Quotes from Mitch Albom

Before newborns open their eyes, we circle them, appearing as brilliant colors, and when they clench their tiny hands for the first time, they are actually grabbing the colors they find most appealing.

And love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.

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

Do what the Buddhists do. 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?

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.

Then he commandeered the floor, shooting back and forth like some hot Latin lover. When he finished, everyone applauded. He could have stayed in that moment forever.

War was his call to manhood. Maybe someone would miss him, too.

I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I'm going to hear. On you - if it's Tuesday. Because we're Tuesday people.

neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have.

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. -Blue Man

America had become a Persian bazaar of self-help. But there still seemed to be no clear answers.

That's the thing, you see. Once you get your fingers on the important questions, you can't turn away from them." And which are the important questions? "As I see it, they have to do with love, responsibility, spirituality, awareness. And if I were healthy today, those would still be my issues. They should have been all along.

His hair fell out, his face went gaunt as a skeleton.

As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on—in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.

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. "In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you're too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else's situation as you are about your own.

I decided Im going to live-or at least try to live- the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.

Morrie had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig's disease, a brutal, unforgiving illness of the neurological system. There was no known cure.

Death is as natural as life. It's part of the deal we made.

Do not stop your lives, he told them. Otherwise, this disease will have ruined three of us instead of one. In this way, even as he was dying, he showed respect for his children's worlds.

I look back sometimes at the person I was before I rediscovered my old professor. I want to talk to that person. I want to tell him what to look out for, what mistakes to avoid. I want to tell him to be more open, to ignore the lure of advertised values, to pay attention when your loved ones are speaking, as if it were the last time you might hear them.

Dying, Morrie suddenly said, is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy.

I know I cannot do this. None of us can undo what we've done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as "too late" in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

Wash yourself with the emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help.

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.