Randy Pausch Quotes

I'm dying and I'm having fun.

My dad was so full of life, anything with him was an adventure. [Shows picture of his Dad holding a brown paper bag] I don’t know what’s in that bag, but I know it’s cool. My dad dressed up as Santa Claus, but he also did very, very significant things to help lots of people. This is a dormitory in Thailand that my mom and dad underwrote. And every year about 30 students get to go to school who wouldn’t have otherwise. This is something my wife and I have also been involved in heavily. And these are the kind of things that I think everybody ought to be doing. Helping others.

We've placed a lot of emphasis in this country on the idea of people's rights. That's how it should be, but it makes no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities.

Be good at something. It makes you valuable. Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.

"Never make a decesion until you have to". He'd also warn me that even if I was in a position of strenght, whether at work or in a relationship, I had to play fair. "Just because you're in the driver's seat, doesn't mean you have to run people over."

[My mother] saw it as part of her mission to keep my cockiness in check. I'm grateful for that now...We now live in an age when parents praise every child as a genius

You've got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.

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. And given that I won’t be there, I want to make this clear: Kids, don’t try to figure out what I wanted you to become. I want you to become what you want to become.

There are more ways than one to measure profits and losses.

We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn’t matter. Life is to be lived

Clutter is death; it leads to thrashing. Keep desk clear: focus on one thing at a time.

Well, you can’t have just some of me, Jai,” I told her. “You appreciate the part of me that didn’t get angry because two ‘things’ we own got hurt. But the flip side of that is my belief that you don’t repair things if they still do what they’re supposed to do. The cars still work.
Let’s just drive ’em.

When you're frustrated with people, when they've made you angry, it just may be because you haven't given them enough time.

Brick walls are not there to keep us out, they are there to show us how much we want something.

I was hugely impressed... was the ultimate example of a man who knew what he didn't know, was perfectly willing to admit it, and didn't want to leave until he understood. That's heroic to me.

I wish every grad student had that attitude.