Mitch Albom Quotes

When someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.

Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.

Accept who you are; and revel in it.

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.

This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It's knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.

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.

We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have.

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

The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

Nothing haunts us like the things we don't say.

Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent.

Happiness in a tablet. This is our world. Prozac. Daxil. Xanax. Billions are spent to advertise such drugs. And billions are spent purchasing them. You don't even need a specific trauma, just 'general depression' is enough, or anxiety, as if sadness is as treatable as the common cold.

You have to start over. That's what they say. But life is not a board game, and losing a loved one is never really "starting over." More like "continuing without.

In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.

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. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely.

...if you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

You're not a wave, you're a part of the ocean.

Anger is a poison. It eats us inside. We think when we hate someone we hurt them, but hatred is a curved blade, and the harm we do to others we also do to ourselves.

Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.

Heaven is always and forever around us and no soul remembered is ever really gone.

I like myself better when I'm with you.

Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.

Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.

You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. 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.

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.

Each affects the other, and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.

It's such a shame to waste time. We always think we have so much of it.

Death is the end of a lifetime, not the end of a relationship.

Fear is how you lose your life...a little bit at a time...What we give to fear, we take away from...faith.

Don't let go too soon, but don't hold on too long.

I used to be a classic workaholic, and after seeing how little work and career really mean when you reach the end of your life, I put a new emphasis on things I believe count more. These things include: family, friends, being part of a community, and appreciating the little joys of the average day.

Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running. Once you start running, it’s hard to slow yourself down.

She loved me coming and going, at my worst and at my best. She had a bottomless well of love for me.

One day spent with someone you love can change everything.

All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.

Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. an alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.

When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.

She had been so consumed with escaping her own misery, she hadn't considered the misery she might inflict.

Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do. Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it. Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others. Don't assume that it's too late to get involved.

there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.' - Morrie Schwartz

We all lose somebody we care about and want to find some comforting way of dealing with it, something that will give us a little closure, a little peace.

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.

But there's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin.

...fairness," he said, "does not govern life and death. if it did, no good person would ever die." "Strangers," the Blue Man said, "are just family you have yet to come to know." "sacrifice is a part of life. it is supposed to be. it's not something to regret. it's something to aspire to. little sacrifices. big sacrifices. a mother works so her son can go to school. a daughter moves home to take care of her sick father. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. you're just passing it on to someone else.

It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.

We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.

Desire sets our compass, but real life steers our course.

When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this?" He made a fist. "Why? Because a baby not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say the whole world is mine. But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned his lesson." "What lesson?" I asked. He stretched open his empty fingers. "We can take nothing with us.

Life is a series of pulls back and forth... A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match...Which side win? Love wins. Love always wins

Holding on to things only breaks your heart.