DuVernay closes with a passage from Native American writer Louise Erdrich that she uses as her final charge to the graduates. The full quote continues: 'And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.' DuVernay's choice of this passage reflects her speech's central theme: that sincerity — truly feeling things deeply and expressing them genuinely — is the bridge between who we are and what we want. She ends by wishing the graduates a life that is delicious.