Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie Quotes

Rock and roll, big band, the blues. He loved them all. He would close his eyes and with a blissful smile begin to move to his own sense of rhythm. It wasn't always pretty.

Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.

In 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?

I earned a mater's degree in journalism and took the first job offered, as a sports writer. Instead of chasing my own fame, I wrote about famous athletes chasing theirs.

I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline.

We all have same beginning (BIRTH), and we will have same ending (DEATH). So how different can we be?

Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?"-Morrie

Death ends a life, not a relationship.

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.

Without love we all like birds with broken wings.

The little things, I can obey. The big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone—or any society—determine those for you.

It’s not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It’s part of the deal we made.

If you accept that you can die at any time - then you might not be as ambitious as you are

Love wins, love always wins.

Here'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-between

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

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

I 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.

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.

You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue.

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.

Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else.

Why are we embarassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?

Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship

Morrie 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.

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.

However, this is too harmonious, grand, and overwhelming a universe to believe it all on accident.

That was the end of his driving.. That was the end of his walking free.. That was the end of his privacy.. And that was the end of his secret.

I snicker, but the idea is momentarily appealing. Part of me is scared of leaving school. Part of me wants to go desperately. Tension of opposites.

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.

Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.

when he smiles it's as if you'd just told him the first joke on earth.

Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others.

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.

There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like.

You live on - in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here...Death ends life, not a relationship.

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

Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.

For many of us, the curtain has just come down on childhood.

This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It's knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

..And because he was still able to move his hands - Morrie always spoke with both hands waving - he showed great passion when explaining how you face the end of life.

One afternoon, I am complaining about the confusion of my age, what is expected of me versus what I want for myself.

I didn't want to forget him. Maybe I didn't want him to forget me.

Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.