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The Last Lecture Hardcover – April 8, 2008
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When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." --Randy Pausch
- Print length206 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHyperion
- Publication dateApril 8, 2008
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions5.63 x 1 x 7.38 inches
- ISBN-109781401323257
- ISBN-13978-1401323257
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
--Randy Pausch
A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.
Questions for Randy Pausch
We were shy about barging in on Randy Pausch's valuable time to ask him a few questions about his expansion of his famous Last Lecture into the book by the same name, but he was gracious enough to take a moment to answer. (See Randy to the right with his kids, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.) As anyone who has watched the lecture or read the book will understand, the really crucial question is the last one, and we weren't surprised to learn that the "secret" to winning giant stuffed animals on the midway, like most anything else, is sheer persistence.
Amazon.com: I apologize for asking a question you must get far more often than you'd like, but how are you feeling?
Pausch: The tumors are not yet large enough to affect my health, so all the problems are related to the chemotherapy. I have neuropathy (numbness in fingers and toes), and varying degrees of GI discomfort, mild nausea, and fatigue. Occasionally I have an unusually bad reaction to a chemo infusion (last week, I spiked a 103 fever), but all of this is a small price to pay for walkin' around.
Amazon.com: Your lecture at Carnegie Mellon has reached millions of people, but even with the short time you apparently have, you wanted to write a book. What did you want to say in a book that you weren't able to say in the lecture?
Pausch: Well, the lecture was written quickly--in under a week. And it was time-limited. I had a great six-hour lecture I could give, but I suspect it would have been less popular at that length ;-).
A book allows me to cover many, many more stories from my life and the attendant lessons I hope my kids can take from them. Also, much of my lecture at Carnegie Mellon focused on the professional side of my life--my students, colleagues and career. The book is a far more personal look at my childhood dreams and all the lessons I've learned. Putting words on paper, I've found, was a better way for me to share all the yearnings I have regarding my wife, children and other loved ones. I knew I couldn't have gone into those subjects on stage without getting emotional.
Amazon.com: You talk about the importance--and the possibility!--of following your childhood dreams, and of keeping that childlike sense of wonder. But are there things you didn't learn until you were a grownup that helped you do that?
Pausch: That's a great question. I think the most important thing I learned as I grew older was that you can't get anywhere without help. That means people have to want to help you, and that begs the question: What kind of person do other people seem to want to help? That strikes me as a pretty good operational answer to the existential question: "What kind of person should you try to be?"
Amazon.com: One of the things that struck me most about your talk was how many other people you talked about. You made me want to meet them and work with them--and believe me, I wouldn't make much of a computer scientist. Do you think the people you've brought together will be your legacy as well?
Pausch: Like any teacher, my students are my biggest professional legacy. I'd like to think that the people I've crossed paths with have learned something from me, and I know I learned a great deal from them, for which I am very grateful. Certainly, I've dedicated a lot of my teaching to helping young folks realize how they need to be able to work with other people--especially other people who are very different from themselves.
Amazon.com: And last, the most important question: What's the secret for knocking down those milk bottles on the midway?
Pausch: Two-part answer:
1) long arms
2) discretionary income / persistence
Actually, I was never good at the milk bottles. I'm more of a ring toss and softball-in-milk-can guy, myself. More seriously, though, most people try these games once, don't win immediately, and then give up. I've won *lots* of midway stuffed animals, but I don't ever recall winning one on the very first try. Nor did I expect to. That's why I think midway games are a great metaphor for life.
About the Author
Jeff Zaslow wrote the Wall Street Journal column that fueled the initial interest in Randy Pausch's lecture. He was also the co-author of Captain Chesley Sullenberger's The Highest Duty and the author of The Girls from Ames, both bestsellers.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Last Lecture
By Randy PauschHyperion
Copyright © 2008 Randy PauschAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4013-2325-7
Chapter One
An Injured Lion Still Wants to RoarA LOT OF professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Maybe you've seen one.
It has become a common exercise on college campuses. Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
For years, Carnegie Mellon had a "Last Lecture Series." But by the time organizers got around to asking me to do it, they'd renamed their series "Journeys," asking selected professors "to offer reflections on their personal and professional journeys." It wasn't the most exciting description, but I agreed to go with it. I was given the September slot.
At the time, I already had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but I was optimistic. Maybe I'd be among the lucky ones who'd survive.
While I went through treatment, those running the lecture series kept sending me emails. "What will you be talking about?" they asked. "Please provide an abstract." There's a formality in academia that can't be ignored, even if a man is busy with other things, like trying not to die. By mid-August, I was told that a poster for the lecture had to be printed, so I'd have to decide on a topic.
That very week, however, I got the news: My most recent treatment hadn't worked. I had just months to live.
I knew I could cancel the lecture. Everyone would understand. Suddenly, there were so many other things to be done. I had to deal with my own grief and the sadness of those who loved me. I had to throw myself into getting my family's affairs in order. And yet, despite everything, I couldn't shake the idea of giving the talk. I was energized by the idea of delivering a last lecture that really was a last lecture. What could I say? How would it be received? Could I even get through it?
"They'll let me back out," I told my wife, Jai, "but I really want to do it."
Jai (pronounced "Jay") had always been my cheerleader. When I was enthusiastic, so was she. But she was leery of this whole last-lecture idea. We had just moved from Pittsburgh to Southeastern Virginia so that after my death, Jai and the kids could be near her family. Jai felt that I ought to be spending my precious time with our kids, or unpacking our new house, rather than devoting my hours to writing the lecture and then traveling back to Pittsburgh to deliver it.
"Call me selfish," Jai told me. "But I want all of you. Any time you'll spend working on this lecture is lost time, because it's time away from the kids and from me."
I understood where she was coming from. From the time I'd gotten sick, I had made a pledge to myself to defer to Jai and honor her wishes. I saw it as my mission to do all I could to lessen the burdens in her life brought on by my illness. That's why I spent many of my waking hours making arrangements for my family's future without me. Still, I couldn't let go of my urge to give this last lecture.
Throughout my academic career, I'd given some pretty good talks. But being considered the best speaker in a computer science department is like being known as the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs. And right then, I had the feeling that I had more in me, that if I gave it my all, I might be able to offer people something special. "Wisdom" is a strong word, but maybe that was it.
Jai still wasn't happy about it. We eventually took the issue to Michele Reiss, the psychotherapist we'd begun seeing a few months earlier. She specializes in helping families when one member is confronting a terminal illness.
"I know Randy," Jai told Dr. Reiss. "He's a workaholic. I know just what he'll be like when he starts putting the lecture together. It'll be all-consuming." The lecture, she argued, would be an unnecessary diversion from the overwhelming issues we were grappling with in our lives.
Another matter upsetting Jai: To give the talk as scheduled, I would have to fly to Pittsburgh the day before, which was Jai's forty-first birthday. "This is my last birthday we'll celebrate together," she told me. "You're actually going to leave me on my birthday?"
Certainly, the thought of leaving Jai that day was painful to me. And yet, I couldn't let go of the idea of the lecture. I had come to see it as the last moment of my career, as a way to say goodbye to my "work family." I also found myself fantasizing about giving a last lecture that would be the oratorical equivalent of a retiring baseball slugger driving one last ball into the upper deck. I had always liked the final scene in The Natural, when the aging, bleeding ballplayer Roy Hobbs miraculously hits that towering home run.
Dr. Reiss listened to Jai and to me. In Jai, she said, she saw a strong, loving woman who had intended to spend decades building a full life with a husband, raising children to adulthood. Now our lives together had to be squeezed into a few months. In me, Dr. Reiss saw a man not yet ready to fully retreat to his home life, and certainly not yet ready to climb into his deathbed. "This lecture will be the last time many people I care about will see me in the flesh," I told her flatly. "I have a chance here to really think about what matters most to me, to cement how people will remember me, and to do whatever good I can on the way out."
More than once, Dr. Reiss had watched Jai and me sit together on her office couch, holding tightly to each other, both of us in tears. She told us she could see the great respect between us, and she was often viscerally moved by our commitment to getting our final time together right. But she said it wasn't her role to weigh in on whether or not I gave the lecture. "You'll have to decide that on your own," she said, and encouraged us to really listen to each other, so we could make the right decision for both of us.
Given Jai's reticence, I knew I had to look honestly at my motivations. Why was this talk so important to me? Was it a way to remind me and everyone else that I was still very much alive? To prove I still had the fortitude to perform? Was it a limelight-lover's urge to show off one last time? The answer was yes on all fronts. "An injured lion wants to know if he can still roar," I told Jai. "It's about dignity and self-esteem, which isn't quite the same as vanity."
There was something else at work here, too. I had started to view the talk as a vehicle for me to ride into the future I would never see.
I reminded Jai of the kids' ages: five, two and one. "Look," I said. "At five, I suppose that Dylan will grow up to have a few memories of me. But how much will he really remember? What do you and I even remember from when we were five? Will Dylan remember how I played with him, or what he and I laughed about? It may be hazy at best.
"And how about Logan and Chloe? They may have no memories at all. Nothing. Especially Chloe. And I can tell you this: When the kids are older, they're going to go through this phase where they absolutely, achingly need to know: 'Who was my dad? What was he like?' This lecture could help give them an answer to that." I told Jai I'd make sure Carnegie Mellon would record the lecture. "I'll get you a DVD. When the kids are older, you can show it to them. It'll help them understand who I was and what I cared about."
Jai heard me out, then asked the obvious question. "If you have things you want to say to the kids, or advice you want to give them, why not just put a video camera on a tripod and tape it here in the living room?"
Maybe she had me there. Or maybe not. Like that lion in the jungle, my natural habitat was still on a college campus, in front of students. "One thing I've learned," I told Jai, "is that when parents tell children things, it doesn't hurt to get some external validation. If I can get an audience to laugh and clap at the right time, maybe that would add gravitas to what I'm telling the kids."
Jai smiled at me, her dying showman, and finally relented. She knew I'd been yearning to find ways to leave a legacy for the kids. OK. Perhaps this lecture could be an avenue for that.
And so, with Jai's green light, I had a challenge before me. How could I turn this academic talk into something that would resonate with our kids a decade or more up the road?
I knew for sure that I didn't want the lecture to focus on my cancer. My medical saga was what it was, and I'd already been over it and over it. I had little interest in giving a discourse on, say, my insights into how I coped with the disease, or how it gave me new perspectives. Many people might expect the talk to be about dying. But it had to be about living.
* * *
"What makes me unique?"
That was the question I felt compelled to address. Maybe answering that would help me figure out what to say. I was sitting with Jai in a doctor's waiting room at Johns Hopkins, awaiting yet another pathology report, and I was bouncing my thoughts off her.
"Cancer doesn't make me unique," I said. There was no arguing that. More than 37,000 Americans a year are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer alone.
I thought hard about how I defined myself: as a teacher, a computer scientist, a husband, a father, a son, a friend, a brother, a mentor to my students. Those were all roles I valued. But did any of those roles really set me apart?
Though I've always had a healthy sense of self, I knew this lecture needed more than just bravado. I asked myself: "What do I, alone, truly have to offer?"
And then, there in that waiting room, I suddenly knew exactly what it was. It came to me in a flash: Whatever my accomplishments, all of the things I loved were rooted in the dreams and goals I had as a child ... and in the ways I had managed to fulfill almost all of them. My uniqueness, I realized, came in the specifics of all the dreams-from incredibly meaningful to decidedly quirky-that defined my forty-six years of life. Sitting there, I knew that despite the cancer, I truly believed I was a lucky man because I had lived out these dreams. And I had lived out my dreams, in great measure, because of things I was taught by all sorts of extraordinary people along the way. If I was able to tell my story with the passion I felt, my lecture might help others find a path to fulfilling their own dreams.
I had my laptop with me in that waiting room, and fueled by this epiphany, I quickly tapped out an email to the lecture organizers. I told them I finally had a title for them. "My apologies for the delay," I wrote. "Let's call it: 'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.'"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Last Lectureby Randy Pausch Copyright ©2008 by Randy Pausch. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : 1401323251
- Publisher : Hyperion; First Edition (April 8, 2008)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 206 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781401323257
- ISBN-13 : 978-1401323257
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Item Weight : 9.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.63 x 1 x 7.38 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #6,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Educator Biographies
- #7 in Sociology of Death (Books)
- #206 in Motivational Self-Help (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the authors

Through his Wall Street Journal column and bestselling books, Jeffrey Zaslow has told the stories of some of the most inspirational people of our time.
Jeff is best known for The Last Lecture, written with Randy Pausch, which has been translated into 48 languages, and was #1 on best-seller lists worldwide. Five million copies have been sold in English alone, and the book remained on The New York Times best-seller list for more than 112 weeks.
Jeff's latest book, The Magic Room: A story about the love we wish for our daughters, was published in January 2012. The nonfiction narrative is set at a small-town Michigan bridal shop, and looks at the lives of a handful of brides (and their parents) who've journeyed to the store's "Magic Room." Details at www.magicroombook.com
In 2011, Jeff collaborated with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, veteran astronaut Mark Kelly, on their memoir, GABBY: A Story of Courage and Hope. The book received a great deal of attention, including a cover story in People magazine, and an hour-long ABC TV special hosted by Diane Sawyer. GABBY debuted near the top of the New York Times bestseller lists for both hardcovers and e-books.
Jeff's 2009 book about female friendship, The Girls From Ames, spent 26 weeks on The Times list, rising to #3. People magazine named it one of the "Ten Best Books of the Year." Lifetime Television is adapting the book for a movie.
Also in 2009, Jeff coauthored Highest Duty, the memoir of Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger, who famously landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. Highest Duty debuted at # 3 on The New York Times list.
Jeff's Wall Street Journal column focuses on life transitions and often attracts wide media interest. That was certainly the case in September 2007, after he attended the final lecture of Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch. Jeff's column about the talk sparked a worldwide phenomenon. Millions of people viewed footage of the lecture. Intense media coverage included The Oprah Winfrey Show and an ABC special.
Jeff is drawn to the topics he writes about because he has created a beat unlike most others in journalism. While The Wall Street Journal covers the heart of the financial world, Jeff tends to the hearts of its readers.
The National Society of Newspaper Columnists twice named him the best columnist in a newspaper with more than 100,000 circulation. In 2008, he received the Distinguished Column Writing Award from the New York Newspaper Publishers Association.
Jeff's TV appearances have included The Tonight Show, Oprah, Larry King Live, 60 Minutes, The Today Show and Good Morning America.
Jeff first worked at the Journal from 1983 to 1987, when he wrote about a competition to replace Ann Landers at the Chicago Sun-Times. He entered to get an angle for his story, and won the job over 12,000 applicants. He worked at the Sun-Times from 1987 to 2001, and was also a columnist for USA Weekend, the Sunday supplement in 510 newspapers.
In 2000, Jeff received the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award for using his column to help 47,000 disadvantaged children. For 12 years, he hosted an annual singles party for charity, Zazz Bash, which drew 7,000 readers a year and resulted in 78 marriages.
A Philadelphia native, Jeff is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, where he majored in creative writing. His wife, Sherry Margolis, is a TV news anchor with Fox 2 in Detroit. They have three daughters: Jordan, Alex and Eden.

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." --Randy Pausch Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University. From 1988 to 1997, he taught at the University of Virginia. He was an award-winning teacher and researcher, and worked with Adobe, Google, Electronic Arts (EA), and Walt Disney Imagineering, and pioneered the non-profit Alice project. (Alice is an innovative 3-D environment that teaches programming to young people via storytelling and interactive game-playing.) He also co-founded The Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon with Don Marinelli. A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? Dr. Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture", titled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, at CMU on September 18, 2007. His last lecture was extra-special, as it was conceived after he learned that his previously known pancreatic cancer was terminal. But the lecture he gave wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. During the lecture, Pausch was upbeat and humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons, and performing push-ups on stage. His "Last Lecture" has attracted wide attention from media in the United States as well as around the world. The video of the speech became an Internet hit, and was viewed over a million times in the first month after its delivery. Randy lost his battle with pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008.
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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My book did come almost as a misprint as some pages were torn and not cut properly. I decided not to return for a new one as I just started reading it and got hooked.
One of my favorite books of all-time, with one of my favorite lines of all time.
"If I could only give three words of advice, they'd be, 'Tell the truth.' If I got three more, they'd be, 'All the time.' --Randy Pausch
Having read the 1-star, 2-star, and 3-star reviews, I felt a bit shocked. I liked the book much more than other reviewers who criticize the book for having more ego than depth, and less lessons of "the dream"--- minus a demand for a public journey through "My God, where art thou, my God." I don't think Dr. Pausch's book needs to include his personal beliefs about God (whatever those beliefs are--or are not) for this book to impart some lasting wisdoms.
Part of the beauty of the slim treasure, "The Last Lecture", is in its brutal simplicity. Sometimes, people need reminded of the basics: Say please and thank-you; Wash your hands before you eat; Don't be purposefully mean--or rude--to others; Play nice; Dream Big; When you lose your dreams, STOP, refind them, enjoy them, LIVE them. Randy Pausch didn't include all those--I think he skipped the "wash your hands" one (LOL). But, he presents short reminders of very basic, simplistic, meaningful rules of living. In today's world of rudeness, meanness, random murders...(etc)..., I don't think these are meaningless topics to include in a person's "last book".
Could it have been more in-depth? Yes, I guess so. Yet, if I was dying, would I have the composure to write ANY words of meaning? What would any of us say if we had the chance to write and publish a book? If you could write 10-pages before you die, what would YOU include?
Randy Pausch describes "The Last Lecture" as 53 mini-lectures, and I think that is fitting. The book itself, I believe, would make great reading for our children ...pre-teens, teens, young adults... the people who need reminded to have manners, to dream (a lot), and work hard toward those dreams. I'm also quite impressed by the "Alice" Program (computer programming) which Dr. Pausch created.
I thought it touching to hear a man describe writing Thank-you notes, even to the hospital workers who have treated him these last months. Too few of us stop to say thank-you. Randy reminds readers how much more meaningful it feels to receive a written thank-you.
I chuckled to read about his sewing endeavors-- and how he worked so hard to win the REALLY BIG stuffed animals at fairs---and more importantly, WHY it felt so important to him to win those.
This little book makes a big window into the thinking of a big dreamer (a very positive trait), a man intelligent enough to see bigger than most people ever see, and to allow readers to gain just a little understanding of the rules by which one man lived his journey--his life.
I do wish Randy Pausch had explained more about how everyday people can use the "head fake" in everyday situations... how people can positively manipulate to achieve positive outcomes in everyday relationships.
I think the Professor has much, much more to teach--this book offers the first lessons. Maybe, he'll be able to write book number two-- I hope. I wish I'd been one of his students.
Indulge yourself...indulge your "inner child" and buy the book. Or, buy a copy for a teen you know. It's worth the money.
With over 13 million hits on YouTube, Pausch's lecture is a must-see, but his far more detailed book is an even greater must-read. After watching the lecture, I read the book and discovered the answer to my burning question: what did Randy's wife whisper in his ear after his lecture? Read the book to find out for yourself.
In response to Pausch's book, Publisher's Weekly says, "Despite his sometimes-contradictory life rules, [The Last Lecture] proves entertaining and at times inspirational." Amazon.com Review suggests that Pausch's book "will be shared for generations to come." Although his book hasn't won any notable awards, Pausch appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, in an interview with Diane Sawyer, and was interviewed by Time magazine. The Last Lecture has been used as mandatory reading for college freshman at countless universities, although it can be read and appreciated by mature high school students as well. Although I believe Pausch's book to be superior, Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie shares similar inspiration with Pausch's book. Both books offer sound, perspective-changing, worldly advice from the mouths of seasoned educators. Although Zaslow recently completed a biography (Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters) about Captain Sullenberger, pilot of the plane that crash-landed into the Hudson River in 2009, The Last Lecture remains Zaslow's best book. Because of the common, fun-loving nature of Pausch, even with the knowledge that he will not be able to see his children grow into adults, The Last Lecture beats Highest Duty by a landslide. Further, Pausch's dedication to all forms of education lends itself to creating a touching book from which meaning can be effortlessly extracted. In Pausch's words, "[A] head fake...teaches people things they don't realize they're learning until well into the process." This is certainly true for any reader who reads and reflects on Pausch's book.
Top reviews from other countries
Fragmentos que te motivan y te abren los ojos.
Una lectura muy agradable y amena.
Totalmente recomendable.
Reviewed in India on November 20, 2023
Beautifully written.

















