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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Mitch Albom
Read between
September 5 - September 7, 2025
“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.”
“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. They’re more unhappy than me—even in my current condition.
“Love wins. Love always wins.”
I have to read books about love more
“The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”
“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. 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.”
So having a meaning in life has to involve others?
“Still,” he says, “if you really want it, then you’ll make your dream happen.”
Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
‘Love is the only rational act.’
Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?
I like the silence tho
How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.
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.”
“the culture doesn’t encourage you to think about such things until you’re about to die. We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks—we’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?”
Yes, but once you are concious about it you know
“Everyone knows they’re going to die,” he said again, “but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”
“once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”
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 know what the Buddhists say? Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent.”
Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, “All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it control me. I see it for what it is.”
Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five.
“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.”
You play cards with a lonely older man and you find new respect for yourself, because you are needed.
Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
“Mitch, if you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at 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 the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back.”
“I believe in being fully present,” Morrie said. “That means you should be with the person you’re with.
“People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it.
The closer he gets to good-bye, the more he seems to feel we are all creatures in the same forest. What we take, we must replenish. “It’s only fair,” he says.
I thought about how much time we spend trying to shape our bodies, lifting weights, crunching sit-ups, and in the end, nature takes it away from us anyhow.
The little things, I can obey. But the big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone—or any society—determine those for you.
“In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “But here’s the secret : in between, we need others as well.”
“It’s not just other people we need to forgive, Mitch,” he finally whispered. We also need to forgive ourselves.”
“I’m planning on being dead there.” He chuckles. I chuckle. “Will you visit?” Visit? “Just come and talk. Make it a Tuesday. You always come on Tuesdays.” We’re Tuesday people.
“Tell you what. After I’m dead, you talk. And I’ll listen.”
“I read a book the other day. It said as soon as someone dies in a hospital, they pull the sheets up over their head, and they wheel the body to some chute and push it down. They can’t wait to get it out of their sight. People act as if death is contagious.”
“It’s natural to die,” he said again. “The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.”
“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.”
“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
“You’ll find a way back to your brother,” Morrie said. How do you know? Morrie smiled. “You found me, didn’t you?”
“The first wave says, ‘You don’t understand! We’re all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?’ “The second wave says, ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.’
