The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture

by

Randy Pausch

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Last Lecture makes teaching easy.
Randy’s wife, Jai writes the book’s foreword after Randy’s death, and recurs as a figure throughout the book. First she is a “brick wall” Randy has to climb over, then Jai becomes Randy’s wife, the mother of his kids, and finally Randy’s primary caregiver while he has cancer. Jai is a good yin to Randy’s yang—whereas Randy is always a pragmatic scientist, Jai is a warm, strong woman who is a total straight-shooter, but is also in touch with her emotions.

Jai Quotes in The Last Lecture

The The Last Lecture quotes below are all either spoken by Jai or refer to Jai. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Dreams in Reality Theme Icon
).
Chapter 18 Quotes

The dents would be OK. My parents had raised me to recognize that automobiles are there to get you from point A to point B. They are utilitarian devices, not expressions of social status. And so I told Jai we didn’t need to do cosmetic repairs. We’d just live with the dents and gashes.

Related Characters: Randy Pausch (speaker), Jai
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Through the whole ordeal, I don’t think we ever said to each other: “This isn’t fair.” We just kept going. We recognized that there were things we could do that might help the outcome in positive ways … and we did them. Without saying it in words, our attitude was, “Let’s saddle up and ride.”

Related Characters: Randy Pausch (speaker), Jai, Dylan
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

At Christmas, I had made an adventure out of putting the lights on the tree. Rather than showing Dylan and Logan the proper way to do it—carefully and meticulously—I just let them have at it haphazardly. However they wanted to throw those lights on the tree was fine by me. We got video of the whole chaotic scene, and Jai says it was a “magical moment” that will be one of her favorite memories of our family together.

Related Characters: Randy Pausch (speaker), Jai, Dylan, Logan, Chloe
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Last Lecture PDF

Jai Quotes in The Last Lecture

The The Last Lecture quotes below are all either spoken by Jai or refer to Jai. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Dreams in Reality Theme Icon
).
Chapter 18 Quotes

The dents would be OK. My parents had raised me to recognize that automobiles are there to get you from point A to point B. They are utilitarian devices, not expressions of social status. And so I told Jai we didn’t need to do cosmetic repairs. We’d just live with the dents and gashes.

Related Characters: Randy Pausch (speaker), Jai
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Through the whole ordeal, I don’t think we ever said to each other: “This isn’t fair.” We just kept going. We recognized that there were things we could do that might help the outcome in positive ways … and we did them. Without saying it in words, our attitude was, “Let’s saddle up and ride.”

Related Characters: Randy Pausch (speaker), Jai, Dylan
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

At Christmas, I had made an adventure out of putting the lights on the tree. Rather than showing Dylan and Logan the proper way to do it—carefully and meticulously—I just let them have at it haphazardly. However they wanted to throw those lights on the tree was fine by me. We got video of the whole chaotic scene, and Jai says it was a “magical moment” that will be one of her favorite memories of our family together.

Related Characters: Randy Pausch (speaker), Jai, Dylan, Logan, Chloe
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis: