We are blinded by our regrets. We don’t realize who else we punish when we’re punishing ourselves.
It was the first time I had seen him unshaven, the small white whiskers looking so out of place, as if someone had shaken salt neatly across his cheeks and chin. How could there be new life in his beard when it was draining everywhere else?
Her dresses. Her shoes. A bottle of her perfume. You don’t need much to remember someone, Francisco. Even one thing will do.
Broken open is still open.
We who are born, are born to die.
Children begin by needing their parents. Over time, they reject them. Eventually, they become them.
Yet he refused to be depressed. Instead, Morrie had become a lightning rod of ideas.
Giving makes me feel like I’m living.
There was, in the construction of the universe, us down here, God up there, and you in between. When God seemed too intimidating to face, we could first come to you. It was like befriending the secretary outside the boss’s office.
War is the same every when and where.
When Morrie was with you, he was really with you. He looked you straight in the eye, and he listened as if you were the only person in the world.
Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
On earth, we get the what of things. The why takes a little longer.
Love each other or perish,” Morrie said. “It’s good, no? And it’s so true. Without love, we are birds with broken wings.
One, as in the singular God. One, as in the Lord’s creation, Adam.
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?
This is my heaven,” Cleo said. “Watching people come home?” Annie asked. “Feeling the joy when they do. Souls reuniting. It’s something divine.” “But it happens every day.” Cleo tilted her head. “Don’t divine things happen every day?
A little wave is moving up and down and a big wave says to him why it looked so sad? The little wave says sadly what’s the point of being happy when we’re all just going to crash into the rock? The big wave then tells the little wave to not be so sad about that because it is not just a little wave, but a part of the ocean.
But there still seemed to be no clear answers. Do you take care of others or take care of your “inner child”? Return to traditional values or reject tradition as useless? Seek success or seek simplicity? Just Say No or Just Do It?
Before he can devote himself to God or a woman, a boy will devote himself to his father, even foolishly, even beyond explanation.