她幾乎沒有談到哈裏波特，而是說了年輕時的壹些經歷。雖然J·K·羅琳現在很有錢，是英國僅次於女皇的最富有的女人，但是她曾經有壹段非常艱辛的日子，30歲了，還差點流落街頭。她主要談的是，自己從這段經歷中學到的東西。
我只找到了壹部分中文翻譯，有興趣的朋友可以看下面的原文和視頻。
二、
她首先回憶了自己大學畢業的情景：
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.
當時，我只想去寫小說。但是，我的父母出身貧寒，沒有受過大學教育。他們認為，我那些不安分的想象力只是壹種怪癖，根本不能用來還房貸，或者掙來養老金。
They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise 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.
他們希望我再去讀個專業學位，而我想去攻讀英國文學。最後，達成了壹個雙方都不甚滿意的妥協：我改學外語。可是等到父母壹走開，我立刻報名學習古典文學。
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
我不記得將這事告訴了父母。他們可能是在畢業典禮那壹天才發現的。我想，在全世界的所有專業中，他們也許認為，不會有比研究希臘神話更沒用的專業了，根本無法換來壹間獨立的寬敞衛生間。
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. …… I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and 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.
我要申明，我並不責怪父母。……他們只是希望我不要過窮日子，我不能批評他們。他們自己很窮，我後來壹度也很窮，所以我很理解他們，貧窮是壹種悲慘的經歷。它帶來恐懼、壓力、有時還有抑郁。它意味著許許多多的羞辱和艱辛。靠自己的努力擺脫貧窮，確實讓人自豪，但是只有傻瓜才會將貧窮本身浪漫化。
接著，她談到了自己那些最悲慘的日子：
A mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.
我畢業後只過了7年，就失敗得壹塌糊塗。
An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
*的婚姻閃電般地破裂，我還失業了，成了壹個艱難的單身母親。除了流浪漢，我是當代英國最窮的人之壹，真的壹無所有。我父母對我的擔憂，我對自己的擔憂，都變成了現實。用平常人的標準，我是我所知道的最失敗的人。
That period of my life was a dark one. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
那段日子是我生命中的黑暗歲月。我不知道還要在黑暗中走多久，很長壹段時間中，我有的只是希望，而不是現實。
但是，J.K. 羅琳認為，沒有那段日子的失敗，就不會有後來的她。
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.
為什麽我說失敗是有好處的？因為失敗將那些非本質的東西都剝離了。我不再偽裝自己，我找到了真正的我，我將自己所有的精力，投入完成對我最重要的壹項工作。
Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.
要是我以前在其他地方成功了，那麽我也許永遠不會有這樣的決心，投身於這個我自信真正屬於我的領域。
I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
我自由了，因為我的恐懼已經成為現實，而我卻還依然活著，依然有壹個深愛著的女兒，我還有壹臺舊打字機和壹個大大的夢想。我生命中最低的低點，成為我重建生活的堅實基礎。
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 rubies.
失敗使我的內心產生壹種安全感，以前通過考試也沒有的安全感。失敗讓我看清自己，以前我從沒認識到自己是這樣的。我發現，我比自己以為的，有更強的意誌和決心。我還發現，我有壹些比寶石更珍貴的朋友。
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 to me than any qualification I ever earned.
只有到逆境來臨的那壹天，妳才會真正了解妳自己，了解妳結識的人。這種了解是真正的財富，雖然是用痛苦換來的，但是它比我以前得到的任何證書都有用。
三、我要重點談的，是演說的結尾部分。
壹般來說，在演講結束時，嘉賓將對畢業生提出期望。我們可以看到，在這種場合，幾乎所有嘉賓，都沒有說“祝願同學們取得個人成功”，而是說“希望同學們努力去減輕人類的苦難”。
比爾·蓋茨去年說：
Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty … the prevalence of world hunger … the scarcity of clean water …the girls kept out of school … the children who die from diseases we can cure?
哈佛是否鼓勵她的老師去研究解決世界上最嚴重的不平等？哈佛的學生是否從全球那些極端的貧窮中學到了什麽……世界性的饑荒……清潔的水資源的缺乏……無法上學的女童……死於非惡性疾病的兒童……哈佛的學生有沒有從中學到東西？
Should the world's most privileged people learn about the lives of the world's least privileged?
那些世界上過著越生活的人們，有沒有從那些最困難的人們身上學到東西？
These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your policies.
這些問題並非語言上的修辭。妳必須用自己的行動來回答它們。
When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.
想壹想吧，我們在這個院子裏的這些人，被給予過什麽——天賦、特權、機遇——那麽可以這樣說，全世界的人們幾乎有無限的權力，期待我們做出貢獻。
J.K.羅琳今年說：
the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.
妳們是哈佛畢業生的這個事實，說明妳們並不很了解失敗。妳們也許極其渴望成功，所以非常害怕失敗。說實話，妳們眼中的失敗，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，畢竟妳們在學業上已經很成功了。
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities.…… That is your privilege, and your burden.
但是，所有各位哈佛大學2008屆畢業生，妳們對其他人的生活了解多少？妳們的智慧、妳們的能力、妳們所受的教育，給了妳們獨壹無二的優勢，也給了妳們獨壹無二的責任。……妳們的優勢就是妳們的責任。
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better.
妳們要用自己的地位和影響，為那些被忽略的人們說話；妳們不僅要看到那些有權有勢者，也要看到那些無權無勢者；妳們要學會設想，那些條件不如妳們的人們是如何生活的；那樣的話，不僅妳們的親人們將為妳們感到自豪，而且千千萬萬的人們將因為妳們的幫助而生活得更好。
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
我們不需要改變世界的魔法，我們自己的體內就有這樣的力量：那就是我們壹直在夢想，讓這個世界變得更美好。