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关于写作，毛姆给出了以下建议：
每一个作家都该有一本笔记，但又要注意不要去参考它。
也就是说，当你看到让你眼前一亮的事物或者有突然的灵感时，应该及时将这些想法记录下来，否则过一会就会被忘得精光。当你记下一个东西的时候，但由于临时没有特别深入的想法，只要记录下来，你就会在心中留一个底，以后如果出现再次让你有感受的场景，便可以继续深入撰写。每补充延伸一次内容，这些事情就会开始变得有意义。
这么一看，毛姆是一位掌控读者注意力的大家。
作为英国现代文学史上创作力旺盛的多产作家，他的重要著作和近百篇短篇小说都集中发表在上世纪二三十年代，不过直到70高龄，他还是写出了轰动一时的畅销小说《刀锋》（1944）。
他丰富的作品中，除了情节，还有很多连珠妙语。在他著名的《月亮与六便士》中，他曾写道：
“Impropriety is the soul of wit.”
逾越礼规的言词是机智的灵魂（傅惟慈译）
他具有敏锐的洞察力，善于剖析人的内心世界。其笔锋像一把解剖刀，能挖掘出人们心底深处的思想活动。他的智慧可以从这些引言中窥见一斑。
他把阅读视作生活压力下的休憩处。
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
“获得了阅读习惯，那你就为自己在生活的诸多痛苦之外建造了一处避难处。”
把爱置于比生命更崇高的位置。
“The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.”
“生命的巨大悲剧不是人终有一死，而是人会停止爱。”
认为任何书都是以读者为中心的。
“The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.”
“一本书中最重要的东西就是为你准备的那份意义。”
即便平时再辛辣，他也能为“爱而不得”写一首温柔的挽歌。
“The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.”
“恒久的爱就是没有回报的那种爱。 ”
以及，从生活中发现美学的武器，用以抵抗生活的无力。
“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”
“我想，唯一能让我们毫无厌恶地看待我们生活的这个世界的，就是人们时不时从混乱中创造出来的美。他们画的画，他们谱写的音乐，他们写的书，他们过的生活。在所有这些中，最美的是美丽的生活，那是一件完美的艺术品。”
当然，偶尔，他也会幽默一把。有调皮的小老头儿那味儿了。
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
“写小说有三大原则。不好意思，没人知道是哪三条。”
“As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.”
“恋爱的时候，男女的区别在于，女人是整日爱着，而男人则是偶尔爱着。”
他最为中国读者广泛知晓的著作莫过于《月亮与六便士》，主人公以著名画家高更为原型，但是这不是一本文学传记，而是虚构小说
在很多读者眼里，《月亮与六便士》围绕的是一个“理想与现实”的主题，因为通常认为六便士是价值最低的银币，代表现实与卑微，而月亮则象征着崇高。
其实这本小说本身写的是一个证券交易所的经纪人，有着稳定工作和美满家庭却迷恋上绘画，突然弃家出走，去追求绘画理想。他的行径没有人能够理解。
经过一番离奇的遭遇后，主人公最后离开文明世界，远遁到与世隔绝的塔希提岛上。他终于找到灵魂的宁静和适合自己艺术气质的氛围，创作出一幅又一幅使后世震惊的杰作。
通过这样一个一心追求艺术、不通人性世故的怪才，毛姆探索了艺术的产生与本质、个性与天才的关系、艺术家与社会的矛盾等等引人深思的问题。
比方说这个常被人引述的段落就探讨了把自己视为“他者”的感觉。
"I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage."
“我认为有些人诞生在某一个地方可以说未得其所。机缘把他们随便抛掷到一个环境中，而他们却一直思念着一处他们自己也不知道坐落在何处的家乡。在出生的地方他们好像是过客；从孩提时代就非常熟悉的浓荫郁郁的小巷，同小伙伴游戏其中的人烟稠密的街衢，对他们说来都不过是旅途中的一个宿站。”
"They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history."
“这种人在自己亲友中可能终生落落寡合，在他们唯一熟悉的环境里也始终孑身独处。也许正是在本乡本土的这种陌生感才逼着他们远游异乡，寻找一处永恒定居的寓所。说不定在他们内心深处仍然隐伏着多少世代前祖先的习性和癖好，叫这些彷徨者再回到他们祖先在远古就已离开的土地。”
作为使用语言的高手，他对于有声语言的传情达意的效率却持保留态度。
"Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them."
“每个人生在世界上都是孤独的。每个人都被囚禁在一座铁塔里，只能靠一些符号同别人传达自己的思想；而这些符号并没有共同的价值，因此它们的意义是模糊的、不确定的。我们非常可怜地想把自己心中的财富传送给别人，但是他们却没有接受这些财富的能力。因此我们只能孤独地行走，尽管身体互相依傍却并不在一起，既不了解别人也不能为别人所了解。”
"We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house."
“我们好像住在异国的人，对于这个国家的语言懂得非常少，虽然我们有各种美妙的、深奥的事情要说，却只能局限于会话手册上那几句陈腐、平庸的话。我们的脑子里充满了各种思想，而我们能说的只不过是像“园丁的姑母有一把伞在屋子里”这类话。”
我们摘录在这儿的高频引文只是毛姆思考的冰山一角。
阅读的确是需要读原著的，否则“Life isn't long enough for love and art.”这句书中常被引用的话很容易被不了解上下文的人理解成“生命太短，留给爱和艺术的时间不够”。
但其实看了翻译家傅惟慈的译文就会发现，毛姆是借由人物之口，讽刺调侃道“鱼和熊掌，我只要熊掌”。原文是：
"Haven't you been in love since you came to Paris?"
“从你到巴黎以后闹过恋爱吗？”
"I haven't got time for that sort of nonsense. Life isn't long enough for love and art."
“我没有时间干这种无聊的事。生命太短促了，没有时间既闹恋爱又搞艺术。”
1/ “To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
“获得了阅读习惯，那你就为自己在生活的诸多痛苦之外建造了一处避难处。”
2/ “The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.”
“生命的巨大悲剧不是人终有一死，而是人会停止爱。”
3/ “The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.”
“一本书中最重要的东西就是为你准备的那份意义。”
4/ “The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.”
“恒久的爱就是没有回报的那种爱。”
5/ “I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”
“我想，唯一能让我们毫无厌恶地看待我们生活的这个世界的，就是人们时不时从混乱中创造出来的美。他们画的画，他们谱写的音乐，他们写的书，他们过的生活。在所有这些中，最美的是美丽的生活，那是一件完美的艺术品。”
6/ “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
“写小说有三大原则。不好意思，没人知道是哪三条。”
7/ “As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.”
“恋爱的时候，男女的区别在于，女人是整日爱着，而男人则是偶尔爱着。”
8/ "Haven't you been in love since you came to Paris?"
“从你到巴黎以后闹过恋爱吗？”
"I haven't got time for that sort of nonsense. Life isn't long enough for love and art."
“我没有时间干这种无聊的事。生命太短促了，没有时间既闹恋爱又搞艺术。”
1、Impropriety is the soul of wit.
逾越礼规的言词是机智的灵魂（傅惟慈译）
2、To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
获得了阅读习惯，那你就为自己在生活的诸多痛苦之外建造了一处避难处。
3、The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
生命的巨大悲剧不是人终有一死，而是人会停止爱。
4、The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
一本书中最重要的东西就是为你准备的那份意义。
5、The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.
恒久的爱就是没有回报的那种爱。
6、I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.
我想，唯一能让我们毫无厌恶地看待我们生活的这个世界的，就是人们时不时从混乱中创造出来的美。他们画的画，他们谱写的音乐，他们写的书，他们过的生活。在所有这些中，最美的是美丽的生活，那是一件完美的艺术品。
7、There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
写小说有三大原则。不好意思，没人知道是哪三条。
8、As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
恋爱的时候，男女的区别在于，女人是整日爱着，而男人则是偶尔爱着。
9、I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage.
我认为有些人诞生在某一个地方可以说未得其所。机缘把他们随便抛掷到一个环境中，而他们却一直思念着一处他们自己也不知道坐落在何处的家乡。在出生的地方他们好像是过客；从孩提时代就非常熟悉的浓荫郁郁的小巷，同小伙伴游戏其中的人烟稠密的街衢，对他们说来都不过是旅途中的一个宿站。
They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.
这种人在自己亲友中可能终生落落寡合，在他们唯一熟悉的环境里也始终孑身独处。也许正是在本乡本土的这种陌生感才逼着他们远游异乡，寻找一处永恒定居的寓所。说不定在他们内心深处仍然隐伏着多少世代前祖先的习性和癖好，叫这些彷徨者再回到他们祖先在远古就已离开的土地。
10、Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
每个人生在世界上都是孤独的。每个人都被囚禁在一座铁塔里，只能靠一些符号同别人传达自己的思想；而这些符号并没有共同的价值，因此它们的意义是模糊的、不确定的。我们非常可怜地想把自己心中的财富传送给别人，但是他们却没有接受这些财富的能力。因此我们只能孤独地行走，尽管身体互相依傍却并不在一起，既不了解别人也不能为别人所了解。
We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.
我们好像住在异国的人，对于这个国家的语言懂得非常少，虽然我们有各种美妙的、深奥的事情要说，却只能局限于会话手册上那几句陈腐、平庸的话。我们的脑子里充满了各种思想，而我们能说的只不过是像“园丁的姑母有一把伞在屋子里”这类话。
11、Haven't you been in love since you came to Paris?
从你到巴黎以后闹过恋爱吗？
I haven't got time for that sort of nonsense. Life isn't long enough for love and art.
我没有时间干这种无聊的事。生命太短促了，没有时间既闹恋爱又搞艺术。
