[美國]威廉·福克納/William Faulkner
威廉·福克納（1897-1962），1949年諾貝爾文學獎得主。其文以人物心理的細微刻畫及複雜迂回的形式結構見長。因其兩度獲普利策獎，而贏得“美國偉大小說家”的美譽。本文是他獲得諾貝爾獎時發表的著名演說，文中勉勵作家必須提升自己的心靈，時時以愛、憐憫與犧牲來喚醒人類亙古的真理。
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work-a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question:When will I be blown up?Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid;and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed-love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.
我覺得這個獎並不是給我個人的，而是給我的工作——包含人類精神苦痛和掙紮的終生工作，不為榮耀，也絕不為任何利益，而是為了創造出人類精神中的某些事物——一些前所未有的事物。所以這個獎隻是暫時屬於我。為這份獎金找一篇與它原始目的及重要性相當的獻詞並不難。不過，我更願意在歡呼聲中做同樣的致謝，把這個激動人心的時刻獻給那些可能正在聆聽我講話的、同樣獻身於艱苦的文學事業的年輕男女們，這些人當中肯定有人將來會站在我現在站著的地方。