Mitch Albom Quotes

He died at forty-two.

I was there to collect his talent.

I was there at the hospital deathbed of my beloved Billie Holiday, just forty-four, her liver destroyed by drinking; I was there inside the hotel room of Charlie Parker, my singular jazz saxophonist, who died in his midthirties, but whose body was so ravaged by drugs the coroners thought he was sixty.

Tommy Dorsey, the bandleader, choked in his sleep when he was fifty-one, too deep in pills to awaken. Johnny Allen Hendrix (you called him Jimi) swallowed a handful of barbiturates and expired. He was twenty-seven.

It is not new, this idea that a purer art awaits you in a substance. But it is naive. I existed before the first grapes were fermented. Before the first whiskey was distilled. Be it opium or absinthe, marijuana or heroin, cocaine or ecstasy or whatever will follow, you may alter your state, but you will not alter this truth: I am Music. I am here inside you. Why would I hide behind a powder or a vapor?

Do you think me so petty?

"Be compassionate," Morrie whispered. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place."

He took a breath, then added his mantra: "Love each other or die.

Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.

"And if you don´t commit? I asked. Your choice. But you miss what´s on the other side. What´s on the other side? "Ah" he smiled. "A happiness you cannot find alone

"In college, I had a course in Latin, and one day the word "divorce" came up. I always figured it came from some root that meant "divide." In truth, it comes from "divertere," which means "to divert."

I believe that. All divorce does is divert you, taking you away from everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you wanted and steering you into all kinds of other stuff, like discussions about your mother's girdle and whether she should marry someone else."

War could bond men like a magnet, but like a magnet it could repel them, too.

Sometimes, when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will.

Before he can devote himself to God or a woman, a boy will devote himself to his father, even foolishly, even beyond explanation.

The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.

"He had his time measures and he had her. That was his life. For as long as he could remember, it had been that way, Dor and Alli, even as children.

"I do not want to die," she whispered.

"You will not die."

"I want to be with you."

"You are.

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

Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside.

You see this face, these wrinkles? I earned every one of them

the running boy is inside every man, no matter how old he gets.

Tears are okay