J.K.羅琳
《哈利·波特》作者
在我看來，語言是我們?nèi)≈槐M的魔法源泉。
Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
即使在最黑暗的時刻，幸福也有跡可循，只要記得點亮燈。
決定我們成為什么樣人的，不是我們的能力，而是我們的選擇。
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
生活就像是故事一樣：不在乎長度，而在于質(zhì)量，這才是問題的關(guān)鍵。
如果給我一部時間機(jī)器，我會告訴21歲的自己，人的幸福在于知道生活不是一份漂亮的成績單，你的資歷、簡歷，都不是你的生活，雖然你會碰到很多與我同齡或更老一點的人今天依然還在混淆兩者。生活是艱辛的，復(fù)雜的，超出任何人的控制能力，而謙恭地了解這一點，將使你歷經(jīng)滄桑后能夠更好的生存。
從挫折中獲得智慧、變得堅強(qiáng)，意味著你比以往任何時候都更有能力生存。只有在逆境來臨的時候，你才會真正認(rèn)識你自己，了解身邊的人。這種了解是真正的財富，雖然是用痛苦換來的，但比我以前得到的任何資格證書都有用。
失敗使我的內(nèi)心產(chǎn)生一種安全感，這是我從考試中沒有得到過的。失敗讓我看清自己，這也是我通過其他方式無法體會的。我發(fā)現(xiàn)，我比自己認(rèn)為的，要有更強(qiáng)的意志和決心。我還發(fā)現(xiàn)，我擁有比寶石更加珍貴的朋友。
那么為什么我要談?wù)撌〉暮锰幠?？因為失敗意味著剝離掉那些不必要的東西。我因此不再偽裝自己、遠(yuǎn)離自我，而重新開始把所有精力放在對我最重要的事情上。
現(xiàn)在，我不打算站在這里告訴你們，失敗是有趣的。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗歲月，我不知道它是否代表童話故事里需要歷經(jīng)的磨難，更不知道自己還要在黑暗中走多久。很長一段時間里，前面留給我的只是希望，而不是現(xiàn)實。