最近讀了哈利波特作者J.K. Rowling 所寫的這本書。
這本書很短，其實就是她在2008年到美國哈佛大學給當屆畢業生的演講致詞，但字字句句都相當有智慧。
她用非常謙虛以及幽默的方式開場，她所演講的內容為她自己大學畢業後二十多年中所學習到的事，也就是「好人生」中所不可缺少的：失敗以及想像力。
在這摘記書中一些我很喜歡的句子：
- There is an expiration date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction.
- The fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well aquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure as much as a desire for success.
- Ultimately we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria, if you let it.
- Failure means 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. Had I really succeed at anything else, I might never found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believed I truly belonged.
- 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.
- Imagination is not only unique to human being but also enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have nerver shared.
- Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agorphobia, and that brings its own terror.
- 羅馬哲學家賽內卡（Seneca）， "As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters."
想想十年前在美國紐約Pratt Institute 的畢業典禮上，學校請來了著名的作家/詩人Patti Smith 為我們致詞。記得當時我聽得眼淚直流，但現在其實想不太起來所有的內容了，我只記得她說要照顧好牙齒。
