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The Second Death. To Think That You Died And No One Would Remember You. I Wondered If This Was Why We Tried So Hard To Make Our Mark In America. To Be Known. Think Of How Important Celebrity Has Become. We Sing To Get Famous; Expose Our Worst Secrets To Get Famous; Lose Weight, Eat Bugs, Even Commit Murder To Get Famous. Our Young People Post Their Deepest Thoughts On Public Web Sites. They Run Cameras From Their Bedrooms. It’s As If We Are Screaming Notice Me! Remember Me! Yet The Notoriety Barely Lasts. Names Quickly Blur And In Time Are Forgotten.

-Mitch Albom

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The Second Death. To

Mitch Albom

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The Second Death. To Think That You Died And No One Would Remember You. I Wondered If This Was Why We Tried So Hard To Make Our Mark In America. To Be Known. Think Of How Important Celebrity Has Become. We Sing To Get Famous; Expose Our Worst Secrets To Get Famous; Lose Weight, Eat Bugs, Even Commit Murder To Get Famous. Our Young People Post Their Deepest Thoughts On Public Web Sites. They Run Cameras From Their Bedrooms. It’s As If We Are Screaming Notice Me! Remember Me! Yet The Notoriety Barely Lasts. Names Quickly Blur And In Time Are Forgotten.

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

You Can't Substitute Material Things For Love Or For Gentleness Or For Tenderness Or For A Sense Of Comradeship

Sticking With Your Family Is What Makes It A Family.

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

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

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

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.

...the Human Spirit Knows, Deep Down That All Lives Intersect.

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.

There Are Many Things In My Life That I Wish I Could Take Back. Many Moments I Would Recast.

If We Tend To The Things That Are Important In Life, If We Are Right With Those We Love, And Behave In Line With Our Faith, Our Lives Will Not Be Cursed With The Aching Throb Of Unfulfilled Business. Our Words Will Always Be Sincere, Our Embraces Will Be Tight. We Will Never Wallow In The Agony Of ‘i Could Have, I Should Have’. We Can Sleep In A Storm. And When Its Time, Our Goodbyes Will Be Complete.

I Thought About The Days I Had Handed Over To A Bottle..the Nights I Can't Remember..the Mornings I Slept Thru..all The Time Spent Running From Myself.

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

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.

As Children Grow, They Gravitate To Their Fates.

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

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

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.

When A Lost Loved One Appears Before You, It's Your Brain That Fights It, Not Your Heart.

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.

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

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.

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.

What About A Man Who Sits Down To Wonder Why Life Has Cheated Him? Thinks About His Situation Hangs His Head And Cries Will We Pretend, His Problems Don't Exist? He's Reaching Out For Help-will We Selfishly Resist? What About Your Brother? He's Crying What About Your Brother? He's Dying What About Your Brother?

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

Forgive Yourself

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

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

Had He Known His Death Was Imminent, He Might Have Gone Somewhere Else. Instead, He Did What We All Do. He Went About His Dull Routine As If All The Days In The World Were Still To Come. ~pg 4

There Are A Few Rules I Know To Be True About Love And Marriage: If You Don't Respect The Other Person, You're Gonna Have A Lot Of Trouble. If You Don't Know How To Compromise, You're Gonna Have A Lot Of Trouble. If You Can't Talk Openly About What Goes On Between You, You're Gonna Have A Lot Of Trouble. And If You Don't Have A Common Set Of Values In Life, You're Gonna Have A Lot Of Trouble. Your Values Must Be Alike.' - Morrie Schwartz

Love And Marriage

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Ends Are For Yesterday, Not Tomorrows.

Secrets Tear You Apart.

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

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.

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.

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.

Sharing Tales Of Those We've Lost Is How We Keep From Really Losing Them.

People Often Belittle The Place Where They Were Born.

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.

As Long As We Can Love Each Other, And Remember The Feeling Of Love We Had, We Can Die Without Ever Really Going Away.

Death: The Only True Emotion Felt In An Apathetic World

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

In The Beginning Of Life, When We Are Infants, We Need Others To Survive, Right? And At The End Of Life, When You Get Like Me, You Need Others To Survive, Right?’ His Voice Dropped To A Whisper. ‘but Here’s The Secret: In Between, We Need Others As Well.

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.

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.

Knowing Heaven Is What Heals Us On Earth.

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

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.

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

One Day Can Bend Your Life.

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

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

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

Holding On To Things Only Breaks Your Heart.

All Who Are Born Are Always Dying.

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

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.

Without Love We All Like Birds With Broken Wings.

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

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.

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.

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.

She Had A Bottomless Well Of Love For Me.

Shouldn't The World Stop? Don't They Know What Has Happened To Me?

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.

We Do Not Realize The Sound The World Makes -- Unless, Of Course, It Comes To A Stop. Then, When It Starts, It Sounds Like An Orchestra.

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.

The Story Of My Recent Life.' I Like That Phrase. It Makes More Sense Than 'the Story Of My Life', Because We Get So Many Lives Between Birth And Death. A Life To Be A Child. A Life To Come Of Age. A Life To Wander, To Settle, To Fall In Love, To Parent, To Test Our Promise, To Realize Our Mortality- And In Some Lucky Cases, To Do Something After That Realization.

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

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.

The Fact Is, There Is No Foundation, No Secure Ground, Upon Which People May Stand Today If It Isn’t The Family. If You Don’t Have The Support And Love And Caring And Concern That You Get From A Family, You Don’t Have Much At All. Love Is So Supremely Important. As Our Great Poet Auden Said, ‘love Each Other Or Perish’.

Support And Love

"you Marked The Minutes," The Old Man Said. "but Did You Use Them Wisely? To Be Still? To Cherish? To Be Grateful? To Lift And Be Lifted?"

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

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.

Losing A Loved One

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.

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

There Is A Reason God Limits Man's Days.

But Man Invents Nothing God Did Not Create First.

Perdonare "forgive Yourself)

Forgive Yourself

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

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.

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.

When You Are An Outcast, Even A Tossed Stone Can Be Cherished.

There Was Always A Quest For More Minutes, More Hours, Faster Progress To Accomplish More In Each Day. The Simple Joy Of Living Between Summers Was Gone.

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.

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

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.

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.

You Know What Really Offers You Satisfaction? Offering Others What You Have To Give.

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

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.

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

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

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.

With Marguerite, He Wanted Only Time—more And More Time—and He Was Granted It, Nighttimes And Daytimes And Nighttimes Again.

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?

Tuesdays With Morrie

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?'

Now You Know How Badly Someone Wanted You, Charley. Children Forget That Sometimes. They Think Of Themselves As A Burden Instead Of A Wish Granted.

Don't Cling To Things Because Everything Is Impermanent.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Basis Of Everything, Of All Knowledge, Is The Ability To Read.

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.

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?

A Man Who Can Take Anything Will Find Most Things Unsatisfying. And A Man Without Memories Is Just A Shell.

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.

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.

We Cannot Stop What Heaven Chooses.

If You Hold Back On The Emotions--if You Don't Allow Yourself To Go All The Way Through Them--you Can Never Get To Being Detached, You're Too Busy Being Afraid.

Going Back To Something Is Harder Than You Think.

Accept Who You Are; And Revel In It.

Strangers Are Family You Haven't Recognize Yet

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

What In Life Can Love Not Penetrate?

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

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

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

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.

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.

There Is No Such Thing As 'too Late' In Life.

I Always Look For A "rhythm" In My Writing. A Cadence To The Sentences. Sometimes I Think Of Pieces I Write In A Song Writing Infrastructure - I.e., A Verse, A Chorus That I Return To, A Bridge That's Something Differenct, A Chorus That I Return To.

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

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.

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

Turn On The Faucet. Wash Yourself With The Emotion. It Won’t Hurt You. It Will Only Help. If You Let The Fear Inside, If You Pull It On Like A Familiar Shirt, Then You Can Say To Yourself, “all Right, It’s Just Fear, I Don’t Have To Let It Control Me. I See It For What It Is".

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

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

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

If God Wants It, It Will Happen.

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.

By Now, The Morning Sun Was Just Over The Horizon And It Came At Me Like A Sidearm Pitch Between The Houses Of My Old Neighborhood. I Shielded My Eyes. This Being Early October, There Were Already Piles Of Leaves Pushed Against The Curb—more Leaves Than I Remembered From My Autumns Here—andless Open Space In The Sky. 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.

Tears Are Okay [morrie Schwartz]

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 Hope You Never Hear Those Words. Your Mom. She Died. They Are Different Than Other Words. They Are Too Big To Fit In Your Ears. They Belong To Some Strange, Heavy, Powerful Language That Pounds Away At The Side Of Your Head, A Wrecking Ball Coming At You Again And Again, Until Finally, The Words Crack A Hole Large Enough To Fit Inside Your Brain. And In So Doing, They Split You Apart.

I Lived," Dor Said, "but I Was Not Alive.

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.

When You're In Bed, You're Dead

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

Forgive Yourself

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

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

Parents Rarely Let Go Of Their Children, So Children Let Go Of Them. They Move On. They Move Away.

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.

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

Status Will Get You Nowhere. Only An Open Heart Will Allow You To Float Equally Between Everyone.

But A Desperate Heart Will Seduce The Mind.

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.

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."

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.

The Secret To Happiness...be Satisfied And Be Grateful.

Courage Is Confused With Picking Up Arms And Cowardness Is Confused With Laying Them Down.

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

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.

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.

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

Remember Me For These Days, Not The Old Ones.

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?

That's What Heaven Is. You Get To Make Sense Of Your Yesterdays

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.

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

Because When The World Quiets To The Sound Of Your Own Breathing, We All Want The Same Things: Comfort, Love, And A Peaceful Heart.

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.

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.

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

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

If You Could Pack For Heaven, This Was How You'd Do It, Touching Everything, Taking Nothing.

When We Are Most Alone Is When We Embrace Another's Loneliness.

I Like Myself Better When I'm With You.

He Makes Me Feel

We Don't See What We Could Be. We Should Be Looking At Our Potential, Stretching Ourselves Into Everything We Can Become.

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

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

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

Before You Measure The Years, You Measure The Days.

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.

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

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.

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

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Bharati Mukherjee

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