Randy Pausch (1960 – 2008)
Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States and a best-selling author, who achieved worldwide fame for his speech The Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon University, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and having only a few months to live.
A good apology is like antibiotic, a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound."
It's very important to know when you're in a pissing match. And it's very important to get out of it as quickly as possible.
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, I'm sorry to disappoint you.
We're not going to talk about spirituality and religion. Although I will tell you that I have experienced a deathbed conversion. I just bought a Macintosh.
You can always change you plan, but only if you have one.."
If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, "tell the truth." If I got three more words, I'd add: "All the time."
Don't complain; just work harder.
I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left.
Be good at something. It makes you valuable.
Focus on other people, not on yourself.
When you're eight or nine years old and you look at the TV set and men are landing on the moon — anything is possible. And that is something we need to not lose sight of — that the inspiration and permission to dream is immense.
It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed. It is the things we do not. Find your passion and follow it. And if there is anything that I have learned in life, you will not find that passion in things. And you will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more money you have, the more you will just look around and use that as the metric — and there will always be someone with more. Your passion must come from the things that fuel you from the inside. That passion will be grounded in people. It will be grounded in the relationships you have with people and what they think of you when your time comes.
Having been selected to be an author in the World Book, I now believe that Wikipedia is a perfectly fine source for your information, because I know what the quality control is for real encyclopedias — they let me in.
Did you figure out the second head fake? This talk's not for you. It's for my kids.