Heather Mousa

Tuesdays with Morrie is a book of life lessons. It is a story about a young man, Mitch, who finds about his favorite professor’s fatal illness, and goes back to visit him. He starts to visit him every Tuesday, just like they used to meet years ago. Morrie, who is suffering from ALS, talks about life… the world, self-pity, regrets, death, love, marriage, forgiveness, and other issues which worry our generation.

Thank you Clare R.B.

Favorite Quotes:

“Then I realized this was the whole point.” … “To find perfection is such an average day.”

“Let them wait”

“Most of us walk around as if we are sleepwalking. We really don’t experience the world fully, because we’re half asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.”

“The culture that 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.”

“People are only mean when they’re threatened, that’s what our culture does…that’s what our economy does.”

“The little things, I can only obey. But the big things – how we think, what we value – those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone – any society determines that for you.”

“Slowly the discussion begins… about the effect of silence on human reaction…. Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?”

“I wondered if people my age were being more careful than those who came before us, or just more selfish?”

“Let is come in, we think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we will become too soft”… “Love is the only rational act.”

“When you most need it, neither money, nor power will give you the feelings you’re looking for, no matter how much of them you have.”

“There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties.”

“Learn to detach…. You Know what the Buddhists say? Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent.”

“Detachment doesn’t mean what you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let is penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.”

“How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don’t let those tears come out”

“You let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely, but eventually be able to say: I’m not afraid of feeling lonely…. But now there are other emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them all.”

“It is not just other people we need to forgive, we also need to forgive ourselves… for all the things we didn’t do and should have done”

“Tapes, like photographs and videos, are a desperate attempt to steal something from death’s suitcase.”

“Aging is not just decay, you know, it’s growth.”

“Everyone knows they are going to die, but no one believes it… if we did, we would do things differently.”

“We are 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?”

“Sometime when you are losing someone, you hand on to whatever [small] traditions you can.”

“Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make  strangers shed a tear for one another.”

“You live on in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”

“Part of me is scared of leaving school. Part of me wants to go desperately. Tension opposites.”

“- That as 70 years ago your mother died, the pain still goes on

- You bet”

“Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

“Is today the day? Am I being the person I want to be?”

“If you accept that you can die at anytime, then you might not be ambitious as you are.”

“As if I can see time actually passing through the window pane….”

“If you don’t have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all.”

“This is part of what a family is about, not just love, but letting others know, there is someone who is watching out for them.”

“There is no experience like having children. ”

“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”

“Forgive yourself before you die, then forgive others… there is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness.”

“We are so afraid by the sight of death”

“People act as if death is contagious”

“Were there no men dying, there would be no birds or fish being born.”

“People want to gobble up something new…these were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes.”

“Status will get you where. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”

“You need to be at peace with his [your brother's] desires.”

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

More about “tusdays with Morrie”:

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/morrie/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuesdays_With_Morrie

More Quotes:

http://quote2me.blogspot.com/2007/04/quotes-from-tuesdays-with-morrie.html

http://blog.qoqoa.com/2006/02/26/quotes-by-morrie-schwartz/

~ Heather ~