"One must indeed test the strings to this life, bounce the bow, wet the mouthpiece, prepare for the deeper music that follows."

"In a strange way, I envied the quality of Morrie's time even as I lamented its diminishing supply. Why did we bother with all the distractions we did?"

".. I thought about him now and then, the things he had taught me about 'being human' and 'relating to others;, but it was always in the distance, as if from another life.. .. The people who might have told me were long forgotten, their phone numbers buried in some packed-away box in the attic."

"Strangers," the Blue Man said, "are just family yo have yet to come to know."

"Love each other or die."

"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."

"Morrie was in a wheelchair full-time now, getting used to helpers lifting him like a heavy sack from the chair to the bed and the bed to the chair."

"The things you spend so much time on--all this work you do--might not seem as important. You might have to make room for some more spiritual things."

"Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners."

"Without love we all like birds with broken wings."

"My friedns, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our faith, our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of 'I could have, I should have.' We can sleep in a storm. "And when it's time, our good-byes will be complete."

"Never tell a child that something it's too hard."

"The world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."

"Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to."

"But a desperate heart will seduce the mind."

"Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search."And no matter how far they try to go the other way " to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty " at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end?I shrugged."You see?He leaned back. He smiled."When you come to the end, that's where God begins."

"Why are we embarassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?"

"There are many things in my life that I wish I could take back. Many moments I would recast."

"..I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died.. which I figured was my natural fate."

"Love wins, love always wins."

"I used to think I knew everything. I was a "smart person" who "got things done," and because of that, the higher I climbed, the more I could look down and scoff at what seemed silly or simple, even religion.But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-no matter how smart or accomplished-they cry, they yearn, they hurt.But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things:comfort, love, and a peaceful heart."

"When all this started, I asked myself, 'Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?'I decided I'm going to live---or at least try to live---the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure."

"Look. I know what I believe. It's in my soul. But I constantly tell our people: you should be convinced of the authenticity of what you have, but you must also be humble enough to say that we don't know everything. And since we don't know everything, we must accept that another person may believe something else."

"I think people believe what they want to believe."

"Then why do we do so many bad things?He sighed. "Because one thing God gave us-and I'm afraid it's at times a little too much-is free will. Freedom to choose. I believe he gave us everything needed to build a beautiful world, if we choose wisely."

"But my father, a thief in many ways, had robbed me of my concentration."

"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."

"You count the hours you could have spent with your mother, it's a lifetime in itself."

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

"The way you get meaning into 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."

"But I do know we're deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted."

"Life has to end," she said. "Love doesn't."

"I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline."

"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 love you every day. And now I will miss you every day."

"Doubt is how you find God."

"After all these months, lying there, unable to move a leg or a foot " how could he find perfection in such an average day?Then I realized that was the whole point."

"Man invents nothing God did not create first."

"If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you have different set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.Your values must be alike. And the biggest of those values... the belief in the importance of your marriage."

"Some things you endure for a reason."

"This is the story of a man named Eddie and it starts at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It may seem strange to start a story with and ending, but all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time."

"What is it about childhood that never lets you go, even when you're so wrecked it's hard to believe you ever were a child?"

"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 that?"Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials."

"My friends, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our faith, our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of 'I could have, I should have.' We can sleep in a storm. "And when it's time, our good-byes will be complete."

"Heaven . . . is the same feeling. . . . No fear. No dark. When you know you are loved . . . that's the light."

"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 that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely."

"I didn't want to be ordinary," I mumbled.My mother looked up. "What ordinary, Charley?""You know. Someone you forget."From the other room came the squeals of children. Miss Thelma turned her chin to the sound. She smiled,"That's what keeps me from being forgotten."

"I may be dying, but I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?"

"One day spent with someone you love can change everything."

"Things change when you're not in danger anymore."