文字共和国

写作就是重复自己的话又不让别人发现的艺术。

绝大多数人书写是为了记住某些东西，我书写是为了忘记某些东西。

他们所谓的哲学，我称之为文学；他们所谓的文学，我称之为新闻；他们所谓的新闻，我称之为闲话；他们所谓的闲话，我（宽容地）称之为窥淫狂行为。

作家让人记住的是他们最好的作品，政治家让人记住的是他们最糟糕的错误，商人几乎从来不会让人记住。

批评家表面上看来似乎是批评作者没有写出他们想要读的书；然而实际上，他们是批评作者写出了他们想写却写不出来的书。

文学与其说是鼓吹某些特质，不如说是粉饰（你的）某些缺陷。

要享受的话，翻开纳博科夫的作品读一章。要自我惩罚的话，读两章。

忧郁症并不是文学，就好像励志并不是哲学。

你得随时提醒自己，魅力存在于没有说出来、没有写下来、没有展示出来的东西中。把握沉默需要境界。

只有当一名作家开始教别人写作时，他才算是已经失败了。

科学的过程是无聊的，结果是令人激动的；哲学的过程是令人激动的，结果是无聊的；文学的过程和结果都是令人激动的；经济学的过程和结果都是无聊的。

一条好的座右铭让你用不着跟别人谈话就能说最后一句。

就像有的作家喜欢创作，有的作家喜欢“创作过”的感觉一样，有的书你喜欢读，有的书你很高兴已经“读过了”。

天才是指具有非常难以模仿的缺陷的人。

对于一般的书，阅读正文，忽略脚注；对于学术派的书，阅读脚注，忽略正文；对于商业方面的书，正文和脚注都可以忽略。

一个人越博学，援引别人话的次数就越少。

失败者评论比他们更加成功的人的作品时，总觉得有必要申明作者“不是”什么——“他不是个天才，但是……”“他不是达•芬奇，但是……”而不是先申明作者“是”什么。

你作品里的陈词滥调越多，你的生命力就越低落。

我们所谓的“商业书籍”是一个由书店发明出来的概念，专门用来指那些没有深度、没有风格、没有内涵，也没有语言特色的书。

像诗人和艺术家一样，官僚是天生的，不是后天形成的；正常人需要付出极大的努力，才能把注意力保持在如此无聊的任务上。

关于与众不同——建筑师试图让自己的作品给别的建筑师留下深刻印象，模特试图让自己的身材给别的模特留下深刻印象，学者试图让自己的论文给别的学者留下深刻印象，导演试图让自己的电影给别的导演留下深刻印象，画家试图让自己的画作给画商留下深刻印象，然而，试图给出版编辑留下深刻印象的作家一般都会失败。

回应批评家的言论是浪费感情；如果你的作品到他们死后还能经常再版，那就很说明问题了。

当某位作者写道，塔勒布让黑天鹅事件理论“变得尽人皆知”时，我就知道他打算剽窃我的作品，但是又剽窃得很糟糕。[1]

习惯读报纸的人面对真正优美的文笔时，就像聋子进了歌剧院：他们或许会喜欢其中的一两处细节，但却在怀疑“这一切究竟是为什么”。

有些书的内容没法总结（真正的文学和诗歌），有些书可以被压缩成大约10页；大多数书都可以直接压缩成零页。

信息指数增长的时代，就像是一个说话不能自制的人：他越嘟囔越多，听他说话的人却越来越少。

如果你往深处挖掘，会发现我们所谓的小说远比非小说类作品更不像小说，因为其中的想象力通常更贫乏。

为你读过的书撰写评论，远比为你没读过的书撰写评论要难。

绝大多数所谓的“作家”坚持不停地写作，是为了有朝一日找到点儿值得写的东西。

今天的作家通常有两种：要么清楚地描写自己不了解的主题，要么模糊地描写自己不了解的主题。

信息丰富的黑暗时代：公元2010年，仅在英语国家就有60万本新书出版，其中只能摘录出寥寥几句让人印象深刻的话；相比之下，公元0年，新写出来的书只有很少的几本，但其中充满了令人印象深刻的话。

过去，绝大多数人都是文盲，约有1/1 000的人有足够的文化，值得与之对话。今天，文盲率大幅度下降，但由于社会进步、媒体和经济的影响，只有1/10 000的人值得与之对话。

我们更擅长（不自觉的）出格的行为，而不是（自觉的）出格的思考。

愚人很重要的特点就是意识不到你不喜欢的东西可能别人喜欢（所以你今后也有可能喜欢），反之亦然。

像一个行动主义者那样思考，远不如像一个思考主义者那样行动危险。

文学在掩饰恶行、缺陷、弱点和混乱时会获得生命力，而在说教时则会丧失生命力。

[1]这也表明他会试图模仿“我也是这样”的写作风格。

THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS

Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing.

Most people write so they can remember things; I write to forget.

What they call philosophy I call literature; what they call literature I call journalism; what they call journalism I call gossip; and what they call gossip I call (generously) voyeurism.

Writers are remembered for their best work, politicians for their worst mistakes, and businessmen are almost never remembered.

Critics may appear to blame the author for not writing the book they wanted to read; but in truth they are blaming him for writing the book they wanted, but were unable, to write.

Literature is not about promoting qualities, rather, airbrushing (your) defects.

For pleasure, read one chapter by Nabokov. For punishment, two.

There is a distinction between expressive hypochondria and literature, just as there is one between self-help and philosophy.

You need to keep reminding yourself of the obvious: charm lies in the unsaid, the unwritten, and the undisplayed. It takes mastery to control silence.

No author should be considered as having failed until he starts teaching others about writing.

Hard science gives sensational results with a horribly boring process; philosophy gives boring results with a sensational process; literature gives sensational results with a sensational process; and economics gives boring results with a boring process.

A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.

Just as there are authors who enjoy having written and others who enjoy writing, there are books you enjoy reading and others you enjoy having read.

A genius is someone with flaws harder to imitate than his qualities.

With regular books, read the text and skip the footnotes; with those written by academics read the footnotes and skip the text, and with business books skip both text and footnotes.

Double a man's erudition; you will halve his citations.

Losers, when commenting on the works of someone patently more impressive, feel obligated to unnecessarily bring down their subject by expressing what he is not: "he is not a genius, but...", "while he is no Leonardo" instead of expressing what he is.

You are alive in inverse proportions to clichés in your writing.

What we call "business books" is an eliminative category invented by bookstores for writings that have no depth, no style, no empirical rigor, and no linguistic sophistication.

Just like poets and artists, bureaucrats are born, not made; it takes normal humans extraordinary effort to keep attention on such boring tasks.

The costs of specialization: architects build to impress other architects; models are thin to impress other models; academics write to impress other academics; filmmakers try to impress other filmmakers, painters impress art dealers; but authors who write to impress book editors tend to fail.

It is a waste of emotions to answer critics; better to stay in print long after they are dead.

I can predict when an author is about to plagiarize me, and poorly so when he writes that Taleb "popularized" the theory of Black Swan events.

Newspaper readers exposed to real prose are like deaf persons at a Puccini opera: they may like a thing or two while wondering, "what's the point?"

Some books cannot be summarized (real literature, poetry), some can be compressed to about ten pages; the majority to zero pages.

The exponential information age is like a verbally incontinent person: he talks more and more as fewer and fewer people listen.

What we call fiction is, when you look deep, much less fictional than nonfiction; but it is usually less imaginative.

It's much harder to write a book review for a book you've read than for a book you haven't read.

Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope to, some day, find something to say.

Today, we mostly face the choice between those who write clearly about a subject they don't understand, and those who write poorly about a subject they don't understand.

The information rich dark ages: In 2010, 600,000 books were published, just in English, with few memorable quotes; c. zero AD, a handful of books were written; in spite of the few that survived, with loads of quotes.

In the past most were ignorant except for one in a thousand refined enough to talk to. Today, literacy is higher but thanks to progress, literacy, the media, and finance, only one in ten thousand.

We are better at (involuntarily) doing out of the box than (voluntarily) thinking out of the box.

Half of suckerhood is not realizing that what you don't like might be loved by someone else (hence by you, later), and the reverse.

It is much less dangerous to think like a man of action than to act like a man of thought.

Literature comes alive when covering up vices, defects, weaknesses, and confusions; it dies with every trace of preaching.