"This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun."

"Because, from the beginning , God said, 'I'm gonna put this world into your hands. If I run everything, then that's not you.' So we were created with a piece of divinity inside us, but with this thing called free will, and I think God watches us everyday, lovingly, praying we will make the right choices."

"None of us can undo what we've done, or relive a life already recorded. But, ... there is no such thing as "too late" in life."

"Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others."

"It is too late." The old man shook his head. "It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be." He smiled. "There is a plan, Dor."

"You will never know all there is to know. You will learn until your final days. Then you will inspire someone else. This is what an artist does."

"Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else."

"Didn't people call New Year's the loneliest night on the calender? She took comfort in knowing somewhere on the planet, someone might be as miserable as she was."

"Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it-- and have it repeated to us-- over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore."

"You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it."

"And is often the case with faith, I thought I was being asked a favor, when in fact I was being given one"."

"Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, "All right, it's just fear, I don't have to let it control me. I see it for what it is"."

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

"We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."

"The more you defend a lie, the angrier you become."

"ALS is like a lit candle: it melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax.. you cannot support yourself standing.. you cannot sit up straight. By the end, if you are still alive.. your soul, perfectly awake, is imprisoned inside a limp husk.. like something from a science fiction movie, the man frozen inside his own flesh."

"That's what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays."

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

"The story of my recent life.' I like that phrase. It makes more sense than 'the story of my life', because we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality- and in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization."

"There are no random acts...We are all connected...You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind..."

"The word dyting is not synonymous with the word useless."

"Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else."

"You see, here's my theory: Kids chase the love that eludes them, and for me, that was my father's love. He kept it tucked away, like papers in a briefcase. And I kept trying to get in there."

"Remember me for these days, not the old ones."

"You have to find what's good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue."

"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 lifted my eyes, and, for the first time, admitted the truth."I gave up," I whispered."Don't give up," she whispered back."

"She felt worthless and hollow. There was no hope of fixing this.And when hope is gone, time is punishment."

"I earned a mater's degree in journalism and took the first job offered, as a sports writer. Instead of chasing my own fame, I wrote about famous athletes chasing theirs."

"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."

"This is part of what a family is about, not just love, but letting others know there's someone who is watching out for them. It's what I missed so much when my mother died-what I call your 'spiritual security'-knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame."

"Much of what we called "depression" was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures we weren't willing to work for."

"Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me."

"When you are an outcast, even a tossed stone can be cherished."

"We're gonna make up for that. We're gonna live a long time together."

"Each affects the other, and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."

"What is it?"A prayer."For a child?She nodded."For me?Another nod."On a tree?"Trees spend all day looking up at God."

"Death ends a life, not a relationship."

"He had refused fancy clothes or makeup for this interview. His philosophy was that death should to be embarrassing, he was not about to powder its nose."

"When someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times."

"Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me."

"You have to work at creating your own culture."

"Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward."

"How do you let go of anger? How do you release a fury you've been standing on for so long, you would stumble were it yanked away?"

"So, have we solved the secret of happiness? "I believe so," he said. Are you going to tell me? "Yes. Ready?" Ready. "Be satisfied." That's it? "Be grateful." That's it? "For what you have. For the love you receive. And for what God has given you." That's it? He looked me in the eye. Then he sighed deeply. "That's it."

"Love- the infatuation kind- 'he's so handsome, she's so beautiful'- that can shrivel. As soon as something goes wrong, that kind of love can fly out the window."

"Personally, I always wondered about authors and celebrities who loudly declared there was no God. It was usually when they were healthy and popular and being listened to by crowds. What happens, I wondered, in the quiet moments before death? By then, they have lost the stage, the world has moved on. If suddenly, in their last gasping moments, through fear, a vision, a late enlightenment, they change their minds about God, who would know?"

"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 its time, our goodbyes will be complete."

"I don't know what it is about the food your mother makes for you, especially when it's something that anyone can make - pancakes, meat loaf, tuna salad - but it carries a certain taste of memory."

"In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it."