Mitch Albom Quotes - Page 5

Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they want to. Always, they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries have seen courage confused with picking up arms, and cowardice confused with laying them down.

No one gets left behind, remember?

You've lived through a lot of wars, I said.
"Yes."
Do they ever make more sense?
"No.

The bride waits here," she said, running her hands along her hair, taking in her image but seeming to drift away. "This is the moment you think about what you're doing. Who you're choosing. Who you will love. If it's right, Eddie, this can be such a wonderful moment.

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

Eddie told her he had made things square and her eyebrows lifted and her lips spread and Eddie felt and old, warm feeling he had missed for years, the simple act of making his wife happy

All weddings... It never changes, when the groom lifts the veil, when the bride accepts the ring, the possibilities you see in their eyes, it's the same around the world. They truly believe their love and their marriage is going to break all records.

Dor felt a warm, calming feeling when he said those words- she is my wife - because ever since they were children she was like the sky to him , forever around.

Sometimes your kids will say the nastiest things, won't they, Rose? You want to ask,'Whose child is this?'"

Rose chuckled.

"But usually, they're just in some kind of pain. They need to work it out.

You have peace," the old woman said, "when you make it with yourself.

I also believe that parents, if they love you, will hold you up safely, above their swirling waters, and sometimes that means you'll never know what they endured, and you may treat them unkindly, in a way you otherwise wouldn't.

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

Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.

It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

You have one family, Charley. For good or bad. You have one family. You can’t trade them in. You can’t lie to them. You can’t run two at once, substituting back and forth.
“Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.

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.

When a lost loved one appears before you, it's your brain that fights it, not your heart.

I missed the crowds in those big stadiums, the flashbulbs, the roaring cheers - the majesty of the whole thing. I missed it bitterly. So did my father. We shared a thirst to return; unspoken, undeniable.

The eighties happened. The nineties happened. Death and sickness and getting fat and going bald happened. i traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never even realized i was doing it. (page 33)

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.