一兩個月前在舊書架上看見厚厚一本克林頓自傳才賣兩毛五美分，就把像磚頭一樣厚，957頁的書搬回了家，然後開始以每天20到30頁的速度讀了幾個星期。讀到第400頁，望著剩下的五六百頁，突然間就有一種望洋興歎的感覺。書中的人名太多，敘述太瑣碎, 幾乎麵麵俱到。像我這樣一個不太關心時政、曆史，尤其對這種政治人物知之甚少的讀者，讀這樣的書還是有挑戰的。最後決定不給自己壓力，後半部分隻挑幾個章節來讀，比如寫中國之行，寫他與白宮實習生monica Lewinsky性醜聞曝光後的個人感受，然後就此棄書：）
這世界上的書是讀不完的，人的時間又這麽寶貴，沒有必要做到凡事善始善終。但是四百多頁的內容還是值得做一下筆記的，否則再過一段時間就會忘得一幹二淨。以下就是一些筆記整理：
克林頓出生前三個月，他28歲的生父就死於車禍。根據Wikipedia上的資料，克林頓生父在與他母親結婚時，其實已經有婚姻（第四次婚姻），也就是說生父跟他母親結婚是屬於重婚。他母親後來再嫁。繼父Roger是一位汽車經銷商，雖然酗酒打罵老婆被克林頓告發，但是克林頓與繼父的關係好像挺不錯的。在繼父得癌症病重人生的最後時光裏，當時在Georgetown University讀書的克林頓每星期五從學校開車266英裏回家看繼父，周日晚上再開回學校。
克林頓的母親是一位麻醉護士，有過4次婚姻，後來得了乳腺癌，擴散。書中提到，他母親一直向家人隱瞞著病情的嚴重性。1994年在克林頓當上美國總統不到一年時間，母親去世，享年70歲。據克林頓回憶，母親總是把他的成功歸咎於克林頓自身的努力，說克林頓是一個self-made man，而不去提她這個當母親的付出，包括後來隱瞞她自己病情的嚴重性，在我一個常人看來挺難得的。
克林頓的童年雖然沒有父愛，卻享盡了來自外祖父母的愛。在他母親去新奧爾良學護士課程期間，克林頓由外祖父祖母撫養。在他的成長過程中，外祖父母對他人生觀的形成有一定影響。外祖父開有小雜貨店，來來往往的有黑人有窮人。外祖父寬厚對待他們，允許他們賒賬，不另眼相待。這大概解釋了克林頓後來的“黑白通吃”，對黑人沒有偏見，對窮人有同理心，當上總統後也致力於減少貧富差距，倡導種族平等，因為他親眼目睹過底層百姓的掙紮。
書中有一句話，He loved Mother and me more than life)。這裏的He指外祖父，也正是在這樣有愛的環境中，一個從小沒有父親的克林頓好像並不缺愛。
由此聯想到一個人的成長。如果把人比作是一棵樹，如果他的主幹根須在成長過程不能及時提供充分的養料，那麽側枝旁係提供的營養一樣能使小樹茁壯成長。和睦的大家庭/大家族就像榕樹，枝繁葉茂根須發達，彼此互相供給營養。克林頓外祖父母的愛彌補了克林頓原本缺失的父愛。
也因為他自己的出身經曆，所以當克林頓自己做父親後，他盡其所能陪伴女兒Chelsea，包括放棄1989年的總統競選，其中的考量之一是為了更多地陪伴女兒的成長。
不像小布什出生官宦世家，克林頓出身寒門，走上從政之路是靠他自身的努力。從Georgetown University，到給議員Fulbright當差做義工，到獲得牛津大學的羅德獎學金，到考上哈佛法學院，再到州長到美國總統，克林頓一步一個腳印地走了出來。不過期間也非一帆風順。1981年在Arkansas州當了兩年州長之後，因其執政期間的冒進政策，比如提高公路稅汽油稅，得罪了大批選民，以致在連任時落選。如果他就此沉淪，那就不是現在我們認識的克林頓了。他沉淪半年後重新振作，兩年後再度參加州長競選，再次當任，一做又近十年。克林頓在Arkansas州總共執政11年11個月，成為Arkansas州任期最二長的一位州長。
正如他自己說的，人生經曆失敗才能成長成功。
在中美關係上，1997年克林頓在任期間江澤民訪美。1998年克林頓攜全家回訪中國。他是1989年六四以來第一個訪華的總統。中國當時的韜光養晦政策和克林頓的全球化戰略，讓中國進入WTO, 並贏得了三四十年的發展時間。
克林頓無疑是一個偉大的政治家、總統，他在任職期間加強教育科技的投入、改進醫療福利製度等。他憑借著當時的和平大環境和全球化的紅利，以及一係列增加稅收發展經濟的舉措，一舉成為自1969年以來第一位讓美國財政預算實現扭虧為盈的總統，同時奠定了二十一世紀美國在科技、IT和醫療等前沿方麵的領先地位。
當然克林頓並非完人。參加總統競選時，因人格問題（character problem）遭人攻擊。後來任職期間諸多性醜聞案又被曝光，遭遇被彈劾。書中有幾個章節描寫他的壓力、心情，提到性醜聞被曝光後，自己被希拉裏和女兒冷落，自己睡沙發兩個月之久。。。
再則，近一兩年公布的蘿莉島名單上也有他的大名。
當然作為一個普通讀者，讀自傳絕非是要去評判一個人。讀自傳的著眼點更多的是去了解一個（偉）人的真實成長過程和人生軌跡，他/她的童年他們的家庭對他們一生的影響，也希望自己從中能感悟一些東西收獲一些東西。這些年陸陸續續讀了一些傳記，如總統羅斯福（FDR），川普，裏根，這次副總統提名萬斯的傳記，還有Jeff Bezos，Michelle Kwan的傳記等。
讀別人的故事，裝點自己的人生風景：）
另外，在書中讀到克林頓這樣一句話，特別感慨：人應該在21到35歲間退休，然後再拚命工作到死：） People should retire between the age of 21 and 35, then work like hell till they die. 我們現在是反其向而行之：）
書中有好幾次提到parallel lives，平行的人生，無法交織的兩種生活軌跡。有待進一步了解克林頓所謂的Parallel lives.
書中摘錄 （Quotes)：
“I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can’t be judged by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgements can make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes the only response to pain.
Perhaps most important, I learned that everyone has a story – of dreams and nightmares, hope and heartache, love and loss, courage and fear, sacrifice and selfishness. All my life I’ve been interested in other people’s stories. I wanted to know them, understand them, feel them. When I grew up into politics, I always felt the main point of my work was to people a chance to have better stories.
“Psychologically, we’re all a complex mixture of hopes and fears. Each day we wake up with the scales tipping a bit one way or the other. If they go too far toward hopefulness, we can become naïve and unrealistic. If the scales tilt too far the other way, we can get consumed by paranoia and hatred.”
“And to the memory of my grandfather, who taught me to look up to people others looked down on, because we’re not so different after all”
“We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps, but we have not done so; instead, we have drifted. And that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence.”
“The idea that power was an end in itself, rather than a means to provide the security and opportunity necessary for the pursuit of happiness, seemed to him stupid and self-defeating." (about Senator Fulbright)”
“According to Becker, as we grow up, at some point we become aware of death, then the fact that people we know and love die, then the fact that someday we, too, will die. Most of us do what we can to avoid it. Meanwhile, in ways we understand only dimly if at all, we embrace identities and the illusion of self-sufficiency. We pursue activities, both positive and negative, that we hope will lift us beyond the chains of ordinary existence and perhaps endure after we are gone. All this we do in a desperate push against the certainty that death is our ultimate destiny. Some of us seek power and wealth, others romantic love, sex, or some other indulgence. Some want to be great, others to do good and be good. Whether we succeed or fail, we are still going to die. The only solace, of course, is to believe that since we were created, there must be a Creator, one to whom we matter and will in some way return.”
“Our job is to live as well and as long as we can, and to help others to do the same. What happens after that and how we are viewed by others is beyond our control.”
“I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.”
“a lot of your life is shaped by the opportunities you turn down as much as those you take up.”
“After being married for nearly thirty years and observing my friends’ experiences with separations, reconciliations, and divorces, I’ve learned that marriage, with all its magic and misery, its contentments and disappointments, remains a mystery, not easy for those in it to understand and largely inaccessible to outsiders.”婚姻是一個謎，城外的人看不懂城內的風景。
In politics, when you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging, if you’re blind to the possibility of error or determined not to admit it, you just look for a bigger shovel. The more difficulties we had in Vietnam, the more protests mounted at home, the more troops we sent it.
If he could only have faced life with the same courage and sense of humor with which he faced death, he would have been quite a guy. (Roger, his stepfather)
He believed in civil rights for all and special privileges for none, in giving poor people a hand up rather than a handout: work was better than welfare.
I was against the war and the police brutality, but growing up in Arkansas had given me an appreciation for the struggle of ordinary people who do their duty every day, and a deep skepticism about self-righteous sanctimony on the right or the left.
We had set the bar high. When you set a high bar and reach for it, even if you fall short, you wind up well ahead of where you started.
We’ll spend whatever we have to spend to get whoever we have to get to say whatever they have to say to take you out. And we’ll do it early.
It was a girl with “no make-up, Coke-bottle glasses, and brown hair with no apparent style.” (Hillary)
I told Chelsea and her classmates that on this day their parents’"pride and joy are tempered by our coming separation from you… We are remembering your first day in school and all the triumphs and travails between then and now. Though we have raised you for the moment of departure and we are very proud of you, a part of us longs to hold you once more as we did when you could barely walk, to read to you just one more time Good Night Moon or Curious George or The Little Engine that Could, I said that an exciting world beckoned and they have almost limitless choices, and I reminded them of Eleanor Roosevelt’s adage that no one can make you feel inferior without your permission: “Do not give them permission.”養兒育女終有一別
I was trying to protect myself and my family from intrusive questions in a politically inspired lawsuit that had been dismissed. I also said that Starr’s investigation had gone too long, cost too much, and hurt too many people… I hope we could repair the fabric of our nation’s life by stopping the pursuit of personal destruction and prying into private lives, and moving on. I believe every word I said, but my anger hadn’t worn off enough for me to be as contrite as I should have been.
It was the happiest moment of my life, one my own father never knew. I talked to her and sung to her. I never wanted that night to end. 做父親的喜悅
If I was lucky enough to have a child, she would never grow up wondering who her father was.
I loved her enough both to want her and to want the best for her. (her: Hillary)
Most people have their hands full raising their kids, doing their jobs, and paying the bills.
An A’s worth of knowledge was hidden in the bush of an F presentation, flawed by things he hadn’t learned going all the way back to elementary school.
If I hadn’t been defeated, I probably never would have become President. It was a near-death experience, but an invaluable one, forcing me to be more sensitive to the political problems inherent in progressive politics: the system can absorb only so much change at once, no one can beat all the entrenched interests at the same time; and if people think you’ve stopped listening, you’re sunk.
Without a high pain threshold, you can’t be a successful president anyway.
The Cherokees believe a man does not reach full maturity until he is 51.
I loved that day in Selma. Once again, I was swept back across the year to my boyhood longing for our belief in an America without a racial divide. Once again, I returned to the emotional core of my political life in saying farewell to the people who had done so much to nourish it: As long as Americans are willing to hold bonds, we can walk with any wind, we can cross any bridge. Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome.
People should retire between the age of 21 and 35, then work like hell till they die.
