迈克尔·乔丹：退役演说
Michael Jordan/迈克尔·乔丹
I am here to announce my retirement from the game of basketball. It won’t be another announcement to baseball or anything to that nature.
Mentally，I’m exhausted，I don’t feel I have a challenge. Physically，I feel great. The last time in 1993 I had other agendas. I felt that I wanted to play baseball and I felt that at my age，it was a good opportunity and time to do it. And with the death of my father，and I was basically trying to deal with that.
Actually I talked to Jerry last year once the season ended and I told Jerry at that time，mentally，I was a little exhausted. I didn’t know if I would play next year. I wanted to put him on awareness so that he could possibly prepare going into next season. And Jerry，once we had our conversation，wanted me to take time as I did in 1993 to make sure that it was the right decision because it was going to be the final decision.
I retired the first time when Phil Jackson was the coach. And I think that even with Phil being the coach I would have had a tough time，mentally finding the challenge for myself，although he can somehow present challenges for me. I don’t know if he could have presented the challenge for me to continue on to this season. Even though middle way of this season I wanted to continue to play a couple more years，but at the end of this season I was mentally drained and tired. So I can’t say that he would have restored that.
I will support the Chicago Bulls. I think the game itself is a lot bigger than Michael Jordan. I’ve been given an opportunity by people before me，to name a few，Kareem Abdul Jabbar，Doctor J，Eljohn Baylor，Jerry West. These guys played the game way before Michael Jordan was born and Michael Jordan came on the heels of all that activity. Mr Stern and what he’s done for the league，gave me an opportunity to play the game of basketball. I played it to the best I could play it，I tried to enhance the game itself. I’ve tried to be the best basketball player that I could be.
我在这里宣布从篮坛退役，而且这次退役后不会再去从事棒球或其他类似的运动。
由于心理上很疲惫，我感到自己非常缺乏挑战力。体力倒还不错。上次我在1993年退役时有别的打算，我想去打棒球，并且觉得当时的年龄是打棒球的好时机。但是父亲去世了，我不得不全力处理这件事。
事实上，去年赛季刚结束时，我和杰里谈过一次。我告诉他我在精神上有些疲惫，不知道下一年还能不能打。我想让他意识到这一点，以便为下一赛季做准备。有一次我和杰里谈过这个问题，他让我像1993年那样，好好考虑，以便作出明智的决定，因为这将是最后的决定。
我第一次退役时的教练是费尔·杰克逊。我那时觉得即使是费尔当教练，我的日子也不会好过。我要在精神上给自己寻找挑战，尽管他有时也会给我一些挑战，但我不知道他能否给我足够的挑战让我继续打完这个赛季。在赛季中间的时候，我还想过再打几年，但当赛季结束时，我从内心感到彻底地枯竭和疲惫。所以我想他没法帮我恢复精力。
我会支持芝加哥公牛队。我觉得这项运动本身比乔丹重要得多。我的前辈给了我很多机会，比如卡里姆·阿卜杜尔·贾巴尔、J博士、埃尔金·贝勒、杰里·韦思特。这些人早在乔丹出生前就活跃在赛场上了，乔丹是踩着他们的脚步来的。斯特恩先生及其为联盟所做的一切给了我打篮球的机会。我尽了自己的所能，努力地推动篮球事业的发展，也尽了最大的努力成为最好的球员。
导读
美国时间2003年4月16日晚上，北京时间2003年4月17日上午，NBA历史上最伟大的球员——迈克尔·乔丹，打完了他最后一场NBA比赛。在费城，在第一联合中心球馆，永远告别了NBA赛场。
单词注解
exhausted [i^5zC:stid] adj.耗尽的，用完的
mentally [5mentEli] adv.心理上；精神上
league [li:^] n.同盟，联盟
enhance [in5hB:ns] v.提高，增加
诵读名句
Actually I talked to Jerry last year once the season ended and I told Jerry at that time，mentally，I was a little exhausted.
Even though middle way of this season I wanted to continue to play a couple more years，but at the end of this season I was mentally drained and tired. So I can’t say that he would have restored that.
I played it to the best I could play it，I tried to enhance the game itself. I’ve tried to be the best basketball player that I could be.
第一章 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
威廉·福克纳：接受诺贝尔奖时的演说
William Faulkner/威廉·福克纳
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man，but to my work—a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit，not for glory and least of all for profit，but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too，by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail，among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question：“When will I be blown up?”Because of this，the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing. Because only that is worth writing about，worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid；and teach himself that forget it forever，leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart，the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.
Until he does so，he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust，of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value，of victories without hope and，worst of all，without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones，leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.