1、我不再是个孩子，我已经做出了自己的成绩，有权晚点起床。5、“Russell, youve got no more gumption than a bump on a log.”罗素，你完全没有进取心了，只想当个无所事事的懒汉。6、She has hounded me with these battle cries since I was a boy in short pants.自从我还是穿着短裤整天乱跑的小男孩起她就用这种战场上的喊叫来鞭策我。7、“Make something of yourself!” 你一定得弄出个名堂来！8、“Dont be a quitter!” 绝不要轻易放弃的人
2、！9、“Have a little ambiton, Buddy.” 伙伴，得有点儿抱负吧10、The civilized man of the world within me scoffs at materialism and strives after success. He has read the philosophers and social critics. He thinks it is vulgar and unworthy to spend ones life pursuing money, power, fame, and 在我心目中这个世界上真的文明人嘲笑物质主义者和追名
3、逐利的人。这种人饱读哲学大师和社会批评家的著作，他认为花费整个生命去追求金钱、权力、名誉是粗俗而不值的11、“Sometimes you act like youre not worth the powder and shot it would take to blow you up with.”母亲还对我说：“有时你的行业显得自己还不如能置你于死地的那点火药或一粒子弹值钱。12、Life had been hard for my mother ever since her father died, leaving nothing but debts, The family house was
4、 lost, the children scattered. My mothers mother, fatally ill with tubercular infection, fell into a suicide depression and was institutionalized. My mother, who had just started college, had to quit and look for work.。自从外公死后母亲一直过着艰辛的生活，除了一大堆债务外公啥也没有留下。家里的房子成了别人的。孩子们四散各处。我那染上夺命结核病的外婆患了自杀抑郁症被送入医院。刚上大
5、学的母亲不得不辍学去找工作。13、Then ,after five years of marriage and three babies, her husband died in 1930, leaving my mother so poor that she had to give up her baby Audrey for adoption. Maybe the bravest thing she did was to give up Audrey, only ten months old, to my Uncle Tom and Aunt Goldie. Uncle Tom, one
6、of my fathers brothers, had a good job with the railroad and could give Audrey a comfortable life.后来母亲在结婚后5年内生下连我在内3个孩子。但是，1930年我爸爸离开了人世，母亲一贫如洗，不得不将最小的孩子奥德丽送给别人收养。也许母亲做过的最勇敢的事就是让我叔叔汤姆和婶婶葛黛收养了10个月大的奥德丽。叔叔汤姆是爸爸的亲兄弟，他在铁路上有一份好工作，能够给奥德丽舒适的生活。14、My mother headed off to New Jersey with my other sister and
7、me to take shelter with with her brother Alen, poor relatives dependent on his goodness. She eventually found work pathching grocerssmocks at ten dollars a week in a laundry.母亲带着我和另一个妹妹直奔新泽西州暂时寄居在她哥哥阿伦家里，成了投奔我那好舅舅的穷亲戚。母亲后来总算在一家洗衣店找到了一份周薪10美元，修补杂货商穿用的工作服的工作。15、Mother would have liked it better if I c
8、ould have grown up to be President or a rich businessman, but much as she loved me, she did not deceive herself. Before I was out of grade school, she could see I lacked the gifts for either making millions or winning the love of crowds. After that she began nudging me toward working with words.假如我现
9、在是总统或者是富有的商人，妈妈应该会更满意的。虽然母亲很爱我，但她并没有欺骗自己。在我高中毕业之时，她就意识到了我缺少那种日进斗金或博取群众爱戴的能力。从那以后她就开始把我往写作的道路上推。16、Words ran in her family. There seemed to be a word gene that passed down from her maternal grandfather. He was a school teacher, his daughter Lulie wrote poetry, and his son Charlie became New York corr
10、espondent for the Bltimore Herald. In the turn-of-the century South, still impoverished by the Civil War, words were a way out.母亲的家族有从事写作的传统。从她的外公开始似乎就有一种语言基因代代相传。她的外公是一位教师，他的女儿露利是诗人，儿子查理后来成了巴尔的摩先驱报的通讯员。在世纪之交，南方还没有从因为内战而大伤气的状态下恢复过来，写作在当时是一条谋生之路。17、The most spectacular proof was my mothers first cous
11、in Edwin. He was a managing editor of the New York Times.He had traveled all over Europe, proving that words could take you to places so glorious and so far from the Virginia sticks that you own kon could only gape in wonder and envy. My mother often used Edwin as an example of how far a man could g
12、o without much talent.最充分的证据要数我母亲的一位表兄艾德文。他是纽约时代周刊的执行主编。他曾经遍游欧洲，这证明文字可以将你带到那些远离弗吉尼亚边远山区无比美好的地方，令你的亲戚惊讶而又嫉妒。母亲常以艾德文为例，告诉我一个不是很有才气的男人能走多远。18、“Edwin James was no smarter than anybody else, and look where he is today,”my mother said, and said again, so than I finally grew up thinking Edwin James was adi
13、ll clod who had a lucky break. Maybe she felt didnt have to be brilliant to get where Edwin had got to, that the way to get to the top was to work, work, and work.艾德文并不比任何一个孩子聪明，看看他今天已经在哪了？母亲总是这样遍又一遍地对我说，以至于我长大以后认为艾德文詹姆士不过是碰上了好运气的平庸之辈。也许母亲也是那样看待他的，但她的话中应该有更深的含意。她是在告诉我不需要很聪明就能达到艾德文的高度，通往顶峰的路是努力、努力、再努
14、力。19、When my mother saw that I might have the word gift, she started trying to make it grow. Thought desperately poor, she signed up for a deal that supplied one volume of Worlds Greatest Literature every month at 39 cents a book.当母亲看到我或多或少有些语言天赋的时候，她就开始努力要让这种天赋成长发挥出来，虽然家里穷得叮当响，她还是狠下心来给我订购了售价为39美分的月
15、刊世界最伟大的文学20、I respected those great writers,but what I read with joy were newpapers. I lapped up every word about monstrous crimes, dreadful accidents and hideous butcheries committed in faraway wars. Accounts of murderes dying in the electric chair fascinated me, and I kept close track of fast meal
16、s ordered by condemned men.我很仰慕那些伟大的作家，但读起来使我最快乐的是报纸。我如饥似渴地读着报纸上关于犯罪、恐怖事件和发生在遥远他乡的骇人听闻的杀戮。关于那些死在电梯上的杀手的报道令我入迷，我甚至对死刑犯订的最后一顿快餐都特别留心。21、In 1947 I graduated from John Hopkins and learned that the Baltimore Sun needed a police reporter. Two or there classmates at Hopkins also applied for the job. Why I
17、was picked was a mystery. It paid $30 a week. When I complained that was insulting for a college man, my mother refused to sympathize.1947年，我从约翰霍普金斯大学毕业时到了解到巴尔的摩太阳报需要招募一名治安记者。另外有两三个霍普金斯的同班同学也在争取这个职位，为什么最后我被录用了是谜。这份工作的薪水是30美金一星期。当我在母亲面前抱怨这样的待遇对一个大学毕业生来说是一种耻辱的时候，她拒绝给我同情。22、“If you work hard at this jo
18、b,”she said, “maybe you can make something of it. Then theyll have to give you a raise.”假如你在这个职位上好好干，她说，也许你是会有所作为的，到那时他们就不得不给你涨工资了23、Seven years later I was assigned by the Sun to cover the White House. For most reporters, being White House correspondent was as close to heaven as you could get. I wa
19、s 29 years old and puffed up with pride. I went to see my mothers delight while telling her about it. I should have known better.7年之后，我被巴尔的摩太阳报任命为驻白宫记者。对于大多数记者而言，成为驻白宫记者被看成是离上天只有一步之遥。那时我29岁，踌躇满志。我回有对母亲讲自己晋升的事想看到她高兴。但结果却出乎我的预料。24、“Well, Russ,”she said, “if you work hard at this White House job, you m
20、ight be able to make something of yourself.”嗯，罗素啊，母亲说，假如你把白宫记者当好了，你会有所作为的。25、Onward and upward was the course she set. Small progress was no excuse for feeling satisfied with yourself. People who stopped to pat themselves on the back didnt last long. Even if you got to the top, you d better not take
21、 it easy. “The bigger they come, the harder they fall” was one of her favorite maxims.进取、进取、再进取，这是母亲给我设定的方向。小小的进步是不足以自我满足的。那些因成功而沾沾自喜停下来欣赏自己的人是不会持久的。即使你已经到达顶峰，你也最好不要放松。爬得越高，摔得越痛，是母亲的至理名言。26、During my early years in the newspaper business, I began to entertain childish fantasies of revenge against Co
22、usin Edwin. Wouldnt it be delightful it Ibecame such an outstanding reporter that the Times hired me without knowing I was related to the great Edwin? Wouldnt it be delicious if Edwin himself invited me into his huge office and said, “Tell me something about yourself, youngman?” What exquisist venge
23、ance to reply, “I am the only son of your poor cousin Lucy Elizabeth Robinson.”在我从事报业的头几年，我就不怀着幼稚的要报复地表兄艾德文的怪念头。假如我能成为非常杰出的记者，让纽约时代周刊在不知道我和艾德文关系的情况下雇用我，这难道不是件快乐无比的事情吗？如果艾德文将我请到他那宽敞的办公室，对我说：年轻人，能请你介绍一下自己吗？我是你的穷表妹露西伊丽莎白罗宾逊唯一的儿子。这回答是多么绝妙的复仇啊。27、What would one day happen was right out of my wildest chil
24、dhood fantasy. The TIMES did come knocking at my door, though Cousin Edwin had departed by the time I arrived. Eventually I would be offered one of the gaudiest prizes in American journalism: a column in the New York Times.后来我的这种不着边际的少年狂想果真变成了现实。纽约时代周刊真的派人敲开了我的家门，尽管在我到达时，艾德文表兄已经有事离开了，美国新闻界还是给予了我一个炫丽
25、的奖励做纽约时代周刊的专栏作家。28、It was not a column meant to convey news, but a writers column commenting on the news by using different literary forms: essay devices, satire, burlesque, sometimes even fiction. It was proof that my mother had been absolutely right when she sized me up early in life and steered m
26、e toward literature.那不是新闻报导专栏，而是一个用不同文学体裁评论新闻的专栏，如散文、讽刺、夸张的模仿、有时甚至是小说。这一切证明母亲早就看出是这块料并引导我走文学之路是完全正确的。29、The column won its share of medals. Including a Pulitezer Prize in 1979. My mother never knew about that. The circuitry of her brain had collapsed the year before, and she was in a nursing home, o
27、ut of touch with life forevermore.我负责的专栏后来赢得了它该得到的所有奖项，包括1979年的普利策奖，但母亲却不得而知。她在前一年患了脑瘫住进疗养院，她从此与生活没有了接触。30、I can only guess how shed have responded to news of Pulitzer. Im pretty sure she would have said, “Thats nice, Buddy. It shows if you buckle down and work hard, youll be able to make something
28、of yourself one of these days.”我只能去想象她得知我获得普利策奖的消息时的反应。她肯定又会说：好样的，伙计，这证明了只要你下定决心，埋头苦干，某一天你一定能有所成就。31、In time there would be an attack on the values my mother preached and I have lived by. When the country began to pull apart in the 1960s and 70s, people who admitted to wanting to amount something we
29、re put down as materialists idiotically wasting their lives in the “rat race.” The word “gumption”vanished from the language.母亲一直宣扬而且我一直遵循的价值观终于开始遭到攻击。二十世纪六七十年代，这个国家的价值观念开始分化。那些承认自己想要获得成功的人被鄙视为在“激烈竞争”的凡尘中愚蠢地浪费生命的物质主义者。“进取精神”这个词开始从我们的语言中消失。32、I tried at first to roll with the new age. I decided not t
30、o drive my children, as my mother had driven me, with those corrupt old demands that they amount to something.我也努力按新时代的标准行事，决心不再像母亲逼迫我那样逼迫自己的孩子们，不再用那些陈腐的苛求非要他们大有作为。33、The new age exalted love, self-gratification and passive Asian philosopies that aimed at helping people resign themselves to the status quo. Much of this seemed preposterous to me, but I c
