“Many people don’t realize until they are on their deathbed and everything external falls away that no thing ever had anything to do with who they are.”

“There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.”

“Maybe it's like free-falling. You feel like you'd rather do anything than face it, but once you do it you realize it's the best feeling you've ever had.”

“My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they'll leave in people's hearts. They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.”

“People who don’t know how to summarize have no dignity. Neither do people who needlessly drag on their messy lives. They who don’t know the beauty of simplification, of pruning away the unnecessary, die without ever comprehending the true meaning of life.”

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”