Mitch Albom
There is no formula to relationships.Collection: Formulas
when he smiles it's as if you'd just told him the first joke on earth.Collection: Earth
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.Collection: Eye
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 aloneCollection: Choices
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.Collection: Mother
This is a story about a family and, as there is a ghost involved, you might cal it a ghost story. But every family is a ghost story. The dead sit at out tables long after they have gone.Collection: Ghost Stories
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.Collection: Mother
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?Collection: Kids
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?Collection: Bird
Sacrfice," the captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all made them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. You didn't get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.Collection: Regret
Man wants to own his existence. But no one owns time.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Running
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.Collection: Way
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.Collection: People
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. "ExactlyCollection: Eyebrows
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.Collection: Commitment
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.Collection: Hurt
It's always difficult to watch someone you love die.Collection: Watches
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.Collection: Mean
Why are we embarassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?Collection: Silence
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.Collection: Fun
A heart weighs more when it splits in two; it crashes in the chest like a broken plane.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Grateful
It’s not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It’s part of the deal we made.Collection: Natural
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.Collection: Phones
I think we hear a lot of talk about college, and we don't hear about early education.Collection: College
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.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Travel
But a desperate heart will seduce the mind.Collection: Heart
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 SchwartzCollection: Running
If you could pack for heaven, this was how you'd do it, touching everything, taking nothing.Collection: Heaven
Things change when you're not in danger anymore.Collection: Things Change
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.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Positive
Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.Collection: Heart
Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.Collection: Life And Love
Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it.Collection: Past
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.Collection: People
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.Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Sorry
I like myself better when I'm with you.Collection: Life
Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.Collection: Love You
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.Collection: Winning
With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can’t appreciate what we haveCollection: Loss
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.Collection: War
Something is always happening somewhere.Collection: Happenings
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.Collection: Believe
One withers, another grows.Collection: Grows