Bill Clinton on his early sense of mortality

My father [who drowned after losing control of his car at the age of 28 in 1946] left me with the feeling that I had to live for two people, and that if I did it well enough, somehow I could make up for the life he should have had. And his memory infused me, at a younger age than most, with a sense of my own mortality. The knowledge that I, too, could die young drove me both to try to drain the most out of every moment of life and to get on with the next big challenge. Even when I was't sure where I was going, I was always in a hurry.

-Bill Clinton, My Life, p. 7.