Mitch albom quotes

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.

Silence is worse when you know it won't be broken.

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 one family, Charley. For good or bad. You have one family. You can’t trade them in. You can’t lie to them. You can’t run two at once, substituting back and forth. “Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.

The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

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.

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

Life has to end, love doesn't.

You can't get stuck on what should have happened. That doesn't help you.

Belief, hard work, love–you have those things, you can do anything.

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.

The universe is too grand and harmonious to believe it's all an accident.

You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute.

People are only mean when they are threatened.

You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart.

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

If we knew what comes next, we never would have worried.

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

She had been so consumed with escaping her own misery, she hadn't considered the misery she might inflict.

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.

One day spent with someone you love can change everything.

Without love we all like birds with broken wings.

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

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.

the pain we suffer is a way to make us appreciate what comes next.

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.

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.

Death: the only true emotion felt in an apathetic world

sometimes what you miss the most is the way a loved one made you feel about yourself.

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.

It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.

Desire sets our compass, but real life steers our course.

Mankind is connected in ways it does not understand - even in dreams.

When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.

If you're always battling against getting older, you're always going to be unhappy, because it's going to happen anyhow.

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.

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

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.

We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have.

You know what really offers you satisfaction? Offering others what you have to give.

Silence was his escape, but silence is rarely a refuge.

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.

"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?"

But fates are connected in ways we don’t understand.

Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.

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.

The secret to happiness...be satisfied and be grateful.

...You can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.

the words people do not speak are louder than the ones they do.

Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it.

When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this?" He made a fist. "Why? Because a baby not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say the whole world is mine. But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned his lesson." "What lesson?" I asked. He stretched open his empty fingers. "We can take nothing with us.

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.

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.

...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.

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

But she wasn’t around, and that’s the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going in to every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone.

Love wins, love always wins.

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 more you defend a lie, the angrier you become.

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 such thing as 'too late' in life.

There are two stories for every life; the one you live & the one others tell

Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.

It's such a shame to waste time. We always think we have so much of it.

All I was afraid of is saying good-bye.

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.

What you have done to this point cannot be undone. What you do next... It is still unwritten.

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

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

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.

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

Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners.

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.

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

But our eyes are different, what you see ain't what I see.

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.

Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don't wait.

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

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.

Once heaven is done with grandma, we'd like her back, thanks.

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.

You knew me. You knew that person, but you don't know the person I'm trying to become... You are not your past!

The most inspirational man I knew only reached his potential by helping a child reach his.

We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.

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

Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent.

Have you found someone to share your heart with? Are you giving to your community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?

There's a story behind everything..but behind all your stories is always your mother's story..because hers is where yours begins.

Holding on to things only breaks your heart.

Courage is confused with picking up arms and cowardness is confused with laying them down.

When you come to the end, that's where God begins.

One day can bend your life.

When you are measuring life, you are not living it.

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.

Knowing something and understanding it were not the same thing.

There are no random acts...We are all connected...You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.

Each affects the other, and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.

Nothing haunts us like the things we don't say.

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. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely.

All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.

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

It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.

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

Ends are for yesterday, not tomorrows.

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

When you're rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even those you love.

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

Scenery without solace is meaningless.

Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else.

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.

What's wrong with being number 2?

Remember, the only difference between 'marital' and 'martial' is where you put the 'i'.

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.

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.

...fairness," he said, "does not govern life and death. if it did, no good person would ever die." "Strangers," the Blue Man said, "are just family you have yet to come to know." "sacrifice is a part of life. it is 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. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. you're just passing it on to someone else.

No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we're alone.

The most important elements of faith [are] believing in something bigger than yourself, taking care of those less fortunate than you.

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.

Accept who you are; and revel in it.

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.

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

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

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.

We cannot stop what Heaven chooses.

Fear is how you lose your life...a little bit at a time...What we give to fear, we take away from...faith.