Mitch Albom Quotes

It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.

I meant no disrespect. It's just that I had always felt that rabbis, priests, pastors, any cleric, really, lived on a plane between mortal ground and heavenly sky. God up there. Us down here. Them in between.

some things you endure for a reason

Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world.

I believe he died this way on purpose. I believe he wanted no chilling moments, no one to witness his last breath and be haunted by it, the way he had been haunted by his mother's death-notice telegram or by his father's corpse in the city morgue.

As long as we can love eachother, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still here. All the memories are still there. You live on — in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were hear… Death ends a life, not a relationship.

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.

"It's nice that you spend a day with your mother,' she said. "Children should do it more often.

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... I figure it's like in the Bible, the Adam and Eve deal...Adam's first night on earth? When he lays down to sleep? He thinks it's all over, right? He doesn't know what sleep is. His eyes are closing and he thinks he's leaving this world, right?
Only he isn't. He wakes up the next morning and he has a fresh new world to work with, but he has something else, too. He has his yesterday...That's the way I see it, that's what we're getting here, soldier. That's what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterday.'
~The Captain on heaven, pgs 91-92

Silence enhances music. What you do not play can sweeten what you do. But it is not the same with words. What you do not say can haunt you.

The problem is that we don't believe that we are much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholic and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.

Take one story, viewed from two different angles. It is the same day, the same moment, but one angle ends happily... and the other ends badly.

I [Music] was born in the open air, in the breaks of waves and the whistling of sandstorms, the hoots of owls and the cackles of tui birds. I travel in echoes. I ride the breeze. I was forged in nature, rugged and raw. Only man shapes my edges to make me beautiful. [Chapter 2]

We do not realize the sound the world makes — unless, of course, it comes to a stop. Then, when it starts, it sounds like an orchestra.

"What do people fear most about death? I asked the reb.
"Fear?" he thought for a moment. 'Well, for one thing, what happens next? Where do we go? Is it what we imagined?"
That's big.
"Yes. But there's something else."
What else?
He leaned forward.
"Being forgotten," he whispered.