How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"That's what it all comes down to in the end," he said. "A person spends his life saying good-bye to other people. How does he say good-bye to himself?" (37.198)
For Murray, all of life boils down to accepting the fact that you're going to die. It's a little grim, but it makes sense. After all, we see a lot of people die while we're alive, and it's pretty tough to accept. But it's even tougher to accept the fact that we're going to die. For Murray, we spend our whole lives building up identities for ourselves that we think will last forever. But the truth is that we aren't alive for all that long, and our identities totally die when we do. We might fantasize about being famous so that our identities will carry on after we're dead. But no matter how famous we are, the world will eventually forget about us.