01c. 1958 ADGoing back to something is harder than you think."I don't suppose I could have broken my mother's heart any more if I tried.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
02c. 1958 ADI thought about how often this was needed in everyday life. How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don't let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry. Or how we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don't say anything because we're frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
03c. 1958 ADMorrie was in a wheelchair full-time now, getting used to helpers lifting him like a heavy sack from the chair to the bed and the bed to the chair.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
04c. 1958 ADIf you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
05c. 1958 ADThen 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
06c. 1958 ADThis is the story of a man named Eddie and it starts at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It may seem strange to start a story with and ending, but all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
07c. 1958 ADTime," the Captain said, "is not what you think." He sat down next to Eddie. "Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
08c. 1958 ADIn a strange way, I envied the quality of Morrie's time even as I lamented its diminishing supply. Why did we bother with all the distractions we did?Mitch Albom / quote ↗
09c. 1958 ADYou live on - in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here...Death ends life, not a relationship.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
10c. 1958 ADAfter 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
11c. 1958 ADWe think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
12c. 1958 ADA 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
13c. 1958 ADHe told his friends that if they really wanted to help him, they would treat him not with sympathy but with visits, phone calls, a sharing of their problems - the way they had always.. because Morrie had always been a wonderful listener.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
14c. 1958 ADFor all that was happening to him, his voice was strong and inviting, and his mind was vibrating with a million thoughts. He was intent on proving that the word 'dying' was not synonymous with 'useless'.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
15c. 1958 ADHere's the thing," he said. "People see me as a bridge. I'm not as alive as I used to be, but I'm not yet dead. I'm sort of...in-betweenMitch Albom / quote ↗
16c. 1958 ADTed," he said, "when all this started, I asked myself, 'Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?" I decided I'm going to live-or at least try to live-the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
17c. 1958 ADBut everyone knows someone who has died, I said. Why is it so hard to think about dying?'Because,' Morrie continued, 'most of us walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.'And facing death changes all that?'Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.'He sighed. 'Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
19c. 1958 ADI had told him I was searching for my keys, that's what had taken me so long in the car, and I squeezed him tighter, as if I could crush my little lie.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
20c. 1958 ADYou 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
21c. 1958 ADI was astonished by his complete lack of self-pity. Morrie, who could no longer dance, swim, bathe, or walk; Morrie, who could no longer answer his own door, dry himself after a shower, or even roll over in bed. How could he be so accepting? I watched him struggle with a fork, picking at a piece of tomato, missing it the first two times - a pathetic scene, and yet I could not deny that sitting in his presence was almost magically serene, the same calm breeze that soothed me back in college.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
23c. 1958 ADHad 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
24c. 1958 ADIn the South American rainforest, there is a tribe called the Desana, who see the world as a fixed quantity of energy that flows between all creatures. Every birth must therefore engender a death, and every death brings forth another birth. This way, the energy of the world remains complete.When they hunt for food, the Desana know the animals they kill will leave a hole in the spiritual well. But that hole will be filled, they believe, by the Desana hunters when they die. Were there no men dying, there would be no birds or fish being born. I like this idea. Morrie likes it, too. The closer he gets to goodbye, the more he seems to feel we are all creatures in the same forest. What we take, we must replenish."It's only fair," he says.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
