Tuesdays With Morrie Quotes

“Living is giving”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
It captures emotional reciprocity as strength — perfect for your argument.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Why is it so hard to think about dying?
"Because," Morrie continued, "most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“How can you ever be prepared to die?
"Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“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 wanted? Is something missing?”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, "Love is the only rational act.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Learn to detach."
"-detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it."
"Take any emotion--love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. 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 loving entails."
"But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right, I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.' "
"Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“People see me as a bridge. I’m not as alive as I used to be, but I’m not yet dead. I’m sort of … in between.”
“I’m on the last great journey here—and people want me to tell them what to pack.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“People see me as a bridge. I’m not quite alive as I used to be, but I’m not yet d we. I’m sort of … in between.”
“I’m on the last great journey here—and people want me to tell them what to pack.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Here's what I mean by building your own little sub-culture," Morrie said. "I don't mean you disregard very rule of your community. I don't go around naked, for example. I don't run through red lights. 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.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you’re going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“…when he smiles it’s as if you’d just told him the first joke on earth.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human have is our shortsightedness. We don't see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Morrie continued, "most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do."
And facing death changes all that?
"Oh, yes. You strip away all the stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.
He sighed. "Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“As for Morrie? Well, I thought about him now and then, the things he had thought me about "being human" and relating to others”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“We all have the same beginning-birth and we all have the same end-death. So how different can we be?”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Death ends a life, not a relationship. 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.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“You know what reflects us? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. 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. "Listen. You should know something. All younger people should know something. If you're always battling against getting older, you're always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“The most thing important in life is to learn how to give out love, and let it come in.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Still, what I miss most, simple and maybe selfish as it sounds, is the twinkle in Morrie’s eyes when I came in the room. But when someone is happy — genuinely happy — to see you, it melts you from the start. It is like going home”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“I always wished I had done more with my work; I wished I had written more books. I used to beat myself up over it. Now I see that never did any good. Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you." (pg. 167)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“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. Take my condition. The things I am supposed to be embarrassed about now--not being able to walk, not being able to wipe my ass, waking up some mornings wanting to cry--there is nothing innately embarrassing or shaming about them. It's the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe. Don't believe it."(pg. 155)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“But the poor kids today, either they're too selfish to take part in a real loving relationship, or they rush into marriage and then six months later, they get divorced. They don't know what they want in a partner. They don't know who they are themselves--so how can they know who they're marrying?" (pg. 148)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“But giving to other people is what makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they are feeling sad, it's as close to healthy as I ever feel." (pg. 128)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. 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. 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." (pg. 125)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Mitch it is impossible for the old not to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that. This is your time to be in your thirties. I had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight." (pg. 120)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“When you learn how to die, you learn how to live...But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment" (pg. 104)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame...Whenever people ask me about having children or not having children, I never tell them what to do. I simply say there is no experience like having children. That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children." (pg. 93)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“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?" (pg. 65)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“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 in 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." (pg. 43)”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie