What if you only had a few months left to live?

That was the scenario facing Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. After his terminal diagnosis, Mr. Pausch lived about 11 months. And, during that time, he set about writing his "Last Lecture." These "Last Lectures" were often given by professors who would summarize what they would say if it was indeed their last lecture. But, with death facing him, Mr. Pausch set out to give The Last Lecture to remember - especially to be remembered by his 3 small children.

Mr. Pausch's lecture was titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." I haven't watched the video yet, but I did just finish the book that he wrote afterwards. And, it was incredibly moving! Mr. Pausch had a very positive outlook and I came across many wonderful quotes. I cried many times during the book, and wrote down some of my favorite quotes.

(I haven't watched the lecture yet, but I plan to!)

Here are my favorite quotes:

• "You've got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work."
• "When you're (messing) up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you."
• "There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something you can give; it's something they have to build."
• "Shatner was the ultimate example of a man who knew what he didn't know, was willing to admit it, and didn't want to leave until he understood."
• 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 showhow badly we want something."
• "Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier."
• "I found the best short cut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard."
• "Self-esteem? He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop it: you give them something they can't do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process."