拉斯的《成功之日》遇到这样一句：“闲话怎么会一则不漏全给她听到了？像只职业喜鹊，一只不吉祥的小鸟……”觉得有必要加注：“在英美文化中，喜鹊被多数人视为不祥之鸟，预示凶兆，还可用来比喻饶舌者。”这是文化差异之一例。但是“magpie”只有译名“喜鹊”，出现在译文中，又何“喜”之有呢？令人纠结。

 

Just because you made a mistake doesn't mean you are a mistake. - Georgette Mosbacher

 

Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have. - Doris Mortman

 

The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition. - Dwight Morrow

 

He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for. - Moroccan Proverb

 

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. - Christopher Morley

 

The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest. - Thomas More

 

Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn't the dream destroy reality? - George Moore

 

I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I've met. - Dwight Moody

 

Life's a dance you learn as you go. Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow. - John Micheal Montgomery

 

The monument of a great man is not of granite or marble or bronze. It consists of his goodness, his deeds, his love and his compassion. - Alfred A. Montapert

 

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity. - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

 

Expect problems and eat them for breakfast. - Alfred A. Montapert

 

How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables to us! - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

 

There is no praise to beat the sort that you can put in your pocket. - Molière

 

It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable. - Molière

 

When we find ourselves wondering about the meaning of conditions and events, its always useful to ask, who profits? - Richard Mitchell

 

Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them. - Margaret Mitchell

 

The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power! We reach forth and strain every nerve, but we seize only a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us. - Maria Mitchell

 

Reality is something you rise above. - Liza Minnelli

 

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something. - Wilson Milzner

 

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making discoveries. - A.A. Milne

 

A man who will not lie to a woman has very little consideration for her feelings. - Olin Miller

 

#Trivia# 巴拉圭首都亚松森，1537年8月15日西班牙人到达此地时正值天主教的圣母玛丽亚升天节（http://baike.baidu.com/view/584642.htm ） 。在西班牙语里，升天节的发音是“亚松森”（Asunción），因此，亚松森就成了这座城市的名字。

 

Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability. - Flower A. Newhouse

 

Bless those who challenge us to grow, to stretch, to move beyond the knowable, to come back home to our elemental and essential nature. Bless those who challenge us for they remind us of doors we have closed and doors we have yet to open. - Navajo saying

 

I drink to make other people interesting. - George Jean Nathan

 

Women would rather be right than reasonable. - Ogden Nash

 

People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it. - Ogden Nash

 

Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else. - Ogden Nash

 

看到博友提到与曼哈顿隔河相望的新泽西州Jersey City，想到了这座位于泽西市的塑像，为纪念1940年的卡廷惨案，当地波兰人团体捐建。“卡廷惨案”，1940年春，大约2.2万名波兰军人、知识分子、政界人士和公职人员在卡廷森林遭到苏联军队杀害。1990年苏联始承认此事。http://baike.baidu.com/view/965826.htm

 

前些天淘到一本《美国女作家短篇小说选》（朱虹 编，中国社会科学出版社1983年），翻开看，原来前辈屠珍老师早就译出了普拉斯的Day of Success，跟我用的译名一样，都是《成功之日》。那本书是多人翻译，这种“堂会式”翻译好像现在又流行起来了，不过翻开那本书的目录，那里面的译者才真正是“一时之选”。

 

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them. - Edward R. Murrow

 

I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and mature than most of the broadcast industry's planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. - Edward R. Murrow

 

Our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. - Vladimir Nabokov

 

Mickey昨晚看完《爱情公寓》后躺在床上养神，他妈妈问他怎么了，他说：“待机模式。”这张照片是2005年拍的，当时他5岁。

 

greenhouse是温室，greenroom则是（剧场的）演员休息室，因为早期剧场演员休息室多呈绿色，故名。David Letterman的Late Show在曼哈顿的Ed Sullivan剧院录制，节目中经常会出现greenroom中的情景。附图即为Temper Trap乐队在这间休息室。

 

russet，黄褐色，赤褐色

 

Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. - George Orwell

 

There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. - P.J. O'Rourke

 

Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away. - Robert Orben

 

Never raise your hand to your children - it leaves your mid-section unprotected. - Robert Orben

 

I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. - George McGovern

 

A label is easy to stick on, but difficult to remove. - Old Proverb

 

Where I was born and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest. - Georgia O'Keefe

 

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. - Georgia O'Keefe

 

Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.

- Robert Orben

 

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face us with the reality of our powerlessness. That is the friend who cares.

- Henri Nouwen

 

How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever. - David Norris

 

You must have long range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short range failures. - Charles C. Noble

 

如果人可以长生不老，你有没有意识到他吃肉总共得花多少钱？— 伍迪·艾伦

 

我不相信有来生，但我随身带一套换洗内衣。— 伍迪·艾伦

 

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin

 

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age. - Anais Nin

 

Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don't wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it's at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored. -Earl Nightingale

 

We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us... how we can take it, what we can do with it... and that is what really counts in the end. - Joseph Fort Newton

 

People forget how fast you did a job -- but they remember how well you did it. - Howard W. Newton

 

sandpiper, 矶鹬

 

heron, 鹭

 

真快，又是一年过去了，吴念真老师再度莅穗。今天下午三点在太古汇的方所跟读者见面。这一年看了吴导的两本书，看了他执导的《多桑》，重温了他主演的《一一》，收获很大。

 

Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you. - Satchel Paige

 

My advice is to look out for engineers. They begin with sewing machines and end up with nuclear bombs. - Marcel Pagnol

 

Honor is like a match, you can use it only once. - Marcel Pagnol

 

If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future, look into your present action. - Padmisambha

 

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. - Ovid

 

To be loved, be lovable. - Ovid

 

The man who has nothing to boast of but his ancestry is like a potato. The only good belonging to him is underground. - Sir Thomas Overbury

 

Miickey以前迷悠悠球时，学会了一招“飞月弹射”，就是球在线上一弹，往前直飞一段又收回来。于是有一天他说：“来，我给你看3D电影。”就把球一次次弹到我眼前又收回，还真是看3D电影的感觉。

 

碰到一个好玩但是不大礼貌的词，barker，指大声叫卖者，站在入口处以大声叫喊或各种各样降价推销招徕顾客的雇员。另外跟bark有关的还有一个短语bark at the wrong tree，有时候我在被莫名其妙地指责时，总想这么跟对方来一句：“Hi, you are barking at the wrong tree!”

 

Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory. - General George Patton

 

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. - General George Patton

 

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. - General George Patton

 

At whatever stage you apologize to your wife, the answer is always the same -- "it's too late now".

- Denys Parsons

 

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. - Ellen Parr

 

That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them. - Dorothy Parker

 

There's a helluva distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. - Dorothy Parker

 

The only ism Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. - Dorothy Parker

 

When we come into this life, we don't really own anything. And we own nothing when we leave. It is only a lease we have during our lifetime - and it is up to us to make the most of it. - Jerold Panas

 

The beliefs you truly hold, the ones you've decided to believe, your faith, will cause you to create or attract the experiences which will verify them. When you change your beliefs, your experiences will change. - Harry Palmer

 

在书店看到一本《雨天的海豚们》，林少华 老师 译。在勒口上，第一次看到对译者的介绍长度超过对作者的。

 

吴念真老师广州之行，我有幸陪吃一顿午饭，听了在太古汇方所读者见面会及问答环节，得到新书及签名。完美的一天。祝吴老师接下来的成都、杭州、南京、北京、上海站 活动顺利。

 

日本客户过来拿来了“白色恋人”这种北海道零食名产，我给Mickey顺了一块，Mickey的疑问是：“怎么包装像纸巾？”“白色恋人”2007年搞出篡改保质期丑闻，停产100天，后来重新生产，但销量远不比从前。

 

Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere. - V. S. Pritchett 同样一件事，中文说来简洁多了：“人不轻狂枉少年！”

 

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.”（Edgar Allan Poe）感觉可以借这句为我已出的译作《梦想家彼得》http://book.douban.com/subject/10742394/和将出的《白日做梦有理》http://book.douban.com/subject/10736312/ 做个广告。

 

Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. - Pliny the Elder

 

Pure love is a willingness to give without a thought of receiving anything in return. - Peace Pilgrim

 

What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal. - Albert Pine

 

Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young. - Sir Arthur Wing Pinero

 

I believe the future is only the past again, entered through another gate. - Sir Arthur Wing Pinero

 

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things. – Plato

 

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. – Plato

 

My advice is, follow my advice: Never forget that only you can ever fully appreciate your own true beauty. Others may try, but they so often fall short. - Miss Piggy

 

For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me. - Winnie the Pooh

 

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety. – Plato

 

At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. – Plato

 

A tyrant...is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. – Plato

 

A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake, at the moment. - Willis Player

 

今年的台风真多，敝司作为远洋航运企业，也颇受损失，主要是为了避台而耽误船期（现代科技发达，会根据台风路线选择避法，倒不会船、货直接受损失），每条船每天都是上万美元租金啊。推荐E.B.怀特在某次飓风后所写的《“埃德娜”之眼》

 

前天在家里议论什么事的时候，我顺口说：“我在海外的时候——”Mickey马上打断我的话：“什么海外？就是非洲嘛，说那么洋气干吗？”这小子说话真是太直了。

 

Queer thing, but we always think every other man's job is easier than our own. And the better he does it, the easier it looks. - Eden Phillpotts

 

Her life was like running on a treadmill or riding on a stationary bike; it was aerobic, it was healthy, but she wasn't going anywhere. - Julia Phillips

 

Words of encouragement fan the spark of genius into the flame of achievement. - Wilfred A. Peterson

 

You can always tell a real friend; when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job. - Laurence J. Peter

 

Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. - Laurence J. Peter

 

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford

 

True silence is the rest of the mind. It is to the spirit what sleep is to the body - nourishment and refreshment. - William Penn

 

Idealism is like innocence. The more you live, the more you lose. However, you can do a lot more with idealism than you can innocence. Innocence is a state of mind; idealism is a state of being. - Mike Perry

 

I can't believe that out of 100,000 sperm, you were the quickest. - Steven Pearl

 

You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing. Get interested in something! Get absolutely enthralled in something! Get out of yourself! Be somebody! Do something. The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have. - Norman Vincent Peale

 

Anybody can do just about anything with himself that he really wants to and makes up his mind to do. We are all capable of greater things than we realize. - Norman Vincent Peale

 

Change yourself and your work will seem different. - Norman Vincent Peale

 

昨夜做梦，梦到Mickey上初中后第一次英语考试考了51分，班上的最高分是99分，让我急哭了。

 

生命的种种，有时候是要慢才能体会的。快，或许是一种必要，但不一定有乐趣、有质量。—吴念真，《台湾念真情》

 

不过有一次，爸爸的好朋友过世了，爸爸一样去当业余的义务厨师。拈香的时候，他把菜刀拎起来一丢，到灵前致意，我看到他红着眼眶走回厨房继续奋战，只是吼得特别大声，也炒得特别用力。—吴念真，《台湾念真情》

 

爱，人人都会说，但是一旦面临伴随爱而来的责任和道义，人，忽然就变得临阵退缩了…… — 吴念真，《台湾念真情》

 

 

Figure out what your purpose is in life, what you really and truly want to do with your time and your life then be willing to sacrifice everything and then some to achieve it. If you are not willing to make the sacrifice, then keep searching. - Quintina Ragnacci

 

One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world.

- Ann Radgliffe

 

The only way to be absolutely safe is never to try anything for the first time. - Magnus Pyke

 

Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees. - Marcel Proust

 

I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness. – James Thurber

 

Fear was like any other emotion. From an initial passionate stage, it slowly ebbed until it became routine and then barely noticeable. Jeffrey Eugenides, Great Experiment

 

提到某种车很贵，书里写道：“This was an unthinkable, a testicle-withering sum. ” testicle-withering 用得好玩，“蛋疼”好像有点距离，“蛋萎缩”？

 

fixer-upper, 通常以低价求售急需整修的房子或寓所。例句：After five years working for Great Experiment, he and his wife, Stephanie, had saved just enough money to buy a big fixer-upper in Oak Park, without being able to fix it up.

 

以前翻译《见证披头士》时遇到这个词组：“most formative years。”挺难准确翻译，但我一直喜欢这个词组。以前以为自己most formative years是在郑州上大学的四年，但是现在想想也未必，在县城高中的三年也可以说是吧？反正不是大学毕业之后。

 

All the gold in the world has no significance. That which is lasting are the thoughtful acts which we do for our fellow man. - Adolfo Prieto

 

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. - J. B. Priestley

 

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. - Colin Powell