I did very badly at school. My headmaster thought I was _______ and when I was 14 he said, “You’re never going to be _______but a failure.”

After five years of _______jobs, I fell in love with a very nice middle-class girl. It was the best _______that could have happened to me. I _______I wanted to do something positive (积极地) with my life because I wanted to prove to _______that what people said about me was _______. Especially her mother, who had said to me, “Let’s _______it, you’ve failed at everything you’ve ever done.” So I tried hard with my _______and went to college. My first novel (小说) ________while I was at college.

After college I taught during the ________in high schools and attended evening classes at London University, where I got a ________in history. I became a lecturer at a college and was thinking of ________that job to write full time ________I was offered a part-time job at Leeds University. I began to feel proud of myself — ________was a working--class boy who’d ________school early, now teaching at the university.

My writing career (职业) took off when I discovered my own style. Now I’m rich and ________, have been on TV, and met lots of film stars. ________what does it mean? I ________wish all the people that have put me down had ________: “I believe in you. You’ll succeed.”

I spent two weeks in Kenya as a volunteer in a natural reserve. Our______was aimed at protecting wildlife. And we also did other______work, helping the local people to improve their living_______.

I______the woods with slow heavy steps, picked up a few traps left by______hunters and helped monitor the population of giraffes, which was at risk to illegal hunting. We also______sporting equipment to local schools, where you could see their textbooks and classrooms were in______condition. We made______, but sometimes they seemed useless. There are so many problems that need to be______such as environmental damage, illegal hunting, and lack of______to education. What can one group of volunteers______? These are problems that maybe need to______many years to address.

So why choose to be a volunteer?______, it is unpaid and often very hard work. Even though it is easy to get______, most of the time what we are in search of is life’s meaning—to spend our______well and for a good cause.

These are moments I will______for a long time—the salty air, dozens of zebras eating grass, the sunset over the hills. And also the smiles, the waves of local children, the______sound of laughter among strangers have been______impressed in my mind. These are the moments that______me of how proud I am to have been a volunteer. These are the______that will stay with me forever and remind me of a time, a place and a certain destination.

I will never forget one summer in my childhood. While walking in the attic (阁楼), I stepped on something and ______ down, with my hand landing on a floorboard that popped up and almost hit me in the head. When I ______ and looked inside the open space, I could not believe my eyes: There was gold in there! I ______ a handful of shining gold cubes, an to the bottom stair and ______,” Mama. I found gold up here under the floor!”

Back up the stairs I dashed. ______ my brothers almost knocked me back down as they ran right by me. When Mama opened the door and ______ her head m, she ______ said, “Honey, that’s insulation (隔热材料). Now put it all back.”

I felt really disappointed. I had thought I made a real ______.

When I ______ inside to put the fake gold back, my hand touched what felt like a book. I pulled it out. It was old and small: Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, which I’d never heard of. And ______ I was bored, I decided to see what was inside this little book. To my ______, it was a book of passages, phrases, and proverbs and I could tell that this was going to be ______.

So I spent quite much time on it and found ______ in these pages, As I didn’t know how to express things clearly, I often ______ to talk about them. This book helped me ______ that I didn’t need to feel ashamed or ______, because other people had similar experiences.

When I went to college, Bartlett’s came with me. Over the years, I’ve kept my original ______, which to this day I often ______. Although it was a ______ to find the book, it liberated me in a way. It helped me see more than my young mind and heart were able to understand.

The book discovered under those floorboards was, ______, gold.