2008JK罗琳哈佛毕业演讲稿

[毕业演讲，哈佛的“最后一课”]毕业演讲，哈佛的“最后一课” 文/王可在美国几乎每一所大学，毕业典礼都是一场“重头戏”.它们讲究排场，大多还蕴含着历史与传统。这在哈佛这所美国最古老的大学里更是展露无遗...+阅读

福斯特主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员，各位老师、家长、全体毕业生们：The first thing I would like to say is thank you. Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve endured at the thought of giving this mencement address he made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I he to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindors reunion.首先请允许我说一声谢谢。

哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉，连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧和紧张，更令我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面。现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下，眯着眼睛看看前面的大红横幅，安慰自己正在世界上最大的魔法学院聚会上。Delivering a mencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The mencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I cant remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of being a gay wizard.发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任，至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。

那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家Baroness Mary Warnock，对她演讲的回忆，对我写今天的演讲稿，产生了极大的帮助，因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。这个发现让我释然，让我不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业，法律或政治上的大好前途，转而醉心于成为一个快乐的魔法师。You see? If all you remember in years to e is the gay wizard joke, Ive still e out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals - the first step to self-improvement.你们看，如果在若干年后你们还记得“快乐的魔法师”这个笑话，那就证明我已经超越了Baroness Mary Warnock。

建立可实现的目标——这是提高自我的第一步。Actually, I he wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I he asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I he learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.实际上，我为今天应该和大家谈些什么绞尽了脑汁。我问自己什么是我希望早在毕业典礼上就该了解的，而从那时起到现在的21年间，我又得到了什么重要的启示。

I he e up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I he decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called real life, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.我想到了两个答案。在这美好的一天，当我们一起庆祝你们取得学业成就的时刻，我希望告诉你们失败有什么样的益处;在你们即将迈向“现实生活”的道路之际，我还要褒扬想象力的重要性。

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but bear with me.这些似乎是不切实际或自相矛盾的选择，但请先容我讲完。Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly unfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has bee. 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.回顾21岁刚刚毕业时的自己，对于今天42岁的我来说，是一个稍微不太舒服的经历。

可以说，我人生的前一部分，一直挣扎在自己的雄心和身边的人对我的期望之间。I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.我一直深信，自己唯一想做的事情，就是写小说。不过，我的父母，他们都来自贫穷的背景，没有任何一人上过大学，坚持认为我过度的想象力是一个令人惊讶的个人怪癖，根本不足以让我支付按揭，或者取得足够的养老金。

I know the irony strikes like with the force of a cartoon anvil now, but…我现在明白反讽就像用卡通铁砧去打击你，但...They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A promise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.他们希望我去拿个职业学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。

最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学现代语言。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻放弃了德语而报名学习古典文学。I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well he found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this pla, I think they would he been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.