Mitch Albom is a critically acclaimed author of more than eight books, including The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003); For One More Day (2008) and Tuesdays with Morrie (1997), the New York Times bestseller for more than eight weeks. Though he has written several non-fiction bestsellers, his fictional work has also garnered him fans.
His books have sold more than 39 million copies worldwide, which earned him three Grammy nominations and an ALA Notable Book Award.
For this list, I narrowed it down to 30 of his most poignant quotes on three different topics: life, love, happiness and parents.
A. Quotes On Life
1. "All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time." - Mitch Albom
2. "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." - Mitch Albom
3. "If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on 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." - Mitch Albom
4. "No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone." - Mitch Albom
5. "The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live." - Mitch Albom
B. Quotes On Feelings
6. "You can feel 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." - Mitch Albom
7. "But there’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins." - Mitch Albom
8. "Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else." - Mitch Albom
9. "Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to." - Mitch Albom
10. "With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can’t appreciate what we have." - Mitch Albom
11. "Holding anger is a poison...It eats you from inside...We think that by hating someone we hurt them...But hatred is a curved blade...and the harm we do to others...we also do to ourselves.'' - Mitch Albom
12. "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 heart even, you experience them fully and completely." - Mitch Albom
13. "You see, 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." - Mitch Albom
14. "Nothing haunts us like the things we don't say." - Mitch Albom
15. "When we are most alone is when we embrace another's loneliness." - Mitch Albom
16. "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." - Mitch Albom
17. "There is everything you know and there is everything that happens. When the two do not line up, you make a choice." - Mitch Albom
18. "The more you defend a lie, the angrier you become." - Mitch Albom
19. "Accept who you are and revel in that." - Mitch Albom
20. "The human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn’t just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed." - Mitch Albom
C. Quotes On Family & Parents
21. "Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know." - Mitch Albom
22. "All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair." - Mitch Albom
D. Quotes On Passion in Life
23. "If you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back." - Mitch Albom
24. "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." - Mitch Albom
25. "You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute." - Mitch Albom
26. "There is no such thing as 'too late' in life." - Mitch Albom
E. Quotes On Love
27. "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." - Mitch Albom
28. "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." - Mitch Albom
29. "Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, 'Love each other or perish'." - Mitch Albom
30. "The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in." - Mitch Albom
Conclusion:
It's hard to believe that Mitch Albom has written so many books over the course of his career. He will be publishing his latest book, 'The Stranger in the Lifeboat', on November 8. Millions of people have been inspired by his books, and his words have often given hope to people all over the world.
So, I hope you enjoyed this collection of quotes. If I missed any of your favorite quotes feel free to share them with us in the comments section below, I will add that! Have a nice day!