Quotes from Mitch Albom

I believe in being fully present," Morrie said. "That means you should be with the person you're with. When I'm talking to you now, Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what's coming up this Friday. I am not thinking about doing another Koppel show, or about what medications I'm taking. "I am talking to you. I am thinking about you.

many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. 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.

He had created a cocoon of human activities—conversation, interaction, affection—and it filled his life like an overflowing soup bowl.

Here is what I know of love. It changes the way you treat me. I feel it in your hands. Your fingers. Your compositions. The sudden rush of peppy phrases, major sevenths, melody lines that resolve neatly and sweetly, like a valentine tucked in an envelope. Humans grow dizzy from new affection

So many people with far smaller problems are so self-absorbed, their eyes glaze over if you speak for more than thirty seconds.

Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don't see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become.

We put our values in the wrong things. And it leads to very disillusioned lives.

another family story is forges, one that father and son will laugh about for decades. This is how a legacy is built. One memory at a time.

There's a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need," Morrie said.

Love, like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy.

Look. It's one of the shortest sentences in the English language. But we don't really look, Chika. Not as adults. We look over. We glance. We move on. You looked. Your eyes flickered with curiosity. You caught fireflies and asked if they had batteries. You unearthed a penny and asked if it was treasure. And without prompting, you knew discovery should be shared.

He used the haunting phrase, "Alas for what has been lost.

They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. 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.

Your voice was a weather vane, it told us how your wind was blowing.

Death has a way of doing that. "The truth is, Mitch," he said, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

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.

Time is not something you give back. The very next moment may be an answer to your prayer.

How can I be envious of where you are—when I've been there myself?

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." I

Small towns begin with a sign. The words can be as simple as the title of a story--Welcome to Harberville, Now entering Clawson--but once you cross, you are inside that story, and all that you do will be part of its tale.

So often, we push away the voices closest to us. But once they're gone, we reach for them.

Everyone knows they're going to die,' he said again, 'but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.

He had refused fancy clothes or makeup for this interview. His philosophy was that death should to be embarrassing; he was not about to powder its nose.

The truth is, Mitch," he said, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.