01c. 1958 ADAs usual, he saves his wife's for last. He leans on the cane and he looks at the headstone and he thinks about many things. Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
02c. 1958 ADNurses 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
03c. 1958 ADI believe that. All divorce does is divert you, taking you away from everything you thought you knew and everything you thought u wanted and steering you into all kinds of other stuff, like discussions about your mother's girdle and whether she should marry someone else.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
06c. 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
07c. 1958 ADNo life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
08c. 1958 ADMy funeral," the Blue Man said. "Look at the mourners. Some did not even know me well, yet they came. Why? Did you ever wonder? Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should?"It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed."You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole."It is why we are drawn to babies . . ." He turned to the mourners. "And to funerals.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
09c. 1958 ADIt's very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
10c. 1958 ADWhen you're rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even thoseyou love.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
11c. 1958 ADWhat is it about childhood that never lets you go, even when you're so wrecked it's hard to believe you ever were a child?Mitch Albom / quote ↗
12c. 1958 ADBut it's hard to explain, Mitch. Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims... and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But--how can I put this?--I'm almost... drawn to them.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
13c. 1958 AD..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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
14c. 1958 ADThen 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
18c. 1958 ADLearn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We 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 ↗
19c. 1958 ADThere 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
20c. 1958 ADHow 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?Mitch Albom / quote ↗
21c. 1958 ADI didn't want to be ordinary," I mumbled.My mother looked up. "What ordinary, Charley?""You know. Someone you forget."From the other room came the squeals of children. Miss Thelma turned her chin to the sound. She smiled,"That's what keeps me from being forgotten.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
22c. 1958 ADyou must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel itMitch Albom / quote ↗
23c. 1958 ADMemories are not in places, Papa. Memories are in your mind. They're here, too.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
24c. 1958 ADAs 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.Mitch Albom / quote ↗
