奥威尔（George Orwell）在《我为什么写作（Why I Write）》中说道：

        Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.（写本书是一场可怕的、精疲力竭的斗争，像生一场慢长痛苦的大病。一个人如果不是受一些自身无法抗拒又不能理解的恶魔驱使，他决不会做这件事情。）（刘沁秋，赵勇译）

奥威尔（George Orwell）《我为什么写作（Why I Write）》:

        Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. （除去以写作为谋生之计不谈，我认为写作有四种动机，至少小说和散文写作是如此。）

        1. Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc. etc. It is humbug to pretend that this is not a motive, a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen—in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition—in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all—and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, wilful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists,though less interested in money.（1、纯粹的自我中心。希望显得聪明，为大家谈论，死后留名，向那些在你童年的时候冷落你的大人出口气，等等，等等…。作家同科学家、艺术家、政治家、律师、军人、成功的商家——总而言之，人类的全部上层精华——都有这种特性。而广大的人类大众却不是这么强烈的自私。他们在大约三十岁以后就放弃了个人抱负——说真的，在许多情况下，他们几乎根本放弃了自己是个个人的意识——主要是为别人活着，或者干脆就是被单调无味的生活重轭压得透不过气来。但是，也有少数有才华有个性的人决心要过自己的生活到底，作家就属于这一阶层。我应该说，严肃的作家整体来说比新闻记者更加有虚荣心和以自我为中心，尽管不如新闻记者那样看重金钱。）（董乐山译）

        2. Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or a writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.（2、审美方面的热情。欣赏外部世界的美，活着，在另一方面，欣赏词语和它们正确组合的美。享受一个声音的冲击力或者它对另一个声音的冲击力，享受一篇好文章的铿锵有力或者一个好故事的节奏明确。希望分享一种你觉得是有价值的和不应该错过的经验。在不少作家身上，审美动机是很微弱的，但是即使一个写时论的或者编教科书的作家都有一些爱用的词句，对他有非功利的吸引力；或者他可能特别喜欢某一种印刷字体、页边的宽窄，等等。任何书，凡是超过火车时刻表水平以上的，都不能完全摆脱审美的考虑。）（董乐山译）

        3. Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.（3、历史方面的冲动。希望看到事物的如实面貌，找出真正的事实把他们存起来供后代使用。）（董乐山译）

        4. Political purpose—using the word “political” in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.（ 4、政治方面的目的。这里所用“政治”一词是指它的最大程度的泛义而言。希望把世界推往一定的方向，改变别人对他们要努力争取的到底是哪一种社会的想法。再说一遍，没有一本书是能够真正做到脱离政治倾向的。有人认为艺术应当脱离政治，这种意见本身就是一种政治态度。）（董乐山译）