听英美国家政治家、名人的演讲发言，经常有非常精彩独到之处，我们可以学习借鉴，为我们的口语表达和写作等增色。
今天我们来看看《哈利波特》的作者J.K.罗琳女士2008年6月5日在哈佛大学的毕业典礼的演讲的精彩后半部分。
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
by default：默认地
也许你永远也不会像我曾经一样落魄，但生活中的挫败却在所难免。活着，就不可能事事如意，除非活得万般小心，不曾真正体验生活——果真如此，那本身就是失败。
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.
find out：发现
above the price of rubies：比红宝石还昂贵，非常珍贵
考试通过不能让我心安，失败却可以。失败教会我的东西，从别处是学不到的。我发现自己比想象的更加坚韧和自律；我也意识到，我有许多弥足珍贵的好友。
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.
sth/sb be tested by sth ：经受…试炼/磨练
sth be painfully won ：来之不易
意识到自己走出了挫折，并且变得更加聪慧而坚韧，意味着自此以后，你就牢固地掌握了生存之道。除非你自己和你的人际关系经历了磨难的试炼，否则你永远不会真正了解自己，也不知道自己的人际关系究竟有多么强韧。这样的认知，虽然来之不易，但是价值连城，比我所获得的任何资质都要珍贵。
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.
check-list：检查单，清单
beyond control：不受控制，超出控制范围
vicissitude：变迁
Time Turner：时间转换器，出现在《哈利波特与阿兹卡班的囚徒》。赫敏因为选了太多课程，许多课程时间都相互冲突。为了帮她，麦格教授特别帮她申请了时间转换器，让她能够穿梭时间，赶上所有的课。
因此，如果有时间转换器，我会告诉21岁的自己，个人的幸福在于认识到，生活不是罗列所得或者所成的清单。你的资质和简历，不是你的生活。但是你还是会遇到很多人，不论是跟我年纪相当，或者更加年长，将这两者混为一谈。生活艰辛而复杂，没人能完全加以把控。谦虚地认识到这一点，能帮助你们挺过大风大浪。
Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
play a part：发挥作用
to the last gasp：直到最后一口气，至死…
empathize with：有同感，有共鸣
你们可能觉得我之所以选择第二个主题，想象力的重要性，是因为想象力在我重塑生活中起到的作用，但并非全然如此。虽然我会誓死维护睡前故事的重要性，但是我学会了在更广的维度上衡量想象力的价值。想象力是人类独有的天马行空的能力，因此也是一切发明创造的源泉。但还不仅如此。可以说，想象力最具变化性和启示性的功能，就是让我们有能力对别人感同身受。
One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
formative experience：重要经历
我人生中有一段经历对我意义非凡，虽然发生在写《哈利波特》之前，但是对我在书中的写作内容深有启发。我是在早期的工作中体会到这段有启示意义的经历的。在我20岁出头的时候，虽然在午餐时间也会偷闲写写故事，但凭借在国际特赦组织伦敦总部非洲研究部的工作，我才得以支付房租。
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
risking (doing) sth to：冒着…风险…
我在狭促的办公室里，读着草草写就的信件。人们冒着坐牢的风险，把这些信件偷偷带出极权国家，就是为了昭告世界，他们经历了怎样的遭遇。我看过由绝望的亲友们送来的失踪人口的照片。我读过受严刑拷打的受害者的证词，看过他们伤口的照片。我开启过手写的文件，其中目击证人描述了即决审讯、行刑、绑架和强奸。
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.
flee into exile：流离逃亡
speak against：批评，发表不利于…的言论
我许多同事都曾是政治犯。他们因为冒然抨击政府而流离失所，或者亡命天涯。我们办公室的访客，有些是来提供信息，有些是想来了解仍在家乡的人近况如何。
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
inflict sth upon sb/sth：使…蒙受…
Wish sb sth：祝..
我永远不会忘记一位非洲年轻男性，当时年纪不比我大，饱受酷刑之苦，因为在家乡的遭遇，患上了精神病。当他对着摄像机讲述蒙受的暴行时，浑身控制不住地颤抖。他比我还高1英尺，但是看上去就像小孩一样弱不禁风。随后我受命护送他去地铁车站。他一生惨遭暴行，却优雅而礼貌地握着我的手，祝我幸福。
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
我永远不会忘记，当我走在空荡荡的走廊上，突然听见紧闭的门后传来疼痛而惊骇的尖叫——我从未听过这样惨烈的尖叫。门开了，研究员探出她的脑袋，让我赶紧泡一杯热饮给跟她一起坐在里面的年轻男性。她正试着告知他一则消息：他的母亲被抓住行刑了，就为了报复他对祖国政权的直言抨击。
这部分演讲，罗琳揭示了想象力重要性的所在：人们的同理心。我们通过想象，结合自己的经验体会，试着做到感同身受，理解别人的悲欢。这也是罗琳作为一名成功作家，笔下人物有血有肉，鲜活动人的一大原因之所在吧。
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