Sublime

He said that when you first meet him, you’re meeting his bodyguard. I wrote it down and later taped it to my bathroom mirror, where all truth resides at least briefly. His bodyguard is smart and charming, and keeps people out. Deep inside, his true self is very human, which is to say beautiful and kind of a mess—needy, insecure, judgmental, like mo

because he looked and sounded like the wealthy uncle to whom children in the family are forced to listen for profitable life lessons. When he

It was the party of the century. We were in the presence of unyielding simplicity and care. He who had so little was giving us a lesson in how to give, and with not one hint of self-absorption. He was loving us in the best way he could.

The famed champion of legal and social reform Clarence Darrow once said, “The most human thing we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” The Self has the courage to do both.

Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. “You notice,” he added, grinning, “there’s nothing in there about a salary.”

Ebert knew his time on this planet was short, and he wanted to share everything he could in the time he had left. “Mr. Ebert writes as if it were a matter of life and death,” wrote journalist Janet Maslin, “because it is.” Ebert was blogging because he had to blog—because it was a matter of being heard, or not being heard. A matter of existing or n

To the end of his life, he encouraged students to think laterally, broaden their experience, and forge their own path in search of match quality. “I try to teach people, ‘Don’t end up a clone of your thesis adviser,’” he told me. “Take your skills to a place that’s not doing the same sort of thing. Take your skills and apply them to a new problem,

“The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

life is about much more than money.