I love quotations! I take note of memorable lines from books and movies (most of the time) and from favorite shows, articles, speeches, etc. They are all over my files -- saved in my emails, notebooks, planners and computers. To compile them, I will post them here – and some I will just update like my first post, “HIMYM Quotes and Life Lessons”.
Two of the most influential books in my life are written by Mitch Albom. The two books talk about life, living and death. I love Albom’s choice of topic, maybe because I also like talking, writing and reading about life.
Tuesdays with Morrie (by Mitch Albom)
• Everyone knows they’re going to die but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.
• Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.
• In the beginning of life, when you are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life… you need other to survive, right?
• Don’t let go too soon, but don’t hang on too long.
• Death ends a life, not a relationship.
• Tensions of the opposites: “Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.”
- “A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.”
- “Which side wins?”
- “Love wins. Love always wins.”
• The culture 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.
• 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 are chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to your community around you, and to devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
• Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.
• The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and let it come in.
• Love is the only rational act.
• Sometimes you cannot believe what you see; you have to believe what you feel.
• Love each other or perish.
• Learn to detach… But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.
• 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.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven (by Mitch Albom)
• Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners.
• There are no random acts. That we are connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.
• Death doesn’t just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance of being taken and being missed, lives are changed.
• Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else.
• Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. 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.
• Love, like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface, and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive.
