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I Also Believe That Parents, If They Love You, Will Hold You Up Safely, Above Their Swirling Waters, And Sometimes That Means You'll Never Know What They Endured, And You May Treat Them Unkindly, In A Way You Otherwise Wouldn't.

-Mitch Albom

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I Also Believe That

Mitch Albom

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I Also Believe That Parents, If They Love You, Will Hold You Up Safely, Above Their Swirling Waters, And Sometimes That Means You'll Never Know What They Endured, And You May Treat Them Unkindly, In A Way You Otherwise Wouldn't.

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No Story Sits By Itself, Sometimes Stories Meet At Corners And Sometimes They Cover One Another Completely, Like Stones Beneath A River.

Did You Feel Guilty Cursing God--you, Of All People?' No,' He Said. 'because Even In Doing So, I Was Recognizing There Was A Greater Power Than Me.' He Paused. And That Is How I Began To Heal.

Before You Measure The Years, You Measure The Days.

The Truth Is, Part Of Me Is Every Age. I’m A Three-year-old, I’m A Five-year-old, I’m A Thirty-seven-year-old, I’m A Fifty-year-old. I’ve Been Through All Of Them, And I Know What It’s Like. I Delight In Being A Child When It’s Appropriate To Be A Child. I Delight In Being A Wise Old Man When It’s Appropriate To Be A Wise Old Man. Think Of All I Can Be! I Am Every Age, Up To My Own.

There's A Story Behind Everything..but Behind All Your Stories Is Always Your Mother's Story..because Hers Is Where Yours Begins.

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.

We All Yearn For What We Have Lost. But Sometimes, We Forget What We Have.

...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.

Tuesdays With Morrie

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 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.

What Will You Do With The Time You Have Left?

Try To Imagine A Life Without Timekeeping. You Probably Can’t. You Know The Month, The Year, The Day Of The Week. There Is A Clock On Your Wall Or The Dashboard Of Your Car. You Have A Schedule, A Calendar, A Time For Dinner Or A Movie. Yet All Around You, Timekeeping Is Ignored. Birds Are Not Late. A Dog Does Not Check Its Watch. Deer Do Not Fret Over Passing Birthdays. An Alone Measures Time. Man Alone Chimes The Hour. And, Because Of This, Man Alone Suffers A Paralyzing Fear That No Other Creature Endures. A Fear Of Time Running Out.

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.

Every Day, Have A Little Bird On Your Shoulder That Asks, 'is Today The Day? Am I Ready? Am I Doing All I Need To Do? Am I Being The Person I Want To Be? Is Today The Day I Die?

You Can Feel The Whole World And Still Feel Lost In It. So Many People Are In Pain-- No Matter How Smart Or Accomplished--they Cry, They Yearn, They Hurt. But Instead Of Looking Down On Things, They Look Up, Which Is Where I Should Have Been Looking, Too. Because When The World Quiets To The Sound Of Your Own Breathing, We All Want The Same Things: Comfort, Love And A Peaceful Heart.

And If You Don´t Commit? I Asked. Your Choice. But You Miss What´s On The Other Side. What´s On The Other Side? "ah" He Smiled. "a Happiness You Cannot Find Alone

Belief, Hard Work, Love–you Have Those Things, You Can Do Anything.

Death Is The End Of A Lifetime, Not The End Of A Relationship.

Relationships Ending

There Is Nothing More Fun Than Hanging Around With Friends And Banging On Instruments. Anyone Who Has Ever Done It Knows That This Is True.

Ends Are For Yesterday, Not Tomorrows.

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.

Tuesdays With Morrie

It's The Thinking That Gets You Killed.

Most Of Us All 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.

There Are A Few Rules I Know To Be True About Love And Marriage... Your Values Must Be Alike. And The Biggest One Of Those Values, Mitch?" Yes? "your Belief In The Importance Of Your Marriage.

Love And Marriage

Tell Me About Your Family," I Said. And So She Did. I Listened Intently As My Mother Went Through Each Branch Of The Tree. Years Later, After The Funeral, Maria Had Asked Me Questions About The Family - Who Was Related To Whom - And I Struggled. I Couldn't Remember. A Big Chunk Of Our History Had Been Buried With My Mother. You Should Never Let Your Past Disappear That Way.

If You Find One True Friend In Your Life, You're Richer Than Most. If That One True Friend Is Your Husband, You're Blessed." She Paused. "and If That One True Friend Is Your Sister, Don't Feel Bad. At Least, She Can't Divorce You.

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.

But You Grab A Moment, Or You Let It Pass.

I Give Myself A Good Cry If I Need It, But Then I Concentrate On All Good Things Still In My Life.

Money Is Not A Substitute For Tenderness, And Power Is Not A Substitute For Tenderness. I Can Tell You, As I'm Sitting Here Dying, When You Most Need It, Neither Money Nor Power Will Give You The Feeling You're Looking For, No Matter How Much Of Them You Have."

We All Have Two Things In Common, No Matter Who We Are: We Were Born And We Are Going To Die.

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.

When You're In Bed, You're Dead

Sacrfice," The Captain Said. "you Made One. I Made One. We All Made Them. But You Were Angry Over Yours. You Kept Thinking About What You Lost. You Didn't Get It. Sacrifice Is A Part Of Life. It's Supposed To Be. It's Not Something To Regret. It's Something To Aspire To.

For Better Or For Worse, I've Watched People Die In Front Of Me. I See How They Are In The End. And They're Not Cynical. In The End, They Wanna Hold Somebody's Hand. And That's Real To Me.

A Wind Blew, And The Sand Around His Drawing Scattered. He Wrapped His Fingers Inside His Wife's, And Father Time Rekindled A Connection He Had Only Ever Had With Her. He Surrendered To That Sensation And Felt The Final Drops Of Their Lives Touch One Another, Like Water In A Cave, Top Meets Bottom, Heaven Meets Earth. As Their Eyes Closed, A Different Set Of Eyes Opened, And They Rose From The Ground As A Shared South, Up And Up, A Sun And A Moon In A Single Sky.

Don't Get Too Attached To Anything.

The Problem, Mitch, Is That We Don't Believe We Are As Much Alike As We Are. Whites And Blacks, Catholics And Protestants, Men And Women. If We Saw Each Other As More Alike, We Might Be Very Eager To Join In One Big Human Family In This World, And To Care About That Family The Way We Care About Our Own. But Believe Me, When You Are Dying, You See It Is True. We All Have The Same Beginning - Birth - And We All Have The Same End - Death. So How Different Can We Be? Invest In The Human Family. Invest In People. Build A Little Community Of Those You Love And Who Love You. Morrie Schwartz

We All Know How To Be A Child.

This Is The Greatest Gift God Can Give You: To Understand What Happened In Your Life. To Have It Explained. It Is The Peace You Have Been Searching For.

I Believe That You Live On Inside The Hearts And Minds Of Everyone You've Touched While You Were Here On Earth.

Don't Let Our Outside Labels Or How Fervent We Look Or Zealous We Are Or How Righteous We Seem; That's Not How You Measure Yourself Against Other People. Everyone Is A Child Of God; If We Really Believed That, We'd Treat Each Other Better.

It Is Far More Comforting To Think God Listened And Said No, Than To Think That Nobody’s Out There.

You're Not Going To Get To College - You're Not Even Going To Be Qualified, Even To Go To A Community College, If You Don't Address The Basic Problem Of Literacy In America. And There's No Reason - No Reason - For Us To Have That Problem.

If You Want To Be A Good Writer, Make Sure You Read. I'm Amazed By How Many People Don't Bother To Do That.

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.

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

The Way You Get Meaning Into Your Life Is To Devote Yourself To Loving Others.

Detroit Is A Place Where We've Had It Pretty Tough. But There Is A Generosity Here And A Well Of Kindness That Goes Deep.

You Need To Keep People Close. You Need To Give Them Access To Your Heart.

Without Love We All Like Birds With Broken Wings.

I Don't Know About Heaven Or Hell, But I Do Know That We Are Visited All The Time By The Spirits Of Those Who Affected Us In Life.

Sometimes, Love Brings You Together Even As Life Keeps You Apart.

Accept What You Are Able To Do And What You Are Not Able To Do.

Forgive Yourself

Sometimes, They Say, The Moon Is So Busy With The New Souls Of The World That It Disappears From The Sky. That Is Why We Have Moonless Nights. But In The End, The Moon Always Returns, As Do We All.

I Believe The Biggest Themes Of Life Are Put Into The Best Focus When Held Up Against The Very Sharp Light Of Mortality.

Sacrifice Is A Part Of Life. It’s Supposed To Be. It’s Not Something To Regret. It’s Something To Aspire To. Little Sacrifices. Big Sacrifices. A Mother Works So Her Son Can Go To School. A Daughter Moves Home To Take Care Of Her Sick Father.

Perdonare "forgive Yourself)

Forgive Yourself

I Am Every Age, Up To My Own.

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.

All Who Are Born Are Always Dying.

All These People That You Meet Or I Meet, There's Not A Prayer In Hell That They're Ever Going To Run For Office Or Major Office Because If They're That Smart, They're Also Smart Enough To Know They Don't Want To Take Everything That They've Built Up And Have It Torn Apart By A Sensationalized Media That's So Hungry For Any Kind Of Salacious Detail That They'll Make That The Emphasis Of The Person's Life. And Then All Of Sudden, 50, 60 Years Of Hard Work And Accomplishment Go Out The Window.

As Mankind Grew Obsessed With Its Hours, The Sorrow Of Lost Time Became A Permanent Hole In The Human Heart. People Fretted Over Missed Chances, Over Inefficient Days; They Worried Constantly About How Long They Would Live, Because Counting Life’s Moments Had Led, Inevitably, To Counting Them Down. Soon, In Every Nation And In Every Language, Time Became The Most Precious Commodity.

I'm Being Made Aware Of My Mortality All The Time.

You Have To Work At Creating Your Own Culture.

Dor: There Is A Reason God Lmits Our Days. Victor: Why? Dor: To Make Each One Precious.

After The Israelites Safely Crossed The Red Sea, The Egyptians Chased After Them And Were Drowned. God's Angels Wanted To Celebrate The Enemy's Demise. God Saw This And Grew Angry. He Said, In Essence, 'stop Celebrating. For They Are My Children,too.

But A Desperate Heart Will Seduce The Mind.

Dor Shook His Head. “the Phrase. What Does It Mean?” Sarah Wondered If He Was Kidding. “time Flies? You Know, Like, Time Goes Really Fast And Suddenly You’re Saying Goodbye And It’s Like No Time Passed At All?” His Eyes Drifted. He Liked It. “time Flies.” “with You,” She Added.

Fear Is How You Lose Your Life...a Little Bit At A Time...what We Give To Fear, We Take Away From...faith.

There Is A Time For Hello And A Time For Good-bye. It's Why The Act Of Burying Thing Seems Natural, But The Act Of Digging Them Up Does Not.

You May Not Have Known The Reason At The Time, And That Is What Heaven Is For. For Understanding Your Life On Earth.

Don't Cling To Things, Because Everything Is Impermanent... But 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...you're Afraid Of The Pain, You're Afraid Of The Grief... But By Throwing Yourself Into These Emotions, By Allowing Yourself To Dive In, All The Way, Over Your Head Even, You Experience Them Fully And Completely.you Know What Pain Is. You Know What Love Is. "all Right. I Have Experienced That Emotion. I Recognize That Emotion. Now I Need To Detach From That Emotion For A Moment.

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.

Look, No Matter Where You Live, The Biggest Defect We Human Beings Have Is Our Shortsightedness. We Don’t See What We Could Be. We Should Be Looking At Our Potential, Stretching Ourselves Into Everything We Can Become. But If You’re Surrounded By People Who Say ‘i Want Mine Now,’ You End Up With A Few People With Everything And A Military To Keep The Poor Ones From Rising Up And Stealing It.

Knowing Something And Understanding It Were Not The Same Thing.

Knowing Something

I Often Find That I Rock Back And Forth With A Beat In My Head Constantly. If I Stop Rocking, It Usually Means I've Hit A Snag In My Writing.

It Is No Coincidence That The Words 'trying' And 'dying' Are Only A Few Letters Apart.

I Love You Every Day, Mom

Anger Is A Poison. It Eats Us Inside. We Think When We Hate Someone We Hurt Them, But Hatred Is A Curved Blade, And The Harm We Do To Others We Also Do To Ourselves.

Why Are We Embarassed By Silence? What Comfort Do We Find In All The Noise?

If God Wants It, It Will Happen.

People Often Belittle The Place Where They Were Born.

I Would Certainly Make The Attendance In College Paid For, At Least At A Community College Level Or A State - You Know, A Sponsored University Level So That If You Wanted To Go To College And If You Had The Grades - You Might Not Go To Harvard - But You Went To College.

You See, You Closed Your Eyes. That Was The Difference. Sometimes You Cannot Believe What You See, You Have To Believe What You Feel. And If You Are Ever Going To Have Other People Trust You, You Must Feel That You Can Trust Them, Too--even When You’re In The Dark. Even When You’re Falling.

Suddenly, Details Seemed Extremely Important. Details Were Something To Grab On To, A Way To Insert Myself Into The Story.

Love Is The Only Rational Act.

She Had A Bottomless Well Of Love For Me.

You Have Peace," The Old Woman Said, "when You Make It With Yourself.

When I Lacked Even The Self-respect To Keep Myself Alive, She Dabbed My Cuts And I Fell Back Into Being A Son; I Fell As Easily As You Fall Into Your Pillow At Night. And I Didn't Want It To End. That's The Best Way I Can Explain It. I Knew It Was Impossible. But I Didn't Want It To End.

All Endings Are Also Beginnings. We Just Don't Know It At The Time.

Remember Me For These Days, Not The Old Ones.

What You Have Done To This Point Cannot Be Undone. What You Do Next... It Is Still Unwritten.

Tears Are Okay [morrie Schwartz]

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.

In College, I Had A Course In Latin, And One Day The Word "divorce" Came Up. I Always Figured It Came From Some Root That Meant "divide." In Truth, It Comes From "divertere," Which Means "to Divert." I Believe That. All Divorce Does Is Divert You, Taking You Away From Everything You Thought You Knew And Everything You Thought You Wanted And Steering You Into All Kinds Of Other Stuff, Like Discussions About Your Mother's Girdle And Whether She Should Marry Someone Else.

No, Edward. You Are Here So I Can Teach You Something. All The People You Meet Here Have One Thing To Teach You.

When You Look Into Your Mother’s Eyes, You Know That Is The Purest Love You Can Find On This Earth.

Take One Story, Viewed From Two Different Angles. It Is The Same Day, The Same Moment, But One Angle Ends Happily... And The Other Ends Badly.

Accept Who You Are; And Revel In It.

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.

It’s Not Contagious, You Know. Death Is As Natural As Life. It’s Part Of The Deal We Made.

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.

You Can Know The Whole World And Still Feel Lost In It.

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?

But My Father, A Thief In Many Ways, Had Robbed Me Of My Concentration.

Consider The Word “time.” We Use So Many Phrases With It. Pass Time. Waste Time. Kill Time. Lose Time. In Good Time. About Time. Take Your Time. Save Time. A Long Time. Right On Time. Out Of Time. Mind The Time. Be On Time. Spare Time. Keep Time. Stall For Time. There Are As Many Expressions With “time” As There Are Minutes In A Day. But Once, There Was No Word For It At All. Because No One Was Counting. Then Dor Began. And Everything Changed.

The Truth Is, When Our Mothers Held Us, Rocked Us, Stroked Our Heads -none Of Us Ever Got Enough Of That. We All Yearn In Some Way To Return To Those Days When We Were Completely Taken Care Of - Unconditional Love, Unconditional Attention. Most Of Us Didn't Get Enough.

Unconditional Love

It's Such A Shame To Waste Time. We Always Think We Have So Much Of It.

We’re So Wrapped Up With 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? Is Something Missing?

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.

Once We Began To Chime The Hour, We Lost The Ability To Be Satisfied

She Was Like A Wound Beneath An Old Bandage, And He Had Grown More Used To The Bandage.

You Count The Hours You Could Have Spent With Your Mother. It's A Lifetime In Itself.

Anyone Who Tries To Write A Memoir Needs To Keep In Mind That What's Interesting To You Isn't Necessarily Interesting To A Reader.

I Think What You Notice Most When You Haven’t Been Home In A While Is How Much The Trees Have Grown Around Your Memories.

There Is No Experience Like Having Children.’ That’s All. There Is No Substitute For It. You Cannot Do It With A Friend. You Cannot Do It With A Lover. If You Want The Experience Of Having Complete Responsibility For Another Human Being, And To Learn How To Love And Bond In The Deepest Way, Then You Should Have Children.

Heaven Can Be Found In The Most Unlikely Corners.

You've Lived Through A Lot Of Wars, I Said. "yes." Do They Ever Make More Sense? "no.

Didn't People Call New Year's The Loneliest Night On The Calender? She Took Comfort In Knowing Somewhere On The Planet, Someone Might Be As Miserable As She Was.

Strangers Are Family You Haven't Recognize Yet

Things That Happen Before You Are Born Still Affect You And People Who Come Before Your Time Affect You As Well.

Money Is Not A Substitute For Tenderness, And Power Is Not A Substitute For Tenderness.

We All Know How To Be A Child. It's Inside All Of Us. For Me, It's Just Remembering How To Enjoy It.

He Cried That Night For All That He Had Lost, But He Would Say It Taught Him A Valuable Lesson: That Holding On To Things "will Only Break Your Heart.

There Is A Reason God Limits Man's Days.

Faith Is About Doing. You Are How You Act, Not Just How You Believe.

Never Tell A Child That Something It's Too Hard

My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts, Neither Are Your Ways My Ways" From The Book Of Isaiah

One Day Can Bend Your Life.

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.

What's Wrong With Being Number 2?

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.

Death: The Only True Emotion Felt In An Apathetic World

Getting Old We Can Deal With. Being Old Is The Problem

It’s Funny. I Met A Man Once Who Did A Lot Of Mountain Climbing. I Asked Him Which Was Harder, Ascending Or Descending? He Said Without A Doubt Descending, Because Ascending You Were So Focused On Reaching The Top, You Avoided Mistakes. The Backside Of A Mountain Is A Fight Against Human Nature,” He Said. “you Have To Care As Much About Yourself On The Way Down As You Did On The Way Up.

This Is A Story About A Man Named Eddie And It Begins At The End, With Eddie Dying In The Sun.

The Pain We Suffer Is A Way To Make Us Appreciate What Comes Next.

As Children Grow, They Gravitate To Their Fates.

When He Smiles It's As If You'd Just Told Him The First Joke On Earth.

You're Not Listening With Your Eyes.

The Backside Of A Mountain Is A Fight Against Human Nature. You Have To Care As Much About Yourself On The Way Down As You Did On The Way Up.

Love Each Other Or Die.

Love Each Other

It's The Same Thing With Faith, By The Way." We Don't Want To Get Stuck Having To Go To Services All The Time, Or Having To Follow All The Rules. We Don't Want To Commit To God. We'll Take Him When We Need Him, Or When Things Are Going Good. But Real Commitment? That Requires Staying Power‎-‎-‎-in Faith And In Marriage." And If You Don't Commit? I Asked. "your Choice. But You Miss What's On The Other Side." What's On The Other Side? "ah." He Smiled, "a Happiness You Cannot Find Alone.

My Own Father Didn't Talk A Lot About Feelings Or Emotions.

Scenery Without Solace Is Meaningless.

I'm In Love With Hope.

Being Unheard Is The Ground Floor Of Giving Up, And Giving Up Is The Ground Floor Of Doing Yourself In. It’s Not So Much, What’s The Point? It’s More Like, What’s The Difference?

I Made Such A Fool Of Myself,” She Lamented. “love Does Not Make You A Fool.” “he Didn’t Love Me Back.” “that Does Not Make You A Fool, Either.” “just Tell Me …” Her Voice Cracked. “when Does It Stop Hurting?” “sometimes Never.

I Think We've Created A System Here Where Only The Lifelong Politicians, Who Are Used To This Kind Of Life In The Spotlight And Don't Care, Or People Who Have Egos Along The Lines Of Donald Trump - Who Just Don't Care What People Say About Them - They're The Only People Who Are Ever Going To Run Because Nobody Wants Their Life Dissected As Meanly And As Randomly As Our Media Has Come To Do With Anybody Who Runs For Office.

He Never Spoke Of That Night Again, Not To Your Mother, Not To Anyone Else. He Was Ashamed For Her, For Mickey, For Himself. In The Hospital, He Stopped Speaking Altogether. Silence Was His Escape, But Silence Is Rarely A Refuge. His Thoughts Still Haunted Him.' ~pg 139

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.

When Death Takes Your Mother, It Steals That Word Forever.

Accept The Past As Past, Without Denying It Or Discarding It.

Forgive Yourself

Strangers Are Just Family You Have Yet To Come To Know.

I Give Myself A Good Cry If I Need It. But Then I Concentrate On The Good Things Still In My Life. I Don't Allow Myself Any More Self-pity Than That. A Little Each Every Morning, A Few Tears, And That's All.

Once, Lovers On Faraway Shores Sat By Candlelight And Dipped Ink To Parchment, Writing Words That Could Not Be Erased. They Took An Evening To Compose Their Thoughts, Maybe The Next Evening As Well.

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

I Know I Cannot Undo This. None Of Us Can Undo What We’ve Done, Or Relive A Life Already Recorded.

No Matter Where You Live, The Biggest Defect We Human Beings Have Is Our Shortsightedness. We Don't See What We Could Be.

Love Like Rain, Can Nourish From Above, Drenching Couples With Soaking Joy. But Sometimes, Under The Angry Heat Of Life, Love Dries On The Surface And Must Nourish From Below, Tending To Its Roots, Keeping Itself Alive.

Got An Hour Or Two? That's All It Takes For One Of My Books.

Personally, I Always Wondered About Authors And Celebrities Who Loudly Declared There Was No God. It Was Usually When They Were Healthy And Popular And Being Listened To By Crowds. What Happens, I Wondered, In The Quiet Moments Before Death? By Then, They Have Lost The Stage, The World Has Moved On. If Suddenly, In Their Last Gasping Moments, Through Fear, A Vision, A Late Enlightenment, They Change Their Minds About God, Who Would Know?

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.

Losing A Loved One

Love- The Infatuation Kind- 'he's So Handsome, She's So Beautiful'- That Can Shrivel. As Soon As Something Goes Wrong, That Kind Of Love Can Fly Out The Window.

Sometimes What You Miss The Most Is The Way A Loved One Made You Feel About Yourself.

I Feel Ashamed Now That I Tried To Take My Life. It Is Such A Precious Thing. I Had No One To Talk Me Out Of My Despair And That Was A Mistake. You Need To Keep People Close. You Need To Give Them Access To Your Heart.

The Years After Graduation Hardened Me Into Someone Quite Different From The Strutting Graduate Who Left Campus That Day Headed For New York City, Ready To Offer The World His Talent. The World, I Discovered. Was Not All That Interested.

God Sings, We Hum Along, And There Are Many Melodies, But It's All One Song - One Same, Wonderful, Human Song.

Parents Rarely Let Go Of Their Children, So Children Let Go Of Them. They Move On. They Move Away. The Moments That Used To Define Them - A Mother's Approval, A Father's Nod - Are Covered By Moments Of Their Own Accomplishments. It Is Not Until Much Later, As The Skin Sags And The Heart Weakens, That Children Understand; Their Stories, And All Their Accomplishments, Sit Atop The Stories Of Their Mothers And Fathers, Stones Upon Stones, Beneath The Waters Of Their Lives.

Sometimes, Kids Want You To Hurt The Way They Hurt.

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.

People Are Only Mean When They're Threatened, And That's What Our Culture Does...and When You Get Threatened, You Start Looking Out Only For Yourself. You Start Making Money A God. It Is All Part Of This Culture.

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.

Tuesdays With Morrie

The Most Important Elements Of Faith [are] Believing In Something Bigger Than Yourself, Taking Care Of Those Less Fortunate Than You.

Sometimes When You Sacrifice Something Precious, You're Not Really Losing It. You're Just Passing It On To Someone Else.

Once Heaven Is Done With Grandma, We'd Like Her Back, Thanks.

A Little Girl Came Home From School With A Drawing She'd Made In Class.she Danced Into The Kitchen ,where Her Mother Was Preparing Dinner. "mom,guess What ?" She Squealed Waving The Drawing . Her Mother Never Looked Up. "what"? She Said ,tending To The Pots. "guess What?" The Child Repeated ,waving The Drawings. "what?" The Mother Said , Tending To The Plates. "mom, You're Not Listening" "sweetie,yes I Am" "mom" The Child Said "you're Not Listening With Your Eyes

I Never Hear Anything About Education. Education - I Guess It's Just Not Sexy Enough. And Everybody Claims To Love Their Children And Our Children Are The Most Important Thing, But If That's The Case, How Come We Never Hear More About Education As An Election Issue?

Timing Is Everything. That´s Right. Which Is Why Our Sages Tell Us To Repent Exactly One Day Before We Die." But How Do You Know It´s The Day Before You Die? I Asked. He Raised His Eyebrows. "exactly

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.

There Is A Big Confusion In This Country Over What We Want Verses What We Need...you Need Food. You Want A Chocolate Sundae.

Everyone Is In Such A Hurry. People Haven’t Found Meaning In Their Lives, So They’re Running All The Time Looking For It. They Think The Next Car, The Next House, The Next Job. Then They Find Those Things Are Empty, Too, And They Keep Running. Once You Start Running, It’s Hard To Slow Yourself Down.

Sometimes You Have To Do Things When Sad Things Happen.

You Should Be Convinced Of The Authenticity Of What You Have, But You Must Also Be Humble Enough To Say That We Don't Know Everything. And Since We Don't Know Everything, We Must Accept That Another Person May Believe Something Else.

One Withers, Another Grows.

My Mother Was French Protestant, And My Father Was Italian Catholic, And Their Union Was An Excess Of God, Guilt And Sauce.

What Is It?” “a Prayer.” “for A Child?” She Nodded. “for Me?” Another Nod. “on A Tree?” “trees Spend All Day Looking Up At God.

You 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.

For Many Of Us, The Curtain Had Just Come Down On Childhood.

What She Mostly Wanted, He Learned, Was The Same Thing Many People Want--someone To Notice She Was There.

It Is Never Too Late Or Too Soon. It Is When It Is Supposed To Be.

I Had A Very High-grade Publisher Tell Me I Was Incapable Of Writing A Memoir.

Secrets Tear You Apart.

My Father Moved Through Theys Of We, Singing Each New Leaf Out Of Each Tree, (and Every Child Was Sure That Spring Danced When She Heard My Father Sing).

But Hurting Ourselves To Inflict Pain On Others Is Just Another Cry To Be Loved.

I Would Lying If I Said I Would Laugh In The Face Of Death.

My Writing Habits Are Pretty Static. I Get Up Every Morning Between 6 And 7 Am, Grab A Cup Of Coffee, Say A Few Prayers, And Go Downstairs To My Office And Start Writing.

To Know You're Going To Die, And To Be Prepared For It At Any Time. That's Better. That Way You Can Actually Be More Involved In Your Life While You're Living.

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.

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Chiang Kai-shek

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