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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.

-Mitch Albom

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There Is No Formula

Mitch Albom

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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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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.

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.

When Your Time Came, It Came, And That Was That. You Might Say Something Smart On Your Way Out, But You Might Just As Easily Say Something Stupid.

One Withers, Another Grows.

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

At That Moment I Felt Lonelier Than I'd Ever Felt Before, And That Loneliness Seemed To Squat In My Lungs And Crush All But My Most Minimal Breathing. There Was Nothing Left To Say. Not About This. Not About Anything.

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

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?

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

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.

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

Death: The Only True Emotion Felt In An Apathetic World

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.

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.

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.

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

But A Desperate Heart Will Seduce The Mind.

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.

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

Love Is The Only Rational Act.

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

Secrets Tear You Apart.

Instead, He Would Make Death His Final Project, The Center Point Of His Days. Since Everyone Was Going To Die, He Could Be Of Great Value, Right? He Could Be Research. A Human Textbook. Study Me In My Slow And Patient Demise. Watch What Happens To Me. Learn With Me.

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.

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

I Think, In General, The Sports I've Enjoyed Covering The Most Have Been The Offbeat Ones. The More Popular, Mainstream, The Less I Like Them Because They're More, They're More Structured And The Players Don't Have Much Interesting To Say Because They're Interviewed All The Time.

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?

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.

"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?"

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).

What's Wrong With Being Number 2?

Ends Are For Yesterday, Not Tomorrows.

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?'

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.

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.

Accept What You Are Able To Do And What You Are Not Able To Do. Accept The Past As Past, Without Denying It Or Discarding It. Learn To Forgive Yourself And To Forgive Others. Don't Assume That It's Too Late To Get Involved.

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.

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.

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."

Giving To Other People Makes Me Feel Alive. Not My Car Or My House. Not What I Look Like In The Mirror. When I Give My Time, When I Can Make Someone Smile After They Were Feeling Sad.

We're Tuesday People.

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

The Length Of Your Days Does Not Belong To You.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Knowing Something And Understanding It Were Not The Same Thing.

Knowing Something

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.

Nothing Haunts Us Like The Things We Don't Say.

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

Tension Of Opposites.

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.

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.

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

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.

Everything Man Does Today To Be Efficient, To Fill The Hour? It Does Not Satisfy. It Only Makes Him Hungry To Do More. Man Wants To Own His Existence. But No One Owns Time.

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.

Strangers Are Family You Haven't Recognize Yet

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

You Can Find Something Truly Important In An Ordinary Minute.

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.

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

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

It's Like Going Back To Being A Child Again. Someone To Bathe You. Someone To Lift You. Someone To Wipe You. We All Know How To Be A Child. It's Inside All Of Us. For Me, It's Just Remembering How To Enjoy It.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Learn What You Do Not Know. Understand The Consequences Of Counting The Moments.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Business People Negotiate To Win. They Negotiate To Get What They Want. Love Is Different. Love Is When You Are As Concerned About Someone Else's Situation As You Are About Your Own.

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

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.

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

Before You Measure The Years, You Measure The Days.

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

Taffy. He Thinks About Taffy. He Thinks It Would Take His Teeth Out Now, But He Would Eat It Anyhow, If It Meant Eating It With Her.

People Are Only Mean When They're Threatened, And That's What Our Culture Does. That's What Our Economy Does.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

When You Are Measuring Life, You Are Not Living It.

I Took My Orders, Too. But If I Couldn't Keep You Alive, I Thought I Could At Least Keep You Together. In The Middle Of A Big War, You Go Looking For A Small Idea To Believe In. When You Find One, You Hold It The Way A Soldier Holds His Crucifix When He's Praying In A Foxhole.

Silence Was His Escape, But Silence Is Rarely A Refuge.

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.

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

Kids Chase The Love That Eludes Them.

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

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.

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

And I Suppose Tapes Are A Desperate Attempt To Steal Something From Death's Suitcase.

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.

We All Know How To Be A Child.

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.

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.

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

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

I Shot You, All Right," He Said, "and You Lost Something, But You Gained Something As Well. You Just Don't Know It Yet. I Gained Something, Too." What?" I Got To Keep My Promise. I Didn't Leave You Behind.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Forgive Yourself

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

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.

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.

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

Things Change When You're Not In Danger Anymore.

...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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What In Life Can Love Not Penetrate?

Don't Get Too Attached To Anything.

Life Goes Quickly, Doesn't It?

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

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.

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

I Love You Every Day, Mom

All I Was Afraid Of Is Saying Good-bye.

Saying Good Bye

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

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.

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 Think We Hear A Lot Of Talk About College, And We Don't Hear About Early Education.

Early Education

All Parents Damage Their Children. It Cannot Be Helped.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Perdonare "forgive Yourself)

Forgive Yourself

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

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

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

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.

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.

One Day Can Bend Your Life.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

To These People, Unhappiness Was A Condition, An Intolerable State Of Affairs. If Pills Could Help, Pills Were Taken. But Pills Were Not Going To Change The Fundamental Problem In The Construction. Wanting What You Can´t Have. Looking For Self-worth In The Mirror. Layering Work On Top Of Work And Still Wondering Why You Weren´t Satisfied - Before Working Some More.

Chicago Keeps Getting All These Complete Games. Im Expecting 50 Cent Hot Dogs.

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

You Are Not Your Past.

I'm In Love With Hope.

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

Heaven Is Always And Forever Around Us And No Soul Remembered Is Ever Really Gone.

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.

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.

Going Back To Something Is Harder Than You Think.

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.

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

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

Relationships Ending

Remember Me For These Days, Not The Old Ones.

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 God Wants It, It Will Happen.

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

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Geoffrey Boycott

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