Speech by Anna Quindlen
In light of the up coming women's day celebration that we will be having down here in South Africa
This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen, at the 1999
Graduation Ceremony at Villanova University , Pennsylvania
awarded an Honorary Doctorate.
I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever
confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this
afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds
of people out there with your same degree : there will be thousands of
people doing what you want to do for a living.
But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.
Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or
your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of
your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account but your
soul. People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much
easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold
comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when
you've gotten back the test results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume : I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never
to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer
consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to
laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows
mean what they say.
I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would
be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But I
call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, or at
best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be
really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.
So here's what I wanted to tell you today:
Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the
bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much
about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in
your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing
itself on a breeze overSeaside Heights
how a red tailed hawk circles over the water or the way a baby scowls with
concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first
finger. Get a life in which you are not alone.
Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not
leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter.
Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best
thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so
deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you
would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be
a big brother or sister.
All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well
will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours,
our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids' eyes,
the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises
again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many
years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination.
I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only
guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to
give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I
tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling
them this:
Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in
the back yard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of
life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and
passion as it ought to be lived.
awarded an Honorary Doctorate.
I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever
confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this
afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds
of people out there with your same degree : there will be thousands of
people doing what you want to do for a living.
But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.
Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or
your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of
your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account but your
soul. People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much
easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold
comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when
you've gotten back the test results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume : I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never
to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer
consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to
laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows
mean what they say.
I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would
be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But I
call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, or at
best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be
really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.
So here's what I wanted to tell you today:
Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the
bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much
about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in
your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing
itself on a breeze over
how a red tailed hawk circles over the water or the way a baby scowls with
concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first
finger. Get a life in which you are not alone.
Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not
leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter.
Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best
thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so
deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you
would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be
a big brother or sister.
All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well
will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours,
our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids' eyes,
the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises
again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many
years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination.
I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only
guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to
give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I
tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling
them this:
Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in
the back yard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of
life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and
passion as it ought to be lived.
