我最喜欢的诗是华莱士·史蒂文斯（Wallace Stevens）写的，他是个美国诗人，但也是个专业的律师，一辈子都在康涅狄格州的一家保险公司工作。这首诗里有我童年生活的影子，很多让我无法言表的东西都能在这首诗中找到共鸣：

The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.

The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,

Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be

The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.

The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind：

The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,

In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself

Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

居室寂静而世事安宁，

读书的人变成了书本。

夏日的夜晚就像书本的灵性，

居室寂静而世事安宁。

词句脱口而出，仿佛根本没有书，

只有读书人的目光依附于书页之上。

他有所仰慕，渴望成为渊博的学者，

对他而言，书是真切的存在。

对他而言，夏夜宛如完美的思想，

居室寂静，因其本该如此。

寂静是书中含义的一部分，是思想的一部分，

正是通往书页的完美路径。

世事安宁，真理存于宁世，

除此而外，并无其他意义。

安宁本身即夏夜本身，

这正是读者深夜阅读的依附。