The Last Lecture (Kindle highlights)

We didn’t buy much. But we thought about everything. That’s because my dad had this infectious inquisitiveness about current events, history, our lives. (p. 22)
I quote my father to people almost every day. Part of that is because if you dispense your own wisdom, others often dismiss it; if you offer wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable. (p. 23)
He was more focused on the grandest ideals and saw equality as the greatest of goals. He had high hopes for society, and though his hopes were too often dashed, he remained a raging optimist. (p. 24)
Many people who saw my last lecture were taken with one particular photo that I flashed on the overhead screen: It’s a photo in which I’m in my pajamas, leaning on my elbow, and it’s so obvious that I was a kid who loved to dream big dreams. (p. 25)
Anybody out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let them do it. It’ll be OK. Don’t worry about resale value on the house. (p. 30)
IT’S IMPORTANT to have specific dreams. (p. 31)
Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome. (p. 33)
I sometimes think I got more from pursuing that dream, and not accomplishing it, then I did from many of the ones I did accomplish. (p. 35)
When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better. (p. 37)
When we send our kids to play organized sports—football, soccer, swimming, whatever—for most of us, it’s not because we’re desperate for them to learn the intricacies of the sport. What we really want them to learn is far more important: teamwork, perseverance, sportsmanship, the value of hard work, an ability to deal with adversity. (p. 39)
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 (p. 42)
He was the distilled essence of the dynamic manager, a guy who knew how to delegate, had the passion to inspire, and looked good in what he wore to work. He never professed to have skills greater than his subordinates. He acknowledged that they knew what they were doing in their domains. But he established the vision, the tone. He was in charge of morale. (p. 44)
The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. (p. 51)
People are more important than things. A car, even a pristine gem like my new convertible, was just a thing. (p. 70)
My parents had raised me to recognize that automobiles are there to get you from point A to point B. They are utilitarian devices, not expressions of social status. And so I told Jai we didn’t need to do cosmetic repairs. We’d just live with the dents and gashes. (p. 86)
For Jai and me, our dented cars became a statement in our marriage. Not everything needs to be fixed. (p. 87)
NO MATTER how bad things are, you can always make things worse. At the same time, it is often within your power to make them better. (p. 88)
Time must be explicitly managed, like money. (p. 108)
You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. I’m a big believer in to-do lists. (p. 108)
Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? You may have causes, goals, interests. Are they even worth pursuing? (p. 108)
Develop a good filing system. (p. 109)
Delegate. As a professor, I learned early on that I could trust bright, nineteen-year-old students with the keys to my kingdom, and most of the time, they were responsible and impressive. It’s never too early to delegate. (p. 110)
It’s never too early to delegate. My daughter, Chloe, is just eighteen months old, but two of my favorite photos are of her in my arms. In the first, I’m giving her a bottle. In the second, I’ve delegated the task to her. She looks satisfied. Me, too. (p. 110)
Take a time out. It’s not a real vacation if you’re reading email or calling in for messages. (p. 110)
Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think. (p. 111)
IT IS an accepted cliché in education that the number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn. (p. 112)
In the end, educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. (p. 112)
I understand the arguments about how the billions of dollars spent to put men on the moon could have been used to fight poverty and hunger on Earth. But, look, I’m a scientist who sees inspiration as the ultimate tool for doing good. (p. 132)
When you use money to fight poverty, it can be of great value, but too often, you’re working at the margins. When you’re putting people on the moon, you’re inspiring all of us to achieve the maximum of human potential, which is how our greatest problems will eventually be solved. (p. 132)
The fact that fashion goes out of fashion and then comes back into fashion based solely on what a few people somewhere think they can sell, well to me, that’s insanity. (p. 134)
Somehow, with the passage of time, and the deadlines that life imposes, surrendering became the right thing to do. (p. 136)
TOO MANY people go through life complaining about their problems. I’ve always believed that if you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things can work out. (p. 138)
Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier. (p. 139)
If nobody ever worried about what was in other people’s heads, we’d all be 33 percent more effective in our lives and on our jobs. (p. 141)
Phrase alternatives as questions. (p. 143)
Find things you have in common. (p. 143)
Almost everybody has a good side. Just keep waiting. It will come out.” (p. 145)
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. (p. 147)
EXPERIENCE IS what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. (p. 148)
The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls. (p. 149)
SHOWING GRATITUDE is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other. And despite my love of efficiency, I think that thank-you notes are best done the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. (p. 151)
A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard. (p. 156)
One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don’t worry about because I have a plan in place if they do. (p. 160)
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.” (p. 163)
Proper apologies have three parts: 1) What I did was wrong. 2) I feel badly that I hurt you. 3) How do I make this better? (p. 162)
Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. (p. 179)
Ask those questions. Just ask them. More often than you’d suspect, the answer you’ll get is, “Sure.” (p. 179)
A lot of kids ask, “Why? Why? Why?” One rule in our house is that you may not ask one-word questions. (p. 195)
As I see it, a parent’s job is to encourage kids to develop a joy for life and a great urge to follow their own dreams. The best we can do is to help them develop a personal set of tools for the task. So my dreams for my kids are very exact: I want them to find their own path to fulfillment. (p. 197)
As a high-tech guy, I never fully understood the artists and actors I’ve known and taught over the years. They would sometimes talk about the things inside them that “needed to come out.” I thought that sounded self-indulgent. (p. 205)
“It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.” (p. 205)