威廉·薩默塞特·毛姆/William Somerset Maugham
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it；but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy；for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life.
They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies；and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself.
以為青春是快樂的，這是一種錯覺，是失去了青春的人的錯覺。年輕人知道自己是不幸的，因為他們被灌輸而來的、不切實際的理想充斥著，他們隻要接觸到現實，就會碰得頭破血流。看起來他們就像是一場陰謀的犧牲品，因為他們讀的書由於被精挑細選過而變得完美。長輩回憶往事時，隔了健忘這一層玫瑰色薄霧，用他們的話為年輕人準備了不真實的生活。
年輕人必須自己去發現，那些他們讀來聽來的事情，全都是謊言、謊言、謊言；每一次這樣的發現，都像是一根釘子，把身體釘在生活的十字架上。奇怪的是，每個人在經過這種苦澀的幻滅之後，因內心某種無法自已的力量，而無意識地為它繼續增添幻覺。
心靈小語
青春的痛苦在於夢想、憧憬和現實的碰撞，其過程猶如珍珠的孕育、鑽石的打磨，是在苦痛中誕生光華與體現價值。
illusion n.幻覺；幻想；錯誤的印象；假象