值得背的大學英語美文
朱自清先生的散文集《背影》在現代散文史上具有劃時代的意義,堪稱現代美文的典範。下面小編整理了值得背的大學英語美文，希望大家喜歡!
摘抄
少年天才 邁克爾•喬丹
There were already signs that he had a good deal of talent.
邁克爾的天賦早已有所顯露。
Harvest Smith, a classmate and close friend who in those days played basketball with him practically every day,
他的一位同班同學和親密夥伴維斯特·史密斯，當時基本每天都和他一起打籃球，
thought he was the best player on their ninth-grade team — he was small, but he was every quick.
並覺得他是九年級球隊中最出色的——他身材不高但非常靈活。
“You’d see him get a shot off, and you’d wonder how he did it, because he wasn’t that bit,” Smith said, “but it was the quickness.
史密斯說：“你看到他蓋帽兒，就想問問他是怎麼蓋的，因為他沒那麼高大，可他身手敏捷。
The only question was how big he was going to be — and how far up he would take his skill level.”
唯一的問題是他將會長多高，會把自己的技能提高到什麼程度。”
The summer after ninth grade, Jordan and Smith both went to Pop Herring’s basketball camp.
讀完九年級的那個夏天，喬丹和史密斯一同參加了波譜·赫裡的籃球夏令營。
Neither of them had yet come into his body, and almost all of the varsity players,
他們倆從當時還未長大成人，而當時幾乎所有的校隊隊員都比他們大兩三歲，在這個年齡，
two and sometimes three years older, seemed infinitely stronger at that moment when a year or two in physical development can make all the difference.
大一兩歲在體魄上就大相徑庭，因而看上去都比他們強壯得多。
In Smith’s mind there was no doubt which of the two of them was the better player—it was Michael by far. But on the day the varsity cuts were announced — it was the big day of the year, for they had all known for weeks when the list would be posted — he and Roy Smith had gone to the Laney gym. Smith’s name was on it, Michael’s was not.
在史密斯的頭腦中，他們二人誰更出色是毫無疑問的——邁克爾比他強得多。但是到了宣佈校運動隊隊員篩選名單時—— 這可是一年中的大日子，因為他們幾星期前就知道名單何時會公佈—— 他和羅伊·史密斯都去了蘭尼體育館，而此時名單上有史密斯的名字，卻沒有邁克爾。
It was the worst day of Jordan’s young life. The list was alphabetical, so he focused on where the Js should be, and it wasn’t there, and he kept reading and rereading the list, hoping somehow that he had missed it, or that the alphabetical listing had been done incorrectly.
對於年輕的喬丹來說這一天簡直遭透了。因為名單是按字母順序排的，他就注意看可能有“喬”字的地方，可是並沒有。他一遍又一遍地看著，真希望是自己看漏了，或者是字母順序排錯了。
That day he went home by himself and went to his room and cried. Smith understood what was happening — Michael, he knew, never wanted you to see him when he was hurt.
那天他獨自回了家進屋後便大哭起來。史密斯明白所發生的一切——當邁克爾傷心或沮喪的時候，他不願意見人。
“We knew Michael was good,” Fred Lynch, the Laney assistant coach, said later, “but we wanted him to play more and we thought the jayvee was better for him.” He easily became the best player on the jayvee that year.
蘭尼的助理教練雷德·裡奇後來說：“我們知道邁克爾很出色，但我們想讓他多練練，所以覺得二隊更適合他。”那一年他輕鬆地成了二隊中最出色的隊員。
He simply dominated the play, and he did it not by size but with quickness. There were games in which he would score forty points. He was so good, in fact, that the jayvee games became quite popular. The entire varsity began to come early so they could watch him play in the jayvee games.
憑藉著敏捷而並非身高，他在隊中就已舉足輕重。許多比賽他都能得到四十分。實際上他突出的表現使二隊的比賽倍受歡迎。為了能看到有他參加的二隊比賽，整個校隊的隊員都開始提早到場。
Smith noticed that while Jordan had been wildly competitive before he had been cut, after the cut he seemed even more competitive than ever, as if determined that it would never happen again.
史密斯發現在喬丹被篩選掉之前是不甘於人後的，而在落選之後他的好勝心似乎有過之而不及，好像決心不讓歷史再次重演。他的教練們也注意到了這一點。
His coaches noticed it, too. “The first time I ever saw him, I had no idea who Michael Jordan was.
羅·康利說：“我一直幫忙在蘭尼的運動隊做教教練，當我第一次看到邁克爾·喬丹時，還不知道他是誰。
I was helping to coach the Laney varsity,” said Ron Coley. “We went over to Goldsboro, which was our big rival, and I entered the gym when the jayvee game was just ending up. There were nine players on the court just coasting, but there was one kid playing his heart out.
我們去與勁敵哥爾茲保羅隊打比賽，當我進到體育館時，二隊的比賽就要結束了。場上的九名隊員都已無心戀戰，只剩下一個孩子還在竭盡全力。
The way he was playing I thought his team was down one point with two minutes to play. So I looked up at the clock and his team was down twenty points and there was only one minute to play. It was Michael, and I quickly learned he was always like that.”
看他打球的樣子我想他們隊在剩下的兩分鐘裡一定只落後了一分，可當我抬頭看計時鐘時，他們隊在最後的一分鐘裡竟落後了二十分。這就是邁克爾，我很快就得知他一貫如此。”
Between the time he was cut and the start of basketball in his junior year, Jordan grew about four inches.
從喬丹少年時開始打籃球到被篩選掉的這段時間，他長了四英寸。
The speed had always been there, and now he was stronger, and he could dunk .
他的速度仍然是那麼快，只是現在他健壯了許多並且也能扣籃了。
His hands had gotten much bigger, Smith noticed. He was as driven as ever, the hardest-working player on the team in practice.
史密斯注意到，他的手也大了不少。他一直都充滿著緊迫感，他是隊中最勤於練球的隊員。
If he thought that his teammates were not working hard enough, he would get on them himself, and on occasion he pushed the coaches to get on them.
倘若他發現隊友不夠努力，他就會親自去說服他們，或者鼓動教練去。
Suddenly Laney High had the beginning of a very good basketball team, and its rising star was Michael Jordan.
一時間蘭尼中學出了一個非常優秀的籃球隊，邁克爾·喬丹成了冉冉升起的明星。
鑑賞
灰色晨曦中那通往彩虹的路
J.K.Rowling,author of Harry Potter Like that of her own character, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling'slife has the luster of a fairy tale.
J.K.羅琳的生活展現出童話般的光芒，如同她所創造的魔法小巫師—哈利·波特。
Divorced, living on public assistance in a tiny Edinburgh flat with her infant daughter, Rowlingwrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at a table in a cafe during her daughter's naps —and it was Harry Potter that rescued her.
經歷了一次失敗的婚姻後，這個靠救濟金過日子，獨自撫養女兒的單親媽媽和出生不久的女兒搬到了愛丁堡的一個狹小的公寓裡。為了逃離又小又冷的房間，她常待在住家附近的咖啡館裡，待女兒熟睡後開始寫作，女兒睡多久，她就寫多久。就在這個小咖啡館裡，她寫出了《哈利·波特與魔法石》，塑造了那個將她帶離窘境的小巫師。
Joanne Kathleen Rowling entered the world in Chipping Sodbury General Hospital in Bristol,England, a fitting beginning for someone who would later enjoy making up strange names forpeople, places and games played on flying broomsticks. Her younger sister Di was born justunder two years later.
喬安·凱瑟琳·羅琳出生在英格蘭的一家綜合醫院裡，這對一個喜歡給別人起奇怪名字，喜歡坐著掃帚滿場飛奔的小姑娘來說，是個合適的開始。她的妹妹兩年後來到這個世上。羅
Rowling remembers that she always wanted to write and that the first story she actually wrotedown, when she was five or six, was a story about a rabbit called Rabbit.
琳從小就喜歡寫作，五、六歲時就寫了一篇跟兔子有關的故事。
Many of her favorite memories center around reading—hearing The Wind in the Willows readaloud by her father when she had the measles , enjoying the fantastic adventure stories of E.
小時候美好的記憶似乎總是圍繞閱讀的—得麻疹時聽爸爸大聲講故事，讀奇異的冒險故事，沉浸在奇妙的故事世界裡。
Nesbit, reveling in the magical world of C. S. Lewis's Narnia, and her favorite story of all, TheLittle White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. At Exeter University Rowling took her degree in Frenchand spent one year studying in Paris.
大學裡，羅琳主修法語，在巴黎留學一年。畢業後，她搬去倫敦擔任調查員和雙語祕書。
After college she moved to London to work for Amnesty International as a researcher andbilingual secretary. The best thing about working in an office, she has said, was typing upstories on the computer when no one was watching.
羅琳回憶說，那段時間最有趣的事情就是趁沒人的時候在電腦上打小說。
During this time, on a particularly long train ride from Manchester to London in the summer of1990, the idea came to her of a boy who is a wizard and doesn't know it. He attends a schoolfor wizardry--she could see him very plainly in her mind.
1990 年，時值 24 歲的羅琳坐在由曼撤斯特出發前往倫敦的火車上，哈利·波特闖入了她的生命。她可以在腦海裡清晰地勾畫他的模樣，看到他進入魔法學校。
By the time the train pulled into King's Cross Station four hours later, many of the charactersand the early stages of the plot were fully formed in her head. The story took further shape asshe continued working on it in pubs and cafes over her lunch hours.
四小時後，當火車駛入王十字車站時，大部分人物和故事的前期框架已經在她的腦海裡形成了。當她午餐時間坐在咖啡館裡繼續構思時，故事的結構變得更加清晰。
In 1992 Rowling left off working in offices and moved to Portugal to teach English as a SecondLanguage. In spite of her students making jokes about her name ***this time they called her"Rolling Stone"***, she enjoyed teaching. She worked afternoons and evenings, leaving morningsfree for writing. After her marriage to a Portuguese TV journalist ended in divorce, Rowlingreturned to Britain with her infant daughter and a suitcase full of Harry Potter notes andchapters.
1992 年，羅琳結束了白領生涯，前往葡萄牙做英語教師。儘管學生們常拿她的名字開玩笑，叫她滾石***英語中 Rowling 與 rolling 同音***，她仍然非常喜歡教書。她在下午和晚上去學校工作，上午用來寫作。不久後，她與一名葡萄牙的電視臺記者結婚，但這段婚姻最終以離婚告終。離婚後，羅琳帶著女兒和滿滿一箱子哈利·波特的筆記與手稿回到了英國。
She settled in Edinburgh to be near her sister and set out to finish the book before looking fora teaching job.
為了能住得靠近妹妹，羅琳在愛丁堡定居下來，準備在找新工作前完成這部小說。
Wheeling her daughter's carriage around the city to escape their tiny, cold apartment, shewould duck into coffee shops to write when the baby fell asleep.
她常常推著女兒的手推車四處閒逛，只是為了逃離又小又冷的公寓。她會躲到咖啡館裡，趁女兒睡著時寫作。
In this way she finished the book and started sending it to publishers.
就這樣，羅琳在咖啡館裡完成了哈利·波特的創作，開始尋找出版商。
It was rejected several times before she found an London agent, chosen because she liked hisname--Christopher Little, who sold the manuscript to Bloomsbury Children's Books.
但她的稿件被多次退回，直到她找到了一個倫敦的經紀人。羅琳之所以會找到他，僅僅是因為喜歡他可愛的名字—克里斯多夫·裡特***Christopher Little***。
Rowling was working as a French teacher when she heard that her book about the boy wizardhad been accepted for publication.
當羅琳得知這本關於小巫師的小說被出版商接受時，她正在一所學校教法語。
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in June 1997 and achieved almostinstant success.
《哈利·波特》才一出版，就大獲成功。
With the publication of the American edition, retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in1998, Rowling's books continued to make publishing history. Harry Potter climbed to the top ofall the bestseller lists for children's and adult books.
隨著哈利·波特 1998 年在美國的出版，羅琳的書繼續創造著出版界的歷史。哈利·波特登上了兒童與成人書籍的最佳銷售榜的首位。
Indeed, the story of the boy wizard, his Cinderlad childhood, and his adventures at HogwartsSchool of Witchcraft and Wizardry caught the imagination of readers of all ages.
確實，這個小巫師的故事，他灰姑娘一樣的童年，和他在霍格華茲魔法學校的歷險引發了各個年齡讀者的豐富想象力。
In Britain a separate edition of the first book appeared with a more "adult" dust jacket so thatgrown-ups reading it on trains and subways would not have to hide their copy behind anewspaper.
在英國，出版商出版了一種更成人化封面的版本，使得大人們能在火車或者地鐵裡閱讀而不用把書藏在報紙後面。
Jo Rowling lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her daughter Jessica and continues to work onwriting the seven-book saga of Harry Potter.
現在，J.A.羅琳和她的女兒捷西卡住在蘇格蘭的愛丁堡，繼續完成哈利·波特的冒險故事。
賞析
生活是一個自己動手的專案
An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer contractor of his plans to leavethe house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extendedfamily.
一位年邁的木匠準備退休了。他告訴他的老闆他準備離開建築業的打算，他說他想和他的妻子過一種更休閒的生活，享受天倫之樂。
He would miss the paycheck,but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor wassorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personalfavor.
他還說他會懷念這裡的薪水的，但他必須退休了，他的離職他們慢慢就會適應的。老闆對他的這位優秀員工的離去感到非常遺憾，於是問他是否可以蓋最後一棟房子作為私下裡的幫忙。
The carpenter said yes,but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. Heresorted to shooddy workmanship and used inferior materials.
這位木匠答應了，但顯而易見他做事的時候是心不在焉的，他的手工做得毛毛糙糙，用的材料也是次品。
It was an unfortunate way to end his career. When the carpenter finished his work and thebuilder came to inspect the house,the contractor handed the front door key to the carpenter.
這樣結束他的事業是不幸的，當木匠最後完工，老闆來看房子時，他把前門的鑰匙交給木匠說，
"This is your house,"he said,"my gift to you." What a shock! What a shame!
“這是你的房子，是我送給你的禮物。” 震驚!羞愧!
If he had only known he was building his own house,he would have done it all so differently.Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.
如果他早知道他是在蓋自己的房子，他肯定會做得截然不同的，現在他不得不住在自己建的糟糕透頂的房子裡面。
So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way,reacting rather than acting,willing to putup less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort.
這個道理同樣適合我們，在營造生活時，我們的精力被分散到太多的地方，我們只是被動地適應而不會主動行動，而我們自己也不願意去盡心盡力地營造我們的生活。
Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living inthe house we have built.
在重要的時刻我們也沒能儘自己最大的努力做好工作。然後我們吃驚地看到自己所做的一切：發現自己就處在自己營建的房子裡。
If we had realized that we would have done it differently. Think of yourself as the carpenter.Think about your house.
如果我們早意識到這一點的話，我們的做法就會完全不同。 把你自己當成那個木匠。想想你的房子。
Each day you hammer a nail,place a board or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you willever build.
每天你都會釘個釘子，放塊木板或砌一面牆。明智地營造你的房子。這是你唯一可以營造的生活。
Even if you live it for day more that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity.
即使你只可以再活一天，你也要活得優雅、有尊嚴。
The plaque on the wall says,"Life is a do-it-yourself project." Who could say it more clearly?
牆上的匾寫著，“生活就是一個自己動手的專案”。誰能比這個說得更明白?
Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past. Your life tommorrow willbe the result of your attitudes and choices you make today.
你今天的生活就是你過去的生活態度和所作選擇的結果。你明天的生活就是你今天的生活態度和所作選擇的結果。