Mitch Albom Quotations

A memoir should have some uplifting quality, inspiring or illuminating, and that's what separates a life story that can influence other people.

For better or for worse, I've watched people die in front of me. I see how they are in the end. And they're not cynical. In the end, they wanna hold somebody's hand. And that's real to me.

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

I believe that you live on inside the hearts and minds of everyone you've touched while you were here on earth.

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

I don't know about Heaven or Hell, but I do know that we are visited all the time by the spirits of those who affected us in life.

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.

I believe the biggest themes of life are put into the best focus when held up against the very sharp light of mortality.

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.

Detroit is a place where we've had it pretty tough. But there is a generosity here and a well of kindness that goes deep.

We all have two things in common, no matter who we are: We were born and we are going to die.

You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it.

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.

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages, sometimes I write them in a column, sometimes in a novel, sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself, 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

Mortality means you don't have forever to work things out. You can live your life unexamined but then on the last day you're going to think: 'I've left things a little late.

Nobody's favorite movie is some dark, dysfunctional slasher story. Everybody's favorite song is a sentimental song. So why all of a sudden is it bad to be sentimental in books?

For years I wrote in my basement. More recently I graduated to one floor above, an office with all my books and music and - ta da! - a window.

You have to work at creating your own culture.

People who don't normally read make an exception for my books, possibly because they're short.

This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have.

This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun.

In a newspaper, you only have so much room. It teaches you the value of getting to the point, of not pampering yourself with your glorious writing. I've always been much more interested in one powerful sentence that stays with you. That's my style.

Whenever you have two characters in a book, whether it's a novel or nonfiction, you run the risk that the reader is going to like one more than the other. They're going to read one chapter and say, 'I can't wait to get back to the other guy.

I seem to have very few casual readers, only passionate and appreciative ones.

Anyone who tries to write a memoir needs to keep in mind that what's interesting to you isn't necessarily interesting to a reader.

Love lost is still love. It takes a different form, thats all. You cant 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. Life has to end. Love doesnt.

Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? ... He could be research. A human textbook. 'Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.'

My jaw dropped, ... I felt shame that I had to find out over the television, then felt sorrow and a little grief that he was going to die.

If you are fully alive to the prospect of dying, you really start reprioritising your life.

Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is aweapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. Andthe harms we do, we do to ourselves.

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 harms we do, we do to ourselves.

Jeffrey was working from the book only. When I saw an early version of the play, I knew I had more to contribute: notes and memories that didn't make it into the book. Jeffrey agreed to let me work with him, which was generous.

when all this started, 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.

I've always said I have one skill. That skill - if I have it at all - is storytelling.

People come down for baseball or football or hockey and drive by the refurbished Fox and State theaters, they see the new Hard Rock Cafe, the Borders bookstore, the bars and restaurants, the loft conversions. You can't drive around and not see what's happening down here.

I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never realized I was doing it,

Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? He would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying.

No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

I knew he was right, ... Not that I did anything about it.

I had to face up to the fact that I had to call him.

He thought I was just ignoring him, ... I told him that if I had gotten the letter, of course I would have called. And he just let it go as if it never happened.

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."

When we are most alone is when we embrace another's loneliness.

When you are measuring life, you are not living it.

The most important elements of faith [are] believing in something bigger than yourself, taking care of those less fortunate than you.

Death: the only true emotion felt in an apathetic world

You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship

A book with the genuine power to stir and comfort its readers.

That's what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays

Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.

With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can’t appreciate what we have

Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things: comfort, love, and a peaceful heart.

Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.

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

Sometimes, kids want you to hurt the way they hurt.

Being unheard is the ground floor of giving up.

I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all good things still in my life.

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.

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.

Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners.

Silence was his escape, but silence is rarely a refuge.

Did you feel guilty cursing God--you, of all people?' No,' he said. 'Because even in doing so, I was recognizing there was a greater power than me.' He paused. And that is how I began to heal.

Fairness, does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young. ~ The blue man

No matter how smart she appeared, she was fragile at her core.

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.

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

You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.

Belief, hard work, love–you have those things, you can do anything.

...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.

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

The news of life is carried via telephone. A baby's birth, a couple engaged, a tragic car accident on a late night highway - most milestones of the human journey, good or bad, are foreshadowed by the sound of a ringing.

There are no random acts...We are all connected...You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind...

Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it.

I hope you never hear those words. Your mom. She died. They are different than other words. They are too big to fit in your ears. They belong to some strange, heavy, powerful language that pounds away at the side of your head, a wrecking ball coming at you again and again, until finally, the words crack a hole large enough to fit inside your brain. And in so doing, they split you apart.

There's a story behind everything..but behind all your stories is always your mother's story..because hers is where yours begins.

What's wrong with being number 2?

I don't know what it is about food your mother makes for you, especially when it's something that anyone can make - pancakes, meat loaf, tuna salad - but it carries a certain taste of memory.

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

Every life has one true love snapshot.

A heart weighs more when it splits in two; it crashes in the chest like a broken plane.

Much of what we called "depression" was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures we weren't willing to work for.

I think what you notice most when you haven’t been home in a while is how much the trees have grown around your memories.

Having more does not keep you from wanting more. And if you always want more - to be richer, more beautiful, more well known - you are missing the bigger picture, and I can tell you from experience, happiness will never come

Love wins, love always wins.

Knowing something and understanding it were not the same thing.

I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on the good things still in my life. I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each every morning, a few tears, and that's all.

I thought about the days i had handed over to a bottle..the nights i can't remember..the mornings i slept thru..all the time spent running from myself.

When you're rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even those you love.

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

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.

I often find that I rock back and forth with a beat in my head constantly. If i stop rocking, it usually means I've hit a snag in my writing.

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

Consider the word “time.” We use so many phrases with it. Pass time. Waste time. Kill time. Lose time. In good time. About time. Take your time. Save time. A long time. Right on time. Out of time. Mind the time. Be on time. Spare time. Keep time. Stall for time. There are as many expressions with “time” as there are minutes in a day. But once, there was no word for it at all. Because no one was counting. Then Dor began. And everything changed.

You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart.

There is a big confusion in this country over what we want verses what we need...you need food. You want a chocolate sundae.

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.

You can't get stuck on what should have happened. That doesn't help you.

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

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.

Mankind is connected in ways it does not understand - even in dreams.