The pursuit of excellence is a lethal habit

The pursuit of excellence is a lethal habit is a phrase T. S. Garp asks his family to preserve as his last words, even if they were not literally the words he spoke before dying. After his death, Donald Whitcomb’s loving certainty and the family’s agreement turn the sentence into an accepted account of Garp’s final words—and a guarded family matter.

The Requested Last Words

Among Garp’s things, Helen finds a note that anticipates the uncertainty surrounding his deathbed speech. In it, Garp asks that, regardless of what his actual last words were, people say that he had always known the pursuit of excellence was a lethal habit. The phrasing makes the distinction explicit: the sentence is not offered as a reliable transcript so much as the version of his final words he wants remembered.

Whitcomb’s Testimony

Donald Whitcomb, who loves Garp without qualification, says that these indeed were Garp’s last words. His assurance gives the requested account the force of testimony, although the note itself has already admitted that Garp’s actual final words may have differed. The gap between the request and Whitcomb’s certainty is left intact; the passage does not resolve it by establishing what Garp literally said.

A Family’s Version of the Ending

Duncan accepts Whitcomb’s account, saying that if Whitcomb said the words were Garp’s last words, then they were. Jenny Garp and Ellen James agree as well. Their shared position makes the wording more than an individual recollection: it becomes the family’s chosen version of Garp’s death, upheld by affection rather than independent proof.

Memory and the Biographers

The narrative calls the agreement a family matter, linking it to the effort to keep Garp from the biographers. The phrase therefore serves two purposes at once: it supplies a memorable statement about the danger of striving for excellence, and marks a boundary around the family’s private account of Garp. Its authority rests not on certainty about the deathbed scene, but on the people who choose to preserve it.