Mitch Albom Quotes

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“Sitting high above the city, Father Time realized that knowing something and understanding it were not the same thing.”

“There are five people you meet in heaven," the Blue Man suddenly said. "Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth.”

“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.”

“No one gets left behind, remember?”

“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.”

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

“For many of us, the curtain had just come down on childhood.”

“You don't know how to live until you learn how to die.”

“We do not realize the sound the world makes -- unless, of course, it comes to a stop. Then, when it starts, it sounds like an orchestra.”

“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.”

“We're Tuesday people.”

“There is a time for hello and a time for good-bye. It's why the act of burying thing seems natural, but the act of digging them up does not.”

“If you find one true friend in life, you're richer than most. If that one true friend is your husband, you're blessed.”

“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.”

“To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time.
That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life
while you're living.”

“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.”

“Suddenly, details seemed extremely important. Details were something to grab on to, a way to insert myself into the story.”

“That’s the thing when people leave us too suddenly, isn’t it? We always have so many questions.”

“The world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.”

“Did I lose you?"
"Never.”

“My mother was French Protestant, and my father was Italian Catholic, and their union was an excess of God, guilt and sauce.”

“It is too late."

The old man shook his head. "It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be."

He smiled. "There is a plan, Dor.”

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

“"Your voice will come. We all go through the same thing. You cannot talk when you first arrive." He smiled. "It helps you listen."”

“You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship. Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.”

“You cannot write if you do not read,” the blind man said. “You cannot eat if you do not chew. And you cannot play if you do not”—he grabbed for the boy’s hand—“listen.”

“It is never too late or too soon, the old man had said. It is when it is supposed to be.”

“What in life can love not penetrate?”

“Bad news has no limits. We often feel it should, like a rainstorm that can't possibly get any heavier. But a storm can always worsen, & the burdens of life can too.”

“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?”

“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.”

“A mother's voice is like no other. We recognize every lilt and whisper, every warble or shriek.”

“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?”

“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?”

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

“But you cannot change your past, no matter how you craft your future.”

“He almost told her everything right then, that very moment. But you grab a moment, or you let it pass. He let it pass.”

“This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.”

“As children grow, they gravitate to their fates.”

“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.”

“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 all know how to be a child.”

“Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do.”

“Don't get too attached to anything.”

“You can know the whole world and still feel lost in it.”

“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.”

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

“Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?”

“Lines formed at Ruby Pier - just as a line formed someplace else: Five people, waiting, in five chosen memories, for a little girl named Amy or Annie to grow and to love and to age and to die, and to finally have her questions answered - why she lived and what she lived 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.”