Mitch Albom Quotes - Page 2

If we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love, and behave in line with our faith, our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of ‘I could have, I should have’. We can sleep in a storm. And when its time, our goodbyes will be complete.

ALS is like a lit candle: it melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax.. you cannot support yourself standing.. you cannot sit up straight. By the end, if you are still alive.. your soul, perfectly awake, is imprisoned inside a limp husk.. like something from a science fiction movie, the man frozen inside his own flesh.

The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

Miracles happen quietly every day—in an operating room, on a stormy sea, in the sudden appearance of a roadside stranger. They are rarely tallied. No one keeps score.But now and then, a miracle is declared to the world.And when that happens, things change

if you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you have different set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.Your values must be alike. And the biggest of those values... the belief in the importance of your marriage.

I bought this the day before at a shopping mall. I didn't want to forget him. Maybe I didn't want him to forget me.

Silence enhances music. What you do not play can sweeten what you do. But it is not the same with words. What you do not say can haunt you.

Sometimes your kids will say the nastiest things, won't they, Rose? You want to ask,'Whose child is this?'"Rose chuckled."But usually, they're just in some kind of pain. They need to work it out.

Now that child reminds me of something our sages taught. When a baby comes into the world, it's hands are clenched, right? Like this?"He made a fist."Why? Because a baby, not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say 'The whole world is mine.'"But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned the lesson."What lesson? I asked.He stretched open his empty fingers."We can take nothing with us.

The things you spend so much time on--all this work you do--might not seem as important. You might have to make room for some more spiritual things.

Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?.. He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.

Look. I know what I believe. It's in my soul. But I constantly tell our people: you should be convinced of the authenticity of what you have, but you must also be humble enough to say that we don't know everything. And since we don't know everything, we must accept that another person may believe something else.

Love wins, love always wins.

Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it-- and have it repeated to us-- over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.

He loved to smile. He avoided anger. He was never haunted by "Why am I here?" He knew why he was here, he said: to give to others, to celebrate God, and to enjoy and honour the world he was put in. His morning prayers began with "Thank you, Lord, for returning my soul to me." When you start that way, the rest of the day is a bonus.

You see, here's my theory: Kids chase the love that eludes them, and for me, that was my father's love. He kept it tucked away, like papers in a briefcase. And I kept trying to get in there.

Life has to end," she said. "Love doesn't.

Being unheard is the ground floor of giving up, and giving up is the ground floor of doing yourself in. It’s not so much, what’s the point? It’s more like, what’s the difference?

In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you're too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else's situation as you are about your own.

How do you let go of anger? How do you release a fury you’ve been standing on for so long, you would stumble were it yanked away?

It's not just other people we need to forgive, Mitch. " He finally whispered, "We also need to forgive ourselves.

At a certain point, your life is more about your legacy to your kids than anything else.

Had it not been for "Nightline," Morrie would have died without ever seeing me again. I had no good excuse for this, except the one that everyone these days seems to have. I had become too wrapped up in the siren song of my life. I was busy.

Yet he refused to be depressed. Instead, Morrie had become a lightning rod of ideas.

Loneliness was like an ogre hovering over those activities

After all these months, lying there, unable to move a leg or a foot – how could he find perfection in such an average day?Then I realized that was the whole point.

With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can’t appreciate what we have

I [Music] was born in the open air, in the breaks of waves and the whistling of sandstorms, the hoots of owls and the cackles of tui birds. I travel in echoes. I ride the breeze. I was forged in nature, rugged and raw. Only man shapes my edges to make me beautiful. [Chapter 2]

The second death. To think that you died and no one would remember you. I wondered if this was why we tried so hard to make our mark in America. To be known. Think of how important celebrity has become. We sing to get famous; expose our worst secrets to get famous; lose weight, eat bugs, even commit murder to get famous. Our young people post their deepest thoughts on public web sites. They run cameras from their bedrooms. It’s as if we are screaming Notice Me! Remember Me! Yet the notoriety barely lasts. Names quickly blur and in time are forgotten.

You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until sixty-five.

Going back to something is harder than you think.

Be compassionate ... and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be a better place.

.. I thought about him now and then, the things he had taught me about 'being human' and 'relating to others;, but it was always in the distance, as if from another life.. .. The people who might have told me were long forgotten, their phone numbers buried in some packed-away box in the attic.

Once heaven is done with grandma, we'd like her back, thanks.

Have you found someone to share your heart with? Are you giving to your community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?

No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

There are many things in my life that I wish I could take back. Many moments I would recast.

So, have we solved the secret of happiness? "I believe so," he said. Are you going to tell me? "Yes. Ready?" Ready. "Be satisfied." That's it? "Be grateful." That's it? "For what you have. For the love you receive. And for what God has given you." That's it? He looked me in the eye. Then he sighed deeply. "That's it.

The more you defend a lie, the angrier you become.

The story of my recent life.' I like that phrase. It makes more sense than 'the story of my life', because we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality- and in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization.

Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.

There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things" -he sighed- "these things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do? Morrie Schwartz

My friends, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our faith, our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of 'I could have, I should have.' We can sleep in a storm. "And when it's time, our good-byes will be complete.

the word dyting is not synonymous with the word useless

Man invents nothing God did not create first.

Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.

When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this?" He made a fist. "Why? Because a baby, not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say, 'The whole world is mine.' "But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned his lesson." What lesson? I asked. He stretched open his empty fingers. "We can take nothing with us.

Then why do we do so many bad things?He sighed. “Because one thing God gave us—and I’m afraid it’s at times a little too much—is free will. Freedom to choose. I believe he gave us everything needed to build a beautiful world, if we choose wisely.

But I do know we’re deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don’t satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.

Without love we all like birds with broken wings.

As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on--in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.

When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.

Behind all your stories is always your mother's story. Because hers is where yours begin.

I missed the crowds in those big stadiums, the flashbulbs, the roaring cheers - the majesty of the whole thing. I missed it bitterly. So did my father. We shared a thirst to return; unspoken, undeniable.

But a desperate heart will seduce the mind.

Strangers," the Blue Man said, "are just family yo have yet to come to know.

Nurses came to his house to work with Morrie's withering legs.. bending them back and forth as if pumping water from a well.. He met with meditation teachers, and closed his eyes and narrowed his thoughts until his world shrunk down to a single breath, in and out, in and out.

This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have.

The years after graduation hardened me into someone quite different from the strutting graduate.. headed for New York City, ready to offer the world his talent. The world, I discovered, was not all that interested. I wandered around my early twenties, paying rent and reading classifieds and wondering why the lights were not turning green for me.

I may be dying, but I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?