A speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlenat the graduation ceremony of an American university where she wasawarded an Honorary PhD."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 outof here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. Therewill be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there willbe thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But youwill be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Yourparticular life. Yourentire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or ina car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the lifeof your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so mucheasier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is coldcomfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely,or when you've received your test results and they're not so good. Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have triednever to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I nolonger consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. Ilisten. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have triedto make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to myfriends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say toyou today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them onthe phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at bestmediocre, at my job if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all youare. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A reallife, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much aboutthose things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump inyour breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itselfon a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how ared-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls withconcentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb andfirst finger. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and wholove you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick upthe phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you aregenerous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that youhave no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about itsgoodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would havespent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a bigbrother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not dogood too, then doing well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and ourminutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids'eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappearsand 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, notthe destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and thattoday is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the goodin 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 tellingothers what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the liliesof the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yardwith the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived