Keller closed her speech with this deliberately provocative blessing, inspired by a six-word epitaph she found in Evelyn Waugh's biography of Ronald Knox, describing a missionary who endured many hardships: 'All his life his spirit grew.' Those six words, she said, were the best epitaph she had ever read. She challenged the graduates to nurture their spirits through an expanded definition of service — not just working for nonprofits, but starting businesses, creating art, coaching teams, raising families. 'Anything you choose to do that involves a vision — an idea about how you want the world to be — is community service.' The wish for difficulty was not cruel but Churchill-ian. She had quoted his 1933 address urging citizens to be 'grateful for problems and challenges' and to feel 'flattered at being chosen to bear such a fearsome burden.' Her hope for the graduates was the same: a life interesting enough to grow a spirit, with 'as many twists and turns as straightaways' and as much roughness as smoothness.