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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.

-Mitch Albom

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Look, No Matter Where

Mitch Albom

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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.

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I Still Think There Is A Way To Take All The Mistakes That We've Made As Adults And Put A Little Bit Of A Salve On Them, A Little Bit Of A Fix On Them, If We Just Are A Little Smarter In What We Teach Our Kids.

In Order To Move On, You Must Understand Why You Felt What You Did And Why You No Longer Need To Feel It.

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

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.

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

Never Tell A Child That Something It's Too Hard

Being Here In Detroit, Our Public Education In This City Is - It's Shocking. And The Oversight Of It And The Oversight Of The Teachers And The Funding Is Nonexistent, And The Priority That's Put On It Is So Low.

Desire Sets Our Compass, But Real Life Steers Our Course.

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

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

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

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

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.

Forgive Yourself Before You Die. Then Forgive Others.

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

A Book With The Genuine Power To Stir And Comfort Its Readers.

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

Small Towns Are Like Metronomes; With The Slightest Flick, The Beat Changes.

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.

It Was Sad, The Imbalance Of It All. Why Do Kids Assume So Much From One Parent And Hold The Other To A Lower, Looser Standard?

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?

Everyone Knows They Re Going To Die,' He Said Again, 'but Nobody Believes It. If We Did, We Would Do Things Differently.

What Will You Do With The Time You Have Left?

No Matter How Smart She Appeared, She Was Fragile At Her Core.

But Then She Did. She Died. No More Visits, No More Phone Calls. And Without Even Realizing It, I Began To Drift, As If My Roots Had Been Pulled, As If I Were Floating Down Some Side Branch Of A River.

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.

I Am In Love With Hope.

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

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

I Hate To Be Like Everyone Else, But I'm Rooting For San Antonio Because I Like Teams That Were Built The Old-fashioned Way.

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.

With Endless Time, Nothing Is Special. With No Loss Or Sacrifice, We Can’t Appreciate What We Have

Strangers Are Family You Haven't Recognize Yet

Invest In The Human Family. Invest In People. Build A Little Community Of Those You Love And Who Love You.

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.

Love Each Other Or Die.

Love Each Other

There Are Two Stories For Every Life; The One You Live & The One Others Tell

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.

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.

Things Change When You're Not In Danger Anymore.

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.

A Memoir Should Have Some Uplifting Quality, Inspiring Or Illuminating, And That's What Separates A Life Story That Can Influence Other People.

She Had Been So Consumed With Escaping Her Own Misery, She Hadn't Considered The Misery She Might Inflict.

Love Is How You Stay Alive, Even After You Are Gone.

Accept Who You Are; And Revel In It.

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

Relationships Ending

If You're Always Battling Against Getting Older, You're Always Going To Be Unhappy, Because It's Going To Happen Anyhow.

The Most Inspirational Man I Knew Only Reached His Potential By Helping A Child Reach His.

There Is A Reason God Limits Man's Days.

If We Knew What Comes Next, We Never Would Have Worried.

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We All Know How To Be A Child.

First And Foremost, I Would Put A Massive National Emphasis On Illiteracy With Real Markers That You Could Measure And Real Efforts To Do A One-on-one Kind Of Tutoring Until Kids Can Get Up To Snuff On That.

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

I Love You Every Day, Mom

Sticking With Your Family Is What Makes It A Family.

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

It’s Not Just Other People We Need To Forgive. We Also Need To Forgive Ourselves. For All The Things We Didn’t Do. All The Things We Should Have Done. You Can’t Get Stuck On The Regrets Of What Should Have Happened. I Always Wished I Had Done More With My Work; I Wished I Had Written More Books. I Used To Beat Myself Up Over It. Now I See That Never Did Any Good. Make Peace. You Need To Make Peace With Yourself And Everyone Around You.

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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

Man Wants To Own His Existence. But No One Owns Time.

Critics Have A Problem With Sentimentality. Readers Do Not. I Write For Readers.

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

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Do Not Worry About Tomorrow, For Tomorrow Will Worry About Itself.

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.

He Almost Told Her Everything Right Then, That Very Moment. But You Grab A Moment, Or You Let It Pass. He Let It Pass.

Man Alone Measures Time. Man Alone Chimes The Hour. And, Because Of This, Man Alone Suffers A Paralysing Fear That No Other Creature Endures. A Fear Of Time Running Out.

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

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.

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

Everyone Keeps Talking About Fixing And Returning America - Making America Great. But Yet, Nobody Ever Seems To Focus On The Fact That You're Not Going To Make Any Country Great If You Don't Address Its Children.

Silence Is Worse When You Know It Won't Be Broken.

Scenery Without Solace Is Meaningless.

She Felt Worthless And Hollow. There Was No Hope Of Fixing This. And When Hope Is Gone, Time Is Punishment.

For As Spiritual As Some People Think My Books Are, I've Never Really Dealt With Religious Things.

The More You Defend A Lie, The Angrier You Become.

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?

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.

The Running Boy Is Inside Every Man, No Matter How Old He Gets.

Holding Anger Is A Poison. It Eats You From The 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. Forgive, Edward. Forgive...no One Is Born With Anger. And When We Die, The Soul Is Freed Of It. But Now, Here, In Order To Move On, You Must Understand Why You Felt What You Did, And Why You No Longer Need To Feel It.' She Touched His Hand. 'you Need To Forgive Your Father.' ~pgs 141-142

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.

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 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.

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

I Made The Wrong Choice ," I Whispered. My Mother Shook Her Head. "a Child Should Never Have To Choose.

There Is No Formula To Relationships.

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.

You'll Come To My Grave? To Tell Me Your Problems?" My Problems? "yes.' And You'll Give Me Answers? "i'll Give You What I Can. Don't I Always?" I Picture His Grave, On The Hill, Overlooking The Pond, Some Little Nine Foot Piece Of Earth Where They Will Place Him, Cover Him With Dirt, Put A Stone On Top. Maybe In A Few Weeks? Maybe In A Few Days? I See Myself Sitting There Alone, Arms Across My Knees, Staring Into Space. It Won't Be The Same, I Say, Not Being Able To Hear You Talk. "ah, Talk . . . " He Closes His Eyes And Smiles. "tell You What. After I'm Dead, You Talk. And I'll Listen.

She Loved Me Coming And Going, At My Worst And At My Best. She Had A Bottomless Well Of Love For Me.

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.

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.

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.

As Children Grow, They Gravitate To Their Fates.

...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

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.

If God Wants It, It Will Happen.

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

Every Life Has One True Love Snapshot.

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

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

Mankind Is Connected In Ways It Does Not Understand - Even In Dreams.

We Move Through Places Every Day That Would Never Have Been If Not For Those Who Came Before Us. Our Workplaces, Where We Spend So Much Time--we Often Think They Began With Our Arrival. That's Not True.

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.

Sometimes, Questions Are More Hurtful Than Insults.

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

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.

We're Tuesday People.

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.

You Can't Get Stuck On What Should Have Happened. That Doesn't Help You.

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.

Being Unheard Is The Ground Floor Of Giving Up.

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.

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.

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's The Thinking That Gets You Killed.

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.

But A Desperate Heart Will Seduce The Mind.

In Heaven, There Is No Judgment, But Rather An Opportunity To Examine Our Lives-who We Touched, The Choices We Made, And The Consequences Of Those Choices.

Sacrifice Is A Part Of Life. It's Supposed To Be. It's Not Something To Regret. It's Something To Aspire To.

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

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.

We’re Gonna Make Up For That. We’re Gonna Live A Long Time Together.

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.

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.

I'm In Love With Hope.

There Is No Fair In Life And Death. If It Were, No Good Men Would Die Young.

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

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.

This Is How You Start To Get Respect, By Offering Something That You Have.

When Someone Is In Your Heart, They're Never Truly Gone. They Can Come Back To You, Even At Unlikely Times.

No. You Can't Work Your Way Into Heaven. Anytime You Try And Justify Yourself With Works, You Disqualify Yourself With Works. What I Do Here, Every Day, For The Rest Of My Life, Is Only My Way Of Saying, 'lord, Regardless Of What Eternity Holds For Me, Let Me Give Something Back To You. I Know It Doesn't Even No Scorecard. But Let Me Make Something Of My Life Before I Go.. And Then, Lord, I'm At Your Mercy.

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

A Child Embarrassed By His Mother,” She Said, “is Just A Child Who Hasn’t Lived Long Enough.

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.

Tension Of Opposites.

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?

People Don’t Die Because Of Loyalty.” They Don’t?” She Smiled. “religion? Government? Are We Not Loyal To Such Things, Sometimes To The Death?” Eddie Shrugged. Better,” She Said, “to Be Loyal To One Another.

So, Have We Solved The Secret Of Happiness? "i Believe So," He Said Are You Going To Tell Me? "yes.ready?" Ready. "be Satisfied." That's It? "be Greatful." That's It? "for What You Have.for The Love You Receive.and For What God Has Given You." That's It? He Looked Me In The Eye.then He Sighed Deeply. "that's It.

Death Doesn't Just Take Someone, It Misses Someone Else, And In The Small Distance Between Being Taken And Being Missed, Lives Are Changed.

Missing Someone

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.

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

She Had A Bottomless Well Of Love For Me.

The Word 'commitment' Has Lost It's Meaning. I'm Old Enough To Remember When It Used To Be Positive. A Commited Person Was Someone To Be Admired. He Was Loyal And Steady. Now A Commitment Is Something You Avoid. You Don't Want To Tie Yourself Down.

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

But They Wanted You. Time Is Not Something You Give Back. The Very Next Moment May Be Answer To Your Prayer. To Deny That Is To Deny The Most Important Part Of The Future.

Sometimes, When You Are Not Getting The Love You Want, Giving Makes You Think You Will.

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.

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

As You Grow, You Learn More. If You Stayed As Ignorant As You Were At Twenty-two, You'd Always Be 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 The Positive That You Understand You're Going To Die, And That You Live A Better Life Because Of It.

Fairness, Does Not Govern Life And Death. If It Did, No Good Person Would Ever Die Young. ~ The Blue Man

But Man Invents Nothing God Did Not Create First.

Lost Love Is Still Love. It Takes A Different Form, That's All.

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.

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

Forgive Yourself

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.

We Need To Forgive Ourselves. For All The Things We Didn't Do. All The Things We Should Have Done. You Can't Get Stuck On The Regrets Of What Should Have Happened.

Please Do Not Leave Me, He Thought. He Could Not Bear A World Without Alli. He Realized How Much He Relied On Her From Morning Until Night. She Was His Only Conversation. His Only Smile. She Prepared Their Meager Food And Always Offered It To Him First, Even Though He Insisted She Eat Before He Did. They Leaned On Each Other At Sunsets. Holding Her As They Slept Felt Like His Last Connection To Humanity.

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.

What If I Lose You?" "you Can't Lose Your Mother, Charley.

Soon Man Will Count All His Days, And Then Smaller Segments Of The Day, And Then Smaller Still—until The Counting Consumes Him, And The Wonder Of The World He Has Been Given Is Lost.

He Did Not Know That The Child Who Had Asked For Yesterday Was Now Seeking To Own Tomorrow.

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

So Many Times I Feel I'm Using The Same Words Over And Over, Like A Woman Wearing The Same Dress Every Day. So Boring!

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

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

When You're Rotten About Yourself, You Become Rotten To Everyone Else, Even Those You Love.

The Words People Do Not Speak Are Louder Than The Ones They Do.

I Seem To Have Very Few Casual Readers, Only Passionate And Appreciative Ones.

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.

When He Went Blundering Back To God, His Songs Half Written, His Work Half Done, Who Knows What Paths His Bruised Feet Trod, What Hills Of Peace Or Pain He Won? I Hope God Smiled And Took His Hand, And Said, "poor Truant, Passionate Fool! Life’s Book Is Hard To Understand: Why Couldst Thou Not Remain At School?" A Poem By Charles Hanson Towne

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.

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

The Dead Sit At Our Tables Long After They Have Gone.

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

But Common Sense Has No Place In First Love And Never Has.

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.

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.

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.

Bad News Has No Limits. We Often Feel It Should, Like A Rainstorm That Can't Possibly Get Any Heavier. But A Storm Can Always Worsen, & The Burdens Of Life Can Too.

Burdens Of Life

You Can Find Something Truly Important In An Ordinary Minute.

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

The News Of Life Is Carried Via Telephone. A Baby's Birth, A Couple Engaged, A Tragic Car Accident On A Late Night Highway - Most Milestones Of The Human Journey, Good Or Bad, Are Foreshadowed By The Sound Of A Ringing.

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're Not Going To Fix Things By Helping 65-year-olds Or 75-year-olds For Any Long Run.

That Kind Of Love - The Kind You Realize You Already Have By The Life You've Created Together - That's The Kind That Lasts.

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.

Aging Is Not Just Decay, You Know, Its Growth.

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

Heaven Can Be Found In The Most Unlikely Corners.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Rainer Maria Rilke

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