Mitch Albom quotes:

The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

Nobody's favorite movie is some dark, dysfunctional slasher story. Everybody's favorite song is a sentimental song. So why all of a sudden is it bad to be sentimental in books?

A memoir should have some uplifting quality, inspiring or illuminating, and that's what separates a life story that can influence other people.

I used to be a classic workaholic, and after seeing how little work and career really mean when you reach the end of your life, I put a new emphasis on things I believe count more. These things include: family, friends, being part of a community, and appreciating the little joys of the average day.

Adam hid in the Garden of Eden. Moses tried to substitute his brother. Jonah jumped a boat and was swallowed by a whale...Man likes to run from God. It's a tradition.

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages, sometimes I write them in a column, sometimes in a novel, sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself, 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

Mortality means you don't have forever to work things out. You can live your life unexamined but then on the last day you're going to think: 'I've left things a little late.'

In a newspaper, you only have so much room. It teaches you the value of getting to the point, of not pampering yourself with your glorious writing. I've always been much more interested in one powerful sentence that stays with you. That's my style.

Love each other or die.

I didn't want to be ordinary," I mumbled.My mother looked upWhat 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."

Got an hour or two? That's all it takes for one of my books.

I had a very high-grade publisher tell me I was incapable of writing a memoir.

I was a workaholic. I never stopped. I lived in fifth gear. I bought cars. I invested in stocks. I made more money than I had ever imagined.

You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it.

People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does.

You've lived through a lot of wars, I said. Yes.Do they ever make more sense?No.

The bride waits here, she said, running her hands along her hair, taking in her image but seeming to drift away. This is the moment you think about what you're doing. Who you're choosing. Who you will love. If it's right, Eddie, this can be such a wonderful moment.

These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.

I would lying if I said I would laugh in the face of death.

You have to work at creating your own culture.

People who don't normally read make an exception for my books, possibly because they're short.

Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they want to. Always, they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries have seen courage confused with picking up arms, and cowardice confused with laying them down.

Sometimes, kids want you to hurt the way they hurt.

For years I wrote in my basement. More recently I graduated to one floor above, an office with all my books and music and - ta da! - a window.

War could bond men like a magnet, but like a magnet it could repel them, too. The things they saw, the things they did. Sometimes they just wanted to forget.

No one gets left behind, remember?

I took my orders, too. But if i couldn't keep you alive, I thought I could at least keep you together. In the middle of a big war, you go looking for a small idea to believe in. When you find one, you hold it the way a soldier holds his crucifix when he's praying in a foxhole.

Going 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.

All who are born are always dying.

I 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.

Mothers support certain illusions about their children, and one of my illusions was that I liked who I was, because she did. When she passed away, so did that idea."

Heaven is always and forever around us and no soul remembered is ever really gone.

Death: the only true emotion felt in an apathetic world

I seem to have very few casual readers, only passionate and appreciative ones.

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

You have to start over. That's what they say. But life is not a board game, and losing a loved one is never really "starting over." More like "continuing without.

Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.

Because one thing God gave us- and I'm afraid it's at times a little too much- is freewill. Freedom to choose. I believe he gave us everything needed to build a beautiful world, if we choose wisely.

We all lose somebody we care about and want to find some comforting way of dealing with it, something that will give us a little closure, a little peace.

Happiness in a tablet. This is our world. Prozac. Daxil. Xanax. Billions are spent to advertise such drugs. And billions are spent purchasing them. You don't even need a specific trauma, just 'general depression' is enough, or anxiety, as if sadness is as treatable as the common cold.

I asked myself, 'Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?' I decided I am going to live - or at least try to live - the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.

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

Accept who you are; and revel in it.

Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.

Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.

Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.

Don't let go too soon, but don't hold on too long.

I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.

If you really could fit God in a file, you wouldn't need to believe in God, you know, you'd just go get the file like a box of corn flakes off the shelf.

Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.

Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do. Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it. Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others. Don't assume that it's too late to get involved.

Giving to other people makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad...

People say they 'find' love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a certain love. And [he] found a certain love with [her], a grateful love, a deep but quiet love, one that he knew, above all else, was irreplaceable.

I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all good things still in my life.

Holding anger is a poison...It eats you from inside...We think that by hating someone we hurt them...But hatred is a curved blade...and the harm we do to others...we also do to ourselves.

But there's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin.

He had his time measures and he had her. That was his life. For as long as he could remember, it had been that way, Dor and Alli, even as children. "I do not want to die," she whispered. "You will not die." "I want to be with you." "You are.

He was near tears, 'Who do I blame?' he kept asking me. 'There is no God.I can only blame myself.'" The Reb's face tightened, as if in pain. "That," he said, softly, "is a terrible self-indictment." Worse than an unanswered prayer? "Oh yes. It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody's out there.

She loved me coming and going, at my worst and at my best. She had a bottomless well of love for me.

And in that line now was a whiskered old man, with a linen cap and a crooked nose, who waited in a place called the Stardust Band Shell to share his part of the secret of heaven: that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.

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.

When a lost loved one appears before you, it's your brain that fights it, not your heart.

When someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.

The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others...

Sometimes, when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will.

You can be a mama's boy, be a daddy's boy, but you can't be both. So you cling to the one you think you might lose.

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.

Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes.

I believe he died this way on purpose. I believe he wanted no chilling moments, no one to witness his last breath and be haunted by it, the way he had been haunted by his mother's death-notice telegram or by his father's corpse in the city morgue.

...if you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

I don't mean you disregard every rule of your community. I don't go around naked, for example. I don't run through red lights. The little things, I can obey. But 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. ' -Morrie Schwartz

Be compassionate," Morrie whispered. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place." He took a breath, then added his mantra: "Love each other or die.

I like myself better when I'm with you.

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

Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine?

Tears are okay [Morrie Schwartz]

In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.

my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" from the book of Isaiah

There is a big confusion in this country over what we want verses what we need...you need food. You want a chocolate sundae.

What 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?

Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do somehing else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.

There is no fair in life and death. If it were, no good men would die young.

Whenever you have two characters in a book, whether it's a novel or nonfiction, you run the risk that the reader is going to like one more than the other. They're going to read one chapter and say, 'I can't wait to get back to the other guy.

What's wrong with being number 2?

I think, in general, the sports I've enjoyed covering the most have been the offbeat ones. The more popular, mainstream, the less I like them because they're more, they're more structured and the players don't have much interesting to say because they're interviewed all the time.

Every life has one true love snapshot.

Miracles happen quietly every day - in an operating room, on a stormy sea, in the sudden appearance of a road side stranger. They are rarely tallied. No one keeps score.

Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.

I don't know what it is about food your mother makes for you, especially when it's something that anyone can make - pancakes, meat loaf, tuna salad - but it carries a certain taste of memory.

Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things: comfort, love, and a peaceful heart.

I don't use any fance quill pens or pads, because I can't read my own handwriting. I just use whatever computer is laying around, and start writing.

Death is the end of a lifetime, not the end of a relationship.

Sharing tales of those we've lost is how we keep from really losing them.

Life is a series of pulls back and forth... A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match...Which side win? Love wins. Love always wins

Jauh lebih menyenangkan merasa bahwa Tuhan mendengarkanmu dan mengatakan tidak, ketimbang merasa tak ada siapa pun yang mendengarkanmu

Ness-that Morrie was looking at life from some very different place than anyone else I knew. A healthier place. A more sensible place. And he was about to die.But it was also becoming clear to me- through his courage, his humor, his patience, and his openIf some mystical clarity of thought came when you looked death in the eye, then I knew Morrie wanted to share it.

So many times, I had chosen not to be with her. Too busy. Too tires. Don't feel like dealing with it. Church? No thanks. Sinner? Sorry. Come down to visit? Can't do it, maybe next week.

The manager once called me the 'best freak' in his stable, and, sad as it sounds, I took pride in that. When you are an outcast, even a tossed stone can be cherished.

What in life can love not penetrate?

Detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it.

That's what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays

Time," 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.

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.

Learn 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.

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.

I believe that you live on inside the hearts and minds of everyone you've touched while you were here on earth.

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.

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

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.

She felt worthless and hollow. There was no hope of fixing this.And when hope is gone, time is punishment.

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

It is too late." The old man shook his head. "It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be." He smiled. "There is a plan, Dor.

They teach you, as children, that you might go to heaven. They never teach you that heaven might come to you.

Much of what we called "depression" was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures we weren't willing to work for.

I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know.

Without love we all like birds with broken wings.

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.

All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.

What do people fear most about death? I asked the reb."Fear?" he thought for a moment. 'Well, for one thing, what happens next? Where do we go? Is it what we imagined?"That's big."Yes. But there's something else."What else?He leaned forward."Being forgotten," he whispered.

Life has to end. Love doesn't.