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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 729b85a | Mitch," he said, "the culture doesn't encourage you to think about such things until you're about to die. We're so wrapped up in egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks - we're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don't get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want?.. | encourage life reflect missing think ego die | Mitch Albom | |
| ad9643d | I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died.. which I figured was my natural fate. | fate happy achieve death life perspective control thought | Mitch Albom | |
| a6432b3 | 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. | work life busy taught remember forget | Mitch Albom | |
| 141b86c | I remembered what Morrie said during our visit: "The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it." | Mitch Albom | ||
| 681cf11 | I seemed to slip in a time warp when I visited Morrie, and I liked myself better when I was there. | time-warp visit self like | Mitch Albom | |
| cbced9a | I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I'm going to hear. On you - if it's Tuesday. Because we're Tuesday people. | story good people life tuesday cry self need dying | Mitch Albom | |
| 8ca0c80 | It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses | Mitch Albom | ||
| d3493a2 | someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed. "You say you should have" | Mitch Albom | ||
| 97076ea | Dying," Morris suddenly said, "is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else." | Mitch Albom | ||
| ea94c4b | 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. | candle terminal ill nerves disease soul | Mitch Albom | |
| 64bf831 | What a waste.. All those people saying all those wonderful things, and Irv never got to hear any of it. | death life funeral tribute | Mitch Albom | |
| f0a3326 | Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it. They're more unhappy than me--even in my current condition. | Mitch Albom | ||
| 8d66278 | Well, I have to look at life uniquely now. Let's face it. I can't go shopping, I can't take care of the bank accounts, I can't take out the garbage. But I can sit here with my dwindling days and look at what I think is important in life. I have both the time--and the reason--to do that." So, I said, in a reflexively cynical response, I guess the key to finding the meaning of life is to stop taking out the garbage?" | Mitch Albom | ||
| 4d664e0 | The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn't the family. It's become quite clear to me as I've been sick. If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don't have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, 'Love each other or perish.' | Mitch Albom | ||
| 39275d2 | And on a cold Sunday afternoon, he was joined in his home by a small group of friends and family for a 'living funeral'. Each of them spoke and paid tribute.. Some cried. Some laughed. One woman read a poem: 'My dear and loving cousin.. Your ageless heart as you ,love through time, layer on layer, tender sequoia..' .. And all the heartfelt things we never get to say to those we love, Morrie said that day. | living-funeral living death life funeral tribute | Mitch Albom | |
| ca67019 | 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. | struggle graduate world life fresh young | Mitch Albom | |
| f096cff | A wrestling match." He laughs. "Yes, you could describe life that way." So which side wins, I ask? " Which side wins?" He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth. "Love wins. Love always wins." | Mitch Albom | ||
| 86f2213 | After the funeral, my life changed. I felt as if time were suddenly precious, water going down an open drain, and I could not move quickly enough. No more playing music at half-empty night clubs. No more writing songs in my apartment, songs that no one would hear. | time life urgency precious perspective funeral | Mitch Albom | |
| 23d8367 | I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline. | work life pace fast workaholic | Mitch Albom | |
| fcab2ca | The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience. The teaching goes on. | Mitch Albom | ||
| cbbf16d | 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." | ill death life workaholic excuse friend | Mitch Albom | |
| 4b37f8f | He had refused fancy clothes or makeup for this interview. His philosophy was that death should to be embarrassing; he was not about to powder its nose. | ill embarrass point-of-view perspective makeup | Mitch Albom | |
| 3f0b8de | The eighties happened. The nineties happened. Death and sickness and getting fat and going bald happened. I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never even realized I was doing it. Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years, as if I'd simply been on a long vacation. "Have you found someone to share your heart with?" he asked. "Are you giving to your community? "Are you at peace with yourself? "Are you try.. | Mitch Albom | ||
| c6cb9a8 | Morrie's doctors guessed he had two years left. Morrie knew it was less. But my old professor had made a profound decision, one he began to construct the day he came out of the doctor's office with a sword hanging over his head. Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? he had asked himself. He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying. Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of h.. | Mitch Albom | ||
| 0668802 | The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. | time shed window last | Mitch Albom | |
| d173a05 | Then he commandeered the floor, shooting back and forth like some hot Latin lover. When he finished, everyone applauded. He could have stayed in that moment forever. | dance emotion love forever moment | Mitch Albom | |
| 7c4079d | Morrie had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig's disease, a brutal, unforgiving illness of the neurological system. There was no known cure. | terminal ill cure nerves sick | Mitch Albom | |
| 029a897 | A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me. Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip. | life watch final learn | Mitch Albom | |
| 1310446 | Having more does not keep you from wanting more. And if you always want more--to be richer, more beautiful, more well known--you are missing the bigger picture, and I can tell you from experience, happiness will never come. | Mitch Albom | ||
| 352fd44 | There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I'm so angry and bitter. But it doesn't last too long. Then I get up and say, 'I want to live..' 'So far, I've been able to do it. Will I be able to continue? I don't know. But I'm betting on myself I will.' Koppel seemed extremely taken with Morrie. He asked about the humility that death induced. | live choice death life bitter mourn cry decision humility | Mitch Albom | |
| a6f445f | When you are born, you cried while the world rejoiced.Live your life in such a way that when you die the world cries while you rejoice. | Mitch Albom | ||
| 0788f8e | Do you prefer Mitch? Or is Mitchell better?'.. .. Mitch, I say. Mitch is what my friends called me. 'Well, Mitch it is then,' Morrie says, as if closing a deal. 'And, Mitch?' Yes? 'I hope one day you will think of me as your friend. | hope nickname student professor introduction name | Mitch Albom | |
| b40fb47 | heaven is always and forever around us and no soul remembered is ever really gone. | Mitch Albom | ||
| fede91b | And on a cold Sunday afternoon, he was joined in his home by a small group of friends and family for a 'living funeral'. Each of them spoke and paid tribute.. Some cried. Some laughed. One woman read a poem: 'My dear and loving cousin.. Your ageless heart as you move through time, layer on layer, tender sequoia..' .. And all the heartfelt things we never get to say to those we love, Morrie said that day. | living-funeral death life love share celebrate | Mitch Albom | |
| d00b666 | I drive a beat-up Mercury Cougar, with the windows down and the music up. I seek my identity in toughness - but it is Morrie's softness that draws me, and because he doesn't look at me as a kid trying to be something more than I am, I relax. | identity music tough close windows soft image kid | Mitch Albom | |
| 919a5bd | Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time--then you might not be as ambitious as you are. | Mitch Albom | ||
| 0f4dc0d | Taking just makes me feel like I'm dying. Giving makes me feel like I'm living. | Mitch Albom | ||
| e0e5120 | La vida es una serie de tirones hacia atras y hacia adelante. Quieres hacer una cosa pero estas obligado hacer otra diferente. Algo te hace dano, pero tu sabes que no deberia hacertelo. Das por supuestas ciertas cosas, aunque sabes que no deberias dar nada por supuesto. Es una tension de opuestos, como una goma elastica estirada. Y la mayoria de nosotros vive en un punto intermedio. | Mitch Albom | ||
| 6dfa1d4 | What happened to me? I asked myself. Morris's high, smoky voice took me back to my university years, when I thought rich people were evil, a shirt and tie were prison clothes, and life without freedom to get up and go - motorcycle beneath you, breeze in your face, down the streets of Paris, into the mountains of Tibet - was not a good life at all. What happened to me? | travel free life ideal young thought | Mitch Albom | |
| 0a2ce00 | Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralysing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out. | Mitch Albom | ||
| f1f0324 | Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years, as if I'd simply been on a long vacation. ..I once promised I would never work for money, that I would join the Peace Corps, that I would live in beautiful, inspirational places. | live thoughts idealism work life ideas young university | Mitch Albom | |
| dbd4efd | Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years, as if I'd simply been on a long vacation. ..What happened to me? I once promised I would never work for money, that I would join the Peace Corps, that I would live in beautiful, inspirational places. | money live thoughts idealism work life ideas young | Mitch Albom | |
| b80c457 | I wrote articles about rich athletes who, for the most part, could not care less about people like me. .. My days were full, yet I remained, much of the time, unsatisfied. What happened to me? | time work change life unsatisfied | Mitch Albom | |
| 4d901c8 | I watched him now, his hands working gingerly, as if he were learning to use them for the first time. He could not press down hard with a knife. His fingers shook. Each bite was a struggle; he chewed the food finely before swallowing.. The skin from his wrist to his knuckles was dotted with age spots, and it was loose, like skin hanging from a chicken soup bone. | describe ill old eating | Mitch Albom |