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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. 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. I was set free, because my greatest fear had 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.
那么我為什么要談論失敗的收益呢？很簡單，因為失敗意味著剔除那些無關緊要的東西。我因此不再偽裝自己，我把所有的精力傾注在對我來說很重要的事情上。如果我真的在其他領域取得了成功，或許我永遠不會下定決心在我確信真正屬于我的舞臺上取得成功。我得到了解脫，因為雖然我害怕的事情發生了，但我還活著，我還有一個我深愛的女兒，一臺舊打字機和一個了不起的想法。所以人生的低谷是我重新開始生活的堅實基礎。
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.
你們也許不會敗得像我一樣慘，但人生中有些失敗是不可避免的。人生中不可能沒有失敗，除非你們活的過于拘謹，這樣倒還不如根本沒在世上活過，因為在這種情況下，放棄嘗試的權力就是你們最大的失敗。
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.
失敗賦予我內心一種安全感。這種安全感是我無法從通過考試中獲得的。失敗讓我了解了自己，這也是無法通過其他途徑做到的。經歷失敗讓我發現我有堅強的意志力，比我想象的更有自律性。我還發現，我擁有比寶石更加珍貴的朋友。
