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That may have been the end of the anecdote （轶事）—but not of its significance for me. A few years later I took a second look at the first poem, and reluctantly I had to agree with my father's harsh judgment. It was a pretty lousy poem. After a while, I worked up the courage to show him something new, a short story. My father thought it was overwritten but not hopeless. I was learning to rewrite. And my mother was learning that she could criticize me without crushing me. You might say we were all learning. I was going on 12.
这件生活小事也许到此为止了，可对我来说，其意义远不止于此。几年后我重读这首处女作，虽然很不情愿，但不得不同意父亲的无情判断。这的确是首很糟糕的歪诗。过了些日子，我鼓起勇气给他看了新的习作——一个短篇小说。父亲说写得过火了点，可并非一无是处。我渐渐学会修改稿子。母亲也渐渐学会对我加以批评而不致让我一蹶不振。你可以说，我们大家都学有所获。那时我就要12岁了。
As I worked my way into other books and plays and films, it became clearer and clearer to me how fortunate I had been. I had a mother who said, "Buddy, did you really write this? I think it's wonderful!" and a father who shook his head no and drove me to tears with, "I think it's lousy." A writer—in fact every one of us in life — needs that mother force, the loving force from which all creation flows; and yet the mother force alone is incomplete, even misleading, finally destructive. It needs the balance of the force that cautions, "Watch. Listen. Review. Improve."
当我渐渐涉足其他作品以及戏剧、电影的写作时，我越来越体会到自己是何等的幸运。我有个会说“巴迪，真是你写的？太棒了!”的母亲，还有个大摇其头、一句“我看糟透了”就说得我哭鼻子的父亲。一个作家——事实上是生活中的每一个人——需要那种母亲的力量，所有创造皆从中产生的那股爱的力量；然而，仅有母亲的力量是不完全的，甚至会使人误入歧途并最终导致毁灭。还需要另一种力量的平衡，它告诫你：“要观察、倾听、反思、提高。”
Those conflicting but complementary （互相补充的）voices of my child-hood echo down through the years — wonderful... lousy ... wonderful... lousy — like two opposing winds battering （连续猛击）me. I try to steer my small boat so as not to turn over before either. Between the two poles of affirmation （肯定）and doubt, both in the name of love, I try to follow my true course.
我童年时的这两种既相互冲突又相互补充的声音多年来一直在我耳边回响——妙极了……糟透了……妙极了……糟透了——就像方向相反的两股劲风，不停地在吹打着我。我努力把握住我的生活小舟，不让它被来自任何一方的风掀翻。在同样出于爱心的肯定与否定的两极之间，我努力把握住自己的正确航向。
