2. 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. So far, I’ve been able to do it. Will I be able to continue? I don’t know. But I’m betting on myself that I will.
3. “Coach,” he says. “All right, I’ll be your coach. And you can be my player. You can play all the lovely parts of life that I’m too old for now”.
4. You know, now that I’m dying, I’ve become much more interesting to people.
5. 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.
6. “Have you found someone to share your heart with?” he asked. “Are you giving to your community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”
7. My days were full, yet I remained, much of the time, unsatisfied. What happened to me?
8. “Dying,” Morrie suddenly said, “is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy.” Why? “Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We’re teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own. Most people can’t do it. They’re more unhappy than me—even in my current conditions.
9. “Love wins. Love always wins”.
10. “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. 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”.
11. “Well, I have to look at life uniquely now. Let’s face it. I can’t go shopping, I can’t take care of the bank accounts, I can’t take out the garbage. But I can sit here with my dwindling days and look at what I think is important in life. I have both the time—and the reason—to do that”.
12. Now that I’m suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer than I ever did before.
13. “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in”. “Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational act’.
14. “I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I’m going to hear. On you—if it’s Tuesday. Because we’re Tuesday people.” “Mitch, I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that’s all.”
15. “It’s only horrible if you see it that way,” Morrie said. “It’s horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it’s also wonderful because of all the time I get to say good-bye.”
16. “You see,” he says to the girl, “you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too—even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”
17. “The culture doesn’t encourage you to think about such things until you’re about to die. We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks—we’re 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?” “You need someone to probe you in that direction. It won’t just happen automatically.” I knew what he was saying. We all need teachers in our lives.
18. “Here’s how my emotions go,” Morrie told Koppel. “When I have people and friends here, I’m very up. The loving relationships maintain me. But there are days when I am depressed. Let me not deceive you. I see certain things going and I feel a sense of dread. What am I going to do without my hands? What happens when I can’t speak? Swallowing, I don’t care so much about—so they feed me through a tube, so what? But my voice? My hands?They’re such an essential part of me. I talk with my voice. I gesture with my hands. This is how I give to people.”
19. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops—Henry Adams
20. A: Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently
B: So we kid ourselves about death
A: Yes. But there’s a better approach. To know you’re going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That’s better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you’re living
B: How can you ever be prepared to die?
A: Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, ‘Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?’
21. The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.
22. Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time— then you might not be as ambitious as you are. 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.
23. I appreciate that window more than you do. I look out that window every day. I notice the change in the trees, how strong the wind is blowing. It’s as if I can see time actually passing through that windowpane. Because I know my time is almost done, I am drawn to nature like I’m seeing it for the first time.
24. The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family. It’s become quite clear to me as I’ve been sick. 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. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish.’
25. Without love, we are birds with broken wings.
26. Say I was divorced, or living alone, or had no children. This disease—what I’m going through—would be so much harder. I’m not sure I could do it. Sure, people would come visit, friends, associates, but it’s not the same as having someone who will not leave. It’s not the same as having someone whom you know has an eye on you, is watching you the whole time. 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.
27. There is no experience like having children. That’s all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.
28. A: You know what the Buddhists say?Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent.
B: But wait, aren’t you always talking about experiencing life? All the good emotions, all the bad ones?
A: Yes.
B: Well, how can you do that if you’re detached?
A: Ah. You’re thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.
29. By throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’
30. I want to die serenely. Peacefully. I don’t want to leave the world in a state of fright. I want to know what’s happening, accept it, get to a peaceful place, and let go.
31. I began to enjoy my dependency. It’s like going back to being a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you. Someone to wipe you. We all know how to be a child. It’s inside all of us. For me, it’s just remembering how to enjoy it.
32. I embrace aging. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.
33. A: If aging were so valuable, why do people always say, “Oh, if I were young again.” You never hear people say, “I wish I were sixty-five”
B: You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven’t found meaning. Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five.
34. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.
35. 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.
36. “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.
“Fate succumbs many a species: one alone jeopardises itself”—W. H. AUDEN
37. We put our values in the wrong things. And it leads to very disillusioned lives.
38. When people die, you always hear the expression “You can’t take it with you.”
39. These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.
40. Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. Neither money nor power will give you the feeling you’re looking for, no matter how much of them you have.
41. I glanced around Morrie’s study. It was the same today as it had been the first day I arrived. And yet the house had changed so drastically. It had filled with love and teaching and communication. It had filled with friendship and family and honesty and tears. It had filled with colleagues and students and meditation teachers and therapists and nurses and a cappella groups. It had become, in a very real way, a wealthy home, even though Morrie’s bank account was rapidly depleting.
42. There’s a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need. You need food, you want a chocolate sundae. You have to be honest with yourself. You don’t need the latest sports car, you don’t need the biggest house. The truth is, you don’t get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction? Offering others what you have to give. I don’t mean money. I mean your time. Your concern. Your storytelling. It’s not so hard.
43. This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have.
44. Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
45. 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.
46. Giving to other people is what makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad, it’s as close to healthy as I ever feel.
47. Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back.
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn” —MAHATMA GANDHI
48. Someone asked me an interesting question yesterday, “If you worried about being forgotten after you died?” I don’t think I will be. I’ve got so many people who have been involved with me in close, intimate ways. And love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.
49. I believe in being fully present. That means you should be with the person you’re with. When I’m talking to you now, Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what’s coming up this Friday. I am talking to you. I am thinking about you.
50. Part of the problem, is that everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running. Once you start running, it’s hard to slow yourself down.
51. When someone wants to get ahead of me in traffic—when I used to be able to drive—I would raise my hand, as if I was going to make a negative gesture, and then I would wave and smile. Instead of giving them the finger, you let them go, and you smile. You know what? A lot of times they smiled back. The truth is, I don’t have to be in that much of a hurry with my car. I would rather put my energies into people.
52. A loved one is so important. You realize that, especially when you’re in a time like I am, when you’re not doing so well. Friends are great, but friends are not going to be here on a night when you’re coughing and can’t sleep and someone has to sit up all night with you, comfort you, try to be helpful.
53. A: I’ve learned this much about marriage. You get tested. You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or don’t.
B: Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going to work?
A: Things are not that simple, Mitch. Still, there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: 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 don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike. And the biggest one of those values is your belief in the importance of your marriage. I think marriage is a very important thing to do, and you’re missing a hell of a lot if you don’t try it.
54. People are only mean when they’re threatened, and that’s what our culture does. That’s what our economy does. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture. Which is why I don’t buy into it.
55. Here’s what I mean by building your own little subculture. I don’t mean you disregard every rule of your community. The little things, I can obey. But the big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone—or any society—determine those for you.
56. Every society has its own problems. The way to do it, I think, isn’t to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture.
57. Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you’re surrounded by people who say ‘I want mine now,’ you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor ones from rising up and stealing it.
58. When you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning—birth—and we all have the same end—death. So how different can we be?
59. Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.
60. In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right? But here’s the secret: in between, we need others as well.
61. For me, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them… When that is gone, Morrie is gone.
62. Don’t let go too soon, but don’t hang on too long.
63. Be compassionate. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place. Love each other or die.
64. A: This disease is knocking at my spirit. But it will not get my spirit. It’ll get my body. It will not get my spirit
B: You done good
A: You think so? I’m bargaining with Him up there now. I’m asking Him, ‘Do I get to be one of the angels?’
65. Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.
66. There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do?
67. It’s not just other people we need to forgive, we also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done. You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. That doesn’t help you when you get to where I am.
68. Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Don’t wait. Not everyone gets the time I’m getting. Not everyone is as lucky.
69. The tension of opposites, remember that? Things pulling in different directions? I mourn my dwindling time, but I cherish the chance it gives me to make things right.”
70. A: You’ll come to my grave? To tell me your problems?
B: My problems?
A: Yes
B: And you’ll give me answers?
A: I’ll give you what I can. Don’t I always?
B: It won’t be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk
A: Ah, talk… Tell you what. After I’m dead, you talk. And I’ll listen.
71. I read a book the other day. It said as soon as someone dies in a hospital, they pull the sheets up over their head, and they wheel the body to some chute and push it down. They can’t wait to get it out of their sight. People act as if death is contagious. It’s not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It’s part of the deal we made.
72. It was a most incredible feeling. The sensation of accepting what was happening, being at peace. I was thinking about a dream I had last week, where I was crossing a bridge into something unknown. Being ready to move on to whatever is next.
73. A: That’s what we’re all looking for. A certain peace with the idea of dying. If we know, in the end, that we can ultimately have that peace with dying, then we can finally do the really hard thing
B: Which is?
A: Make peace with living.
74. A: It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature. We’re not. Everything that gets born, dies. Do you accept that?
B: Yes.
A: All right, now here’s the payoff. Here is how we are different from these wonderful plants and animals. As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on—in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.
75. Death ends a life, not a relationship.
76. A: No way I could go back. I am a different self now. I’m different in my attitudes. I’m different appreciating my body, which I didn’t do fully before. I’m different in terms of trying to grapple with the big questions, the ultimate questions, the ones that won’t go away. That’s the thing, you see. Once you get your fingers on the important questions, you can’t turn away from them.
B: And which are the important questions?
A: As I see it, they have to do with love, responsibility, spirituality, awareness. And if I were healthy today, those would still be my issues. They should have been all along.
77. I know it hurts when you can’t be with someone you love. But you need to be at peace with his desires. Maybe he doesn’t want you interrupting your life. Maybe he can’t deal with that burden. I tell everyone I know to carry on with the life they know—don’t ruin it because I am dying.
78. There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like. In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you’re too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.
79. You’ve had these special times with your brother, and you no longer have what you had with him. You want them back. You never want them to stop. But that’s part of being human. Stop, renew, stop, renew.
80. A: You’ll find a way back to your brother
B: How do you know?
A: You found me, didn’t you?
81. I look back sometimes at the person I was before I rediscovered my old professor. I want to talk to that person. I want to tell him what to look out for, what mistakes to avoid. I want to tell him to be more open, to ignore the lure of advertised values, to pay attention when your loved ones are speaking, as if it were the last time you might hear them.
82. None of us can undo what we’ve done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.
83. Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you are lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back. Sometimes it is only in your head. Sometimes it is right alongside their beds. No books were required. The subject was the meaning of life. It was taught from experience. The teaching goes on.
The First Tuesday: We Talk About the World
The Second Tuesday: We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself
The Third Tuesday: We Talk About Regrets
The Fourth Tuesday: We Talk About Death
The Fifth Tuesday: We Talk About Family
The Sixth Tuesday: We Talk About Emotions
The Seventh Tuesday: We Talk About the Fear of Aging
The Eighth Tuesday: We Talk About Money
The Ninth Tuesday: We Talk About How Love Goes On
The Tenth Tuesday: We Talk About Marriage
The Eleventh Tuesday: We Talk About Our Culture
The Twelfth Tuesday: We Talk About Forgiveness
The Thirteenth Tuesday: We Talk About the Perfect Day
The Fourteenth Tuesday: We Say Good-bye
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