19世紀有兩位偉大的人物，一位是拿破侖，一位是海倫·凱勒。

——馬克·吐溫

人類的精神之美一旦被認識，我們就永遠不會忘記。海倫·凱勒小姐的生活和生活樂趣，給我們這些沒有那么多困難需要克服的人上了永遠難忘的一課——我們希望這本書有越來越多的讀者，并讓她的精神傳播得越來越廣。

——羅斯福夫人

當我提起筆來，記下從出生到現在的生命歷程，真覺得惶恐不安。童年往事猶如籠罩在霧一般輕柔的薄幕下，現在要把它掀開，的確讓我疑慮重重。寫自傳本身是件很難的事，更何況童年早已久遠，我已經無法分清楚哪些是事實，哪些只是我的幻覺想象。不過，在我的大腦記憶中，有些事情仍然鮮明生動地閃現出來，雖然某些畫面只是片斷的、零碎的，但對于我的人生卻有或多或少的影響。為了避免冗長乏味，我將節選一些最有趣和最有價值的情節，來講述我生活的故事。

——海倫·凱勒

IT is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life; but“the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest.”Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important.

Helen Keller