Quotes from book
The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Name: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Author: Mitch Albom

The Five People You Meet In Heaven is a novel by Mitch Albom. It follows the life and death of a man named Eddie who is killed and sent to heaven, where he encounters five people who had a significant impact upon him while he was alive. It was published in 2003 by Hyperion and remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for 95 weeks.

“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.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“No story sits by itself. Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

“Time," the Captain said, "is not what you think." He sat down next to Eddie. "Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“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.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Context: 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.

“War could bond men like a magnet, but like a magnet it could repel them, too. The things they saw, the things they did. Sometimes they just wanted to forget.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“Sometimes you have to do things when sad things happen.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“Holding anger is a poison… It eats you from inside… We think that by hating someone we hurt them… But hatred is a curved blade… and the harm we do to others… we also do to ourselves.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Variant: Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from 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.
Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

“Lost love is still love.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“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.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“It's the thinking that gets you killed.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to somebody else.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

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

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

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

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“Scenery without solace is meaningless.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“Fairness doesn't govern life and death. If it did, no good man would ever die young.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

“People often belittle the place where they were born but heaven can be found in the most unlikely places.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Context: "Ah." The Blue Man nodded. "Well people often belittle the place where they were born. But heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners. And heaven itself has many steps. This, for me, is the second. And for you the first."

“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.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“"Life has to end." Marguerite said. "Love doesn't"”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

“when your time came, it came, and that was that. You might say something smart on your way out, but you might just as easily say something stupid.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“You have peace," the old woman said, "when you make it with yourself.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven