Kruse's Keys: Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

Today everyone knows the name Patagonia and on a cold winter day you can't go too far without seeing the familiar logo on someone's sweater or jacket.  But nearly 50 years ago, the global company was just we'd today call a side hustle--it's founder, Yvon Chouinard, focused on making better rock climbing gear that he started selling to enable his hobby and passion.  The memoir cum business blueprint 's prophetic title speaks to Yvon's quest for freedom as he sought (and continues to seek) to marry a love of the outdoor life with a way (i.e., a business) to fund and preserve that same environment.  

Looking for book ideas?  Check out our 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 reading lists!

Key Quotes and Takeaways:

21  “In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.” French aviator Antoine de Sainte-Exupery

42  “I’ve always thought of myself as an 80 percenter.  I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession and degree of specialization that doesn’t appeal to me.  Once I reach that 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different; that probably explains the diversity of the Patagonia product line–and why our versatile, multifaceted clothes are the most successful. “

47 “Sometimes good ideas spring from having a sense of where you want to go, of having a vision of the next level of products.”

112 “Maintaining a sense of urgency throughout a company is one of the most difficult challenges in business.”  This particularly applies when your company/unit is depending on others who may not have that same sense of urgency or dedication.  Impossible is the lamest of excuses. 

114 Concurrent approach to design means bringing all the participants at the beginning of the design phase–it’s at this 10% of the costs are spent but coming out of it 90% of the total costs are permanently committed–it’s essential that you get it right at the onset. 

118  The idea of full partnership in business means all partners and suppliers are committed to the same standards.  

158  Culture of Patagonia rewards the ensemble player and doesn’t look for “stars”

172-3  “The most important mandate for a manager in a dynamic company is to instigate change…but change doesn’t happen without stress, and it can happen quickly.”

202  “You are what do, not what you say you are.”

208 It was activist John Muir who convinced Teddy Roosevelt.  

210-11 Patagonia supports Planned Parenthood

2022 Reading List

best books of 2022 by Jack Kruse

Looking for book ideas?  Check out our 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014  reading lists!

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci.  This is Stanley Tucci's life told against the backdrop of food.  It brought to mind another truly great food memoir: Life is Meals by James and Kay Salter (it's my favorite book--by my favorite author--to give as a house warming gift or a thank you after someone hosts a particularly spectacular event).  Tucci's writing is rife with self-deprecating humor and gossipy details: who knew he and Ryan Reynolds were buddies?!  An added bonus for the reader are the numerous family recipes that he shares throughout.  

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman.  Today everyone knows the name Patagonia and on a cold winter day you can't go too far without seeing the familiar logo on someone's sweater or jacket.  But nearly 50 years ago, the global company was just we'd today call a side hustle--it's founder, Yvon Chouinard, focused on making better rock climbing gear that he started selling to enable his hobby and passion.  The memoir cum business blueprint 's prophetic title speaks to Yvon's quest for freedom as he sought (and continues to seek) to marry a love of the outdoor life with a way (i.e., a business) to fund and preserve that same environment.  

The House of Sand and Fog. My daughter bought this National Book Award finalist novel for me at a thrift store and it sat next to my bed for several months.  When I finally started it, though, I finished it in days. Author Dubus can flat out write--he describes an aging husband's soaring heart as his wife leads him to the bedroom: "my heart was a flat stone moving over water and my breath was held like the boy counting the skips of his good fortune."  Author Dubus unwraps a tension-filled narrative that spans the spectrum of the American dream from the hope and promise of a new immigrant family to the crumbling discord of a marriage and family where the slighted children never emerge from the background...until it is too late.  It's a heart-breaking read that I'm reticent to recommend unless you are prepared to carry the story's sadness with you in the days after you finish.   

An Italian Education. Published a quarter of a century ago, many of Tim Parks’ observations from An Italian Education still ring true in 2022 Italy.  Chocked full of short vignettes that capture a Brit’s experience raising his bi-national children (his wife is Italian) in fair Verona, the book manages to walk the fine line of humor and self-deprecation without veering into snarkiness and offense.  As someone who has now lived in Italy for a year, I read Parks’ stories with the satisfaction of a clubby insider as I’ve witnessed first hand the over indulgent attitudes of parents with their children (usually only one or at the absolute max two) here and daily meet the gaping incomprehension of our five children!  My full review is here.

The Long Way Home: Discovering the Fullness of Life in the Father.  Pastor Matt Carter uses the biblical story of the prodigal son to grapple with the idea of faith in a broader church community where youth are struggling with depression in record numbers and leaving the church in droves once they reach adulthood. Carter’s central thesis is that as believers we need to taste Jesus’ love in a personal way within an authentic community. The book concludes by highlighting the supreme comfort in knowing that our God isn’t waiting for us on his throne to come groveling back to him when we fall short, but instead he’s out in the field waiting and looking for us from a long way off.  My full review is here.

In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. Father Henri Nouwen taught for 20 years at Harvard, Notre Dame, and Yale but began to feel his own spiritual death developing (what many Christian leaders may identify as burnout). So he prayed a simple–but very brave–prayer: “Lord, show me where you want me to go and I will follow you, but please be clear and unambiguous about it!” And God called him away from a prestigious teaching career to l’Arche Daybreak-–a community in Ontario where people with and without intellectual communities live together in homes and do life together. Henri suddenly found himself in a place where only his “vulnerable self” was valued (not his degrees, books, and accomplishments). Henri derived the book from a series of speeches that he gave on what he saw as the future of Christian leadership. Warning: this is not an easy feel-good devotional style book–it is gut-wrenching in its challenge to Christians.  My full review is here. 

Transcendent Kingdom (Ghana) In a departure from her grandiose debut novel Homegoing, here the author chooses to focus on the life of one brilliant young scientist and her life as a daughter of Ghanaian immigrants who struggles with her identity as a black woman and as the daughter of a mother struggling with depression and sister of a brother battling addiction. Her identity quest is all filtered through her charismatic religious upbringing–which she left behind following her brother’s tragic overdose. To her credit, Gyasi refrains from both Christian and anti-religious stereotypes and treats both sides with a compassionate eye for detail and nuance.  My full review is posted a Beyond Achebe: Reading the Continent here.

How Beautiful We Were (Audible) (Cameroon).  The problem with America is that it makes you dream.  This may well have been the last unspoken dying sigh of Thula–the protagonist in Pen/Faulkner Award-winning author Mbolo Mbue’s second novel How Beautiful We Were (see my review of her terrific debut novel Behold the Dreamers here). The novel brings the macro story of America’s violent clash with the African continent down to the micro, local level as the reader witnesses the village of Kosawa’s multi-generational struggle with the fictional American oil company Pexton. As the story unfolds, however, it’s clear that the outcome is a foregone conclusion.  If only Ta-Nehisi Coates were present at Kosawa to echo the same warning he gave to his own son in Between the World and Me (see my review here):

“Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.” My full review is posted at Beyond Achebe: Reading the Continent.  

The Power. In this novel, author Naomi Alderman imagines a world in which the global patriarchal power structure is a buried memory.  The novel unfolds retrospectively as historical research describing the roots of how women came to dominate all facets of society in this future world.  The shift comes when women develop a skein across their collarbone that gives them the power to transmit electricity from their fingertips.  Any woman with the power can then awaken it in other women.  In an instant, women suddenly have the power to shock and kill.  Chaos quickly ensues in this dystopian narrative as the world struggles with this new world order.

A Caring Life: How Each of Us Can Change the Trajectory of an UnCaring World.  I met author Aaron Santymire during my first embassy tour in Madagascar where he served as a medical missionary. He's spent his entire adult life serving and caring with his family on the African continent and this beautiful book is the accumulated outpouring of his wisdom.  

The Fortune Men (Somalia). "Somalis have got the right idea, you wrong someone and you’re forced to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life unless you make amends. You deal with each other face to face. Only cowards live by prisons and cold hangings.” My key quotes from the book are here.

The Gendarme.  Its protagonist is an Ottoman gendarme who slaughtered Armenian men and women during the 1915 genocide.  Along the way, he also falls in love with one of the Armenian deportees–a love that remains unconsummated and seemingly unrequited over the course of more than 70 years. In a surprising feat, the author turns an outright villain into an almost-sympathetic old man by giving him a battlefield head injury during the war which wipes out most of his memories. It’s only in his 90’s as he discovers that he has a brain tumor that his memory starts to return in graphic dream-seizures.  He’s spent the last 70 years knowing in his guts that he committed  some manner of horrific crimes but unable to recall what he actually did. full review is here.  

Supernova Era.  While not as polished and developed as his later works, I tore through this quick-paced narrative in a two days.  The premise is intriguing--a supernova event (I think that's what it is at least--the technical science in the book was way over this English major's head) occurs that kills off the entire adult population in a matter of months. A cycle of hope, order, chaos, war begins as the children harness technology to govern in ways both frightening and eye-opening.  

What it's like to vacay in Mada: A list

Pack N Play

High Chairs

Blankets

Lovies

Books

Toys

Medicine: Tylenol, Benadryl, Malaria, Anbesol, Vaseline, desitin, bug spray, sunblock, ibuprofruen, probiotics, dramamine, pepto, epi pens

Chargers for phones

Camera

Charger for Camera

Download wire for Camera

Converter plugs (2)

Sunglasses

Hats for Momma and babies

Kruse's Keys: Read "American Dirt" to Challenge Your Perspective

American Dirt is a brutal, violent, and necessary novel. Author
Jeanine Cummins holds nothing back as she pulls the reader into the suffering and anguish that propels countless migrants to make the dangerous journey. A padre’s convocation to a group of them at one point encapsulate these dangers:

“If there’s any other place for you to go...go there now...If it’s only a better life you seek, seek it elsewhere...this path is only for people who have no choice, no other option, only violence and misery behind you...everything is working against you, to thwart you. Some of you will fall from the trains. Many will be maimed or injured. Many will die. Many, many of you will be kidnapped, tortured, trafficked, or ransomed. Some will be lucky enough to survive all of that and make it as far as Estados Unidos only to experience the privilege of dying alone in the desert beneath the sun, abandoned by a corrupt coyote, or shot by a narco who doesn’t like the look of you. Every single of you will be robbed. Every one. If you make it El Norte, you will arrive penniless, that’s a guarantee.”

Cummins wisely avoids the political and instead lets her narrative urge (force?) the reader to consider the migrant as an actual person instead of a statistic or political talking point. Depending on your political leanings this may make this story either a very challenging or vindicating read. Either way it’s one that you won’t forget.

See our 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Reading Lists.

Key Quotes and Takeaways:

53 She tugs on the ribbon, which gives way and falls to the floor at her bare feet. Her body feels like an arrow that’s been launched from its bow but hasn’t yet found its target. She’s suspended, arcing, accountable to the laws of gravity. Lydia opens a package from Javier, her once friend and now murderer of her family

74 Instead, his consciousness, like a helium balloon fastened to his person by some taut and fragile string, momentarily floats away. Luca mentally removes himself from the trauma as his mother talks to a family friend as they try to escape Javier.

90 “Now that the thing had been spoken between them and confirmed to be true, all that was left for Lydia was autopsy. What love had been there was already slipping away.” Javier reveals who he is to Lydia.

111 “defined not so much by what she’s made of, but more by the shapes of what she’s missing.” Lydia contemplates her identity in the wake of losing nearly everything.

183 “because of the way beauty begets empathy…” the advantages of beauty.

199 The shared solidarity of the migrants is their mutual suffering, their anguish. Some share it openly, others keep it bottled up like a bomb waiting to detonate.

202 “If there’s any other place for you to go...go there now...If it’s only a better life you seek, seek it elsewhere...this path is only for people who have no choice, no other option, only violence and misery behind you...everything is working against you, to thwart you. Some of you will fall from the trains. Many will be maimed or injured. Many will die. Many, many of you will be kidnapped, tortured, trafficked, or ransomed. Some will be lucky enough to survive all of that and make it as far as Estados Unidos only to experience the privilege of dying alone in the desert beneath the sun, abandoned by a corrupt coyote, or shot by a narco who doesn’t like the look of you. Every single of you will be robbed. Every one. If you make it el norte, you will arrive penniless, that’s a guarantee.

307 Some migrants do the trip every trip multiple times a year because that’s where the work is.

2021 Reading List

This year we moved from Addis Ababa to Naples, Italy. We spent our first 65 days upon arrival in Naples living in a two bedroom base apartment while we house hunted out in town. It was a tough transition to say the least and we are only now even starting to get into a rhythm. All that to say I didn't do very well taking notes and doing reviews for each book as I read.

Looking for book ideas?  Check out our 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014  reading lists!

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness (Zambia) Emily said she appreciated the story's honesty and eye-opening to both the beauty and sorrow of life. The author shared a unique perspective of a white girl living in Africa during the period of political independence.

When We Believed in Mermaids. Emily liked it.

Behold the Dreamers (Cameroon). Excerpt: The novel’s power comes in Imbue’s ability to capture both the strengths and the hollowness of the promise of America. The reader sees the rise and good fortune of Jende as his chauffeur position gives him relative wealth and burgeoning opportunities for his family. As his wife enjoys the fruit of this labor her attitude toward America slowly shifts as does her resolve to stay in the country. My full review is here.

Lion Mountain (Tunisia). My full review is here. Excerpt: In the story, famed Tunisian author Mustapha Tlili paints a secluded village modeled on Feriana, the home of his youth. It’s an ancient place lost amidst the desert steppes but which has persisted through the centuries--sheltered always under the shoulder of Lion Mountain. He describes “a geography more than physical or human: sacred...In this mystical topography, landmarks determining the rights of each and every individual were perfectly clear.”

The Desert and the Drum (Mauritania). My full review is here. Excerpt: “From the moment they arrived, the strangers stole something essential from us, without us feeling we had the right to protest.” This comment by the young Bedouin narrator Rayhana encapsulates the modern-day struggle that Mauritanian author Mbarek Ould Beyrouk seeks to describe in The Desert and the Drum. In Rayana’s case, these “strangers” were a mixture of fellow countrymen and foreign investors looking for minerals. The theft in question is not one of gold or ore but of proximity and privacy.

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (South Africa). You may know Trevor Noah as the host of the Daily Show but long before he entered the mainstream he was a derelict kid born to a black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father--one who appeared colored* to those around him but who was raised in the Xhosa culture. 

*In South Africa, the term colored is a self-descriptive and does not carry the same pejorative/racist meaning it does in the U.S.

 

The Dissent Channel (Sudan/South Sudan). During a Famous Rivers Africa Group session, we discussed the memoir with the author Lizzy Shackleton. You can read co-founder Fadji's summary of the excellent book here.

The Promise (South Africa).  My full review is published on "Beyond Achebe: Reading the Continent" here.  Excerpt: Of course one isn’t awarded the Booker prize for penning a surface-level story about a white family in South Africa. Rather Galgut has written a soaring multi-decade exposition on the promise of a post-Apartheid South Africa writ large. It’s a story that encompasses South Africa’s promises to its black and coloured people (click here for further background on the use of the word "coloured" in South Africa), the ANC’s promises to its constituency (more on those lapsed promises here), as well as the psychic overstep of whites deigning to keep promises that never should have been had to be made in the first place. In the latter case, the promise (even when well-intentioned) can become more about the giver than the recipient.

Missionaries . DoDReads published my full review here. Excerpt: Reading Marine veteran Phil Klay’s (author of National Book Award-winning short story collection Redeployment) new novel forces readers to step back and consider the “progress” and globalization of American warfare since 9-11. The novel accomplishes this by examining the decades-long Colombian civil war through the converging lives of a weary American war-zone journalist, an American Special Forces Officer, a career Colombian Army officer, and an orphaned Colombian village boy-turned-killer.

Homeland Elegies. DoDReads published my full review here. Excerpt: Pulitzer-winning author Ayad Akhtar charges that America is a “buffer solution” that “keeps things together but always separated” in his unforgettable novel-cum-memoir,

Quiet Cadence. DoDReads published my full review here. Excerpt: The novel’s violence is unrelenting, random, and total. Its first death is a dead body literally flying through the air. Bloodied appendages, spilled guts, burned bodies, sheared limbs—the gore stacks up with each patrol. The reader dreads turning each page knowing it will bring only more pain, more loss. The newly arrived 19-year-old Marine narrator PFC Marty McClure captures the constant terror after one booby-trapped explosion: “Then the panic hit me: Do I have all my parts? Propped on my elbows, I began a terrified inventory, slowly, in no logical order.”

Talking to Strangers. DoDReads published my "backpage notes" here. Excerpt: As a society we are not equipped to talk to strangers so when things don’t go as expected--we blame the stranger as our immediate reflex. Instead we need to recognize our own limits to decipher and truly understand strangers and instead embrace humility and restraint.

American Dirt. My full review is here.  Excerpt: This is a brutal, violent, and necessary novel. Author
Jeanine Cummins holds nothing back as she pulls the reader into the suffering and anguish that propels countless migrants to make the dangerous journey.

Project Hail Mary (Audible). Martian author Andy Weir returns to outer space with a tale that is equal parts nerdy and hokey as he introduces us to Ryland Grace, a failed scientist and reluctant hero. When scientists discover that the sun is slowly being sapped of its power, Grace finds himself in the middle of a race to save earth (and possibly the universe) from extinction. Hail Mary stands as an ode to the STEM community as Weir doesn’t shy away from the complex math and science required to give earth even the smallest chance for survival. That he’s able to package complex technical information amidst a bracing narrative is a testament to the author’s writing prowess.

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness (Audible): Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. An eye-opening (and heart-opening) look at one woman's experiences growing up and working in "a world make for whiteness." She writes beautifully and with a vulnerability and urgency that asks the reader to wake up and caste aside complacency. “I need a love that is troubled by injustice. A love that is provoked to anger when Black folks, including our children, lie dead in the streets. A love that can no longer be concerned with tone because it is concerned with life. A love that has no tolerance for hate, no excuses for racist decisions, no contentment in the status quo. I need a love that is fierce in its resilience and sacrifice. I need a love that chooses justice.”

Steal Away Home: Charles Spurgeon and Thomas Johnson, Unlikely Friends on the Passage to Freedom (Audible). An incredible tale of friendship, faith and sacrifice.  Charles Spurgeon is, of course, the renowned "prince of preachers."  Authors Matt Carter and Aaron Ivey tell the story of his friendship with African-American missionary Thomas Johnson against the backdrop of Spurgeon's own struggles with depression, anxiety and gout.  

Raising Up a Generation of Third Culture Kids. While this book is targeted towards parents' raising kids overseas, most of it applies to to military families. The author posits that kids growing up as "third culture" (i.e., in a culture that is not the same one as their parents) often end up with enormous amounts of  grief/trauma.  If this isn't productively processed throughout their formative years they will end up with a "grief tower" that grows and grows until it tumbles once they are young adults in their 20's.  We actually went through the author's course/study with friends while living in Addis.  

The Happiness Advantage (Audible). This book was just okay.  Save yourself and watch his Ted Talk here.
His takeaways are good though and focus on positive psychology and how you can boost your happiness through meditation and focus.  “Even the smallest moments of positivity in the workplace can enhance efficiency, motivation, creativity, and productivity.”

The Anomaly (Audible).  I first heard about this novel in a NYT article that mentioned the now available translation of the book that had enraptured France during the COVID lockdowns.  The premise is that there's some sort of time-continuum split where a flight lands with the same people and same plane that had landed months earlier.  The narrative follows the lives of various passengers (to include an assassin) and the governments' attempts to deal with the fallout.  

Kruse's Keys: Read "The Red-Haired Woman" to Explore Father-Son Relationships (Turkey)

The apartment building that we lived in during Covid had a community library of sorts on the garage level. Stocked by the hundreds of residents, the three shelves carried a rotating assortment of fiction, self-help books, partisan political tomes, and biographies. It was there that I picked up The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk. I'd heard of this fairly prolific Turkish writer but I'd never read anything by him other than leafing through his well-reviewed Snow at a bookstore once.

On the surface the novel is about a boy serving as a well apprentice in post-WWII Turkey, two possible murders, one case of possible incest, and late 20th century capitalism in the country. These subject cut quite a wide swath, particularly because Pamuk uses them comment on political exile and the deep cutting power of father-son relationships.  

Pamuk uses two myths to frame a narrative which flows quickly--the first you've heard of: the Oedipus tale where the son unknowingly kills his father; the second you likely haven't Ferdawsi's Rustam and Sohrab where the father unknowingly kills his son.  The latter is taken from the epic Persian poem Shahnameh which tells both the mythical and quasi-true history of the Persian empire.  

From the novel's title one might assume the tale is about the enigmatic red-haired woman, however, it's clear she's a mere backdrop by which Pamuk explores the ways in which a father and son can both love and hurt each other and the way this relationship spills over into society at large.  And despite claiming that Snow would be his first and only political novel, its obvious that much of this exploration is also a commentary on the rise of President Erdogan, particularly with the following quote:

t seems we would all like a strong, decisive father telling us what to do and what not to do. Is it because it is so difficult to distinguish what we should and shouldn't do, what is moral and right from what is sinful and wrong? Or is it because we constantly need to be reassured that we are innocent and have not sinned? Is the need for a father always there, or do we feel it only when we are confused, or anguished, when our world is falling apart?"

See our 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Reading Lists.

Key Quotes:

I had wanted to be a writer. But after the events I am about to describe, I studied engineer in geology and became a building contractor. Even So, readers shouldn't conclude from my telling the story now that it is over, that I've put it all behind me. The more I remember, the deeper I fall into it. Perhaps you, too, will follow, lured by the enigma of father and sons.

Their search for lost fathers had cast both Oedipus and Sohrab far from the cities and the lands to which they belonged, into places where, vulnerable to exploitation by their countries' foes, they ended up traitors.  In both stories, loyalty to family, to king, to father, and to dynasty is placed above loyalty to nation, and the protagonists' treasonous predicaments are never emphasized.  

Kruse's Keys: Read "Death Be Not Proud" to Appreciate the Value of Life"

The name of this 1949 memoir was taken from the English poet John Donne’s poem of the same title: “Death Be Not Proud.” In it the author and father John Gunther recounts the life and death of his son who passed after a struggle with a malignant brain tumor. Much as Donne pushes back against death’s supposed power, so does Gunther as he celebrates the vitality and beauty of his son Johnny’s life saying that the book’s purpose was for him “to write, as a mournful tribute not only to Johnny but to the power, the wealth, the unconquerable beauty of the human spirit, will, and soul.” The book’s power comes from the author’s keen power of observation coupled with a very measured, controlled level of sentimentality. A good example comes in retrospect as Gunther considers what it means that Johnny is gone: “All the wonderful things in life are so simple that one is not aware of their wonder until they are beyond touch.”

I came across this book by happenstance as an author mentioned it in an article on memoirs. After finishing it in two days, I struggled as to whether I’d recommend it or not--the writing style does come across as a bit dated and it lacks the emotional punch one would expect of a father losing his son. But ultimately, I believe it’s a worthwhile read because Gunther’s aim was not an emotional “punch” but instead a bestowal of an appreciation of life: “To me, it means loving life more, being more aware of life, of one’s fellow human beings, of the earth.”

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

See our 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Reading Lists.

Key Quotes:

Johnny was as sinless as a sunset.
Page: 49

Probably it was at this juncture that we first became seriously impressed with what little doctors do know.
Page: 49

Johnny did not lose function. He lived almost a year after this, and he did not die like a vegetable. He died like a man, with perfect dignity.
Page: 78

Cancer is a rebellion—a gangster outbreak of misplaced cells.
Page: 85

I have so much to do, and there’s so little time!”
Page: 122

Slowly, very slowly, Johnny stepped out of the mass of his fellows and trod by us, carefully keeping in the exact center of the long aisle, looking neither to the left nor the right, but straight ahead, fixedly, with the white bandage flashing in the light through the high windows, his chin up, carefully, not faltering, steady, but slowly, so very slowly. The applause began and then rose and the applause became a storm, as every single person in the old church became whipped up, tight and tense, to see if he would make it. The applause became a thunder, it rose and soared and banged, when Johnny finally reached the pulpit. Mr. Flynt carefully tried to put the diploma in his right hand, as planned. Firmly Johnny took it from right hand to left, as was proper, and while the whole audience rocked now with release from tension, and was still wildly, thunderously applauding, he passed around to the side and, not seeing us, reached his place among his friends.
Page: 136

He never regained consciousness. He died absolutely without fear, and without pain, and without knowing that he was going to die.
Page: 137

for a brief second, and presently, with infinite depth, very slowly and at spaced intervals, three great quivering gasps came out of him. He had regained color just before; he had some final essential spark of animation; he was still fighting. But now these shatteringly deep breaths, arising from something so deep down that his whole body shook and trembled, told us their irrevocable message.
Page: 137

What is life? It departs covertly. Like a thief Death took him.
Page: 140

There are other criteria for measuring a life as well as its duration— quality, intensity. But for us there is no compensation, except that we can go to him though he cannot come to us. For others, I would say that it was his spirit, and only his spirit, that kept him invincibly alive against such dreadful obstacles for so long—this is the central pith and substance of what I am trying
Page: 140

to write, as a mournful tribute not only to Johnny but to the power, the wealth, the unconquerable beauty of the human spirit, will, and soul.
Page: 141

“He hath outsoared the shadow of our night”—what a gallant soul, and what an unfulfilled promise! The fact that this was to be expected makes it no easier to bear, and I hope that you and Mrs. Gunther know that you have all my deepest sympathy.
Page: 142

“He had the most brilliant promise of any child I have ever known.”

Page: 167

During 1947 Johnny wrote little. One of the last scribbles I have of his handwriting is a note: “Scientists will save us all.” His last letter to his mother is in the text above.
Page: 187

not even the birth of one’s child, brings one so close to life as his death.
Page: 188

wasn’t just dying, of course. He was living and dying and being reborn all at the same time each day. How we loved each day. “It’s been another wonderful day, Mother!” he’d say, as I knelt to kiss him good night.
Page: 188

when one is alone with God, what is left in one’s heart? Just this: I wish we had loved Johnny more.
Page: 189

Everybody who knew him, his friends and teachers at Lincoln, Riverdale, and Deerfield, our neighbors in the country at Madison, felt the warmth of his goodness and its great vitality in him. Yet a single cell, mutating experimentally, killed him.
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All the wonderful things in life are so simple that one is not aware of their wonder until they are beyond touch. 
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To me, it means loving life more, being more aware of life, of one’s fellow human beings, of the earth.