Tuesdays with Morrie

by Mitch Albom

He was stunned by the normalcy of the day around him. Shouldn't the world
stop? Don't they know what has happened to me? But the world did not stop,
it took no notice at all.
---
"There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some
mornings, I'm so angry and bitter. But it doesn't last too loing. Then I
get up and say, "I want to live..."
---

"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."
Sometimes we eat together in a cafeteria. Morrie, to my delight, is even
more of a slob than I am. He talks instead of chewing, laughs with his
mouth open, delivers a passionate thought through a mouthful of egg salad,
the little yellow pieces spewing from his teeth.
It cracks me up. The whole time I know him, I have two overwhelming
desires: to hug him and to give him a napkin.
---
"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
somewehre in the middle."
Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.
"A wrestling match," He laughs. "Yes you could describe life that way."
So which side wins, I ask?
"Love wins. Love always wins."
---
"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 yurself to loving others, devote yourself to your
community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives
you purpose and meaning."
--
page 57:
"Mitch, I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that's all. It's only horrible if you see it that way. It's horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it's also wonderful beacuse of all the time i get to say good-bye. Not everyone is so lucky."
---
Following her instructions, I leaned over, locked my forearms under Morrie's armpits, and hooked him toward me, as if lifting a large log from underneath. Then I straightened up, hoisting him as I rose. Normally, when you lift someone, you expect their arms to tighten around your grip, but Morrie could not do this. He was mostly dead weight, and I felt his head bounce softly on my shoulder and his body sag against me like a big damp loaf.

Holding him like that moved me in a way I cannot describe, except to say I felt the seeds of death inside his shriveling frame, and as I laid him in his chair, adjusting his head on the pillows, I had the coldest realization that our time is running out. i had to do something.
---
Do you beleive in reincarnation? I ask.
"Perhaps."
What would you come back as?
"If I had my choice, a gazelle."
"A gazelle."
"Yes. So graceful. So fast."
A gazelle?
Morrie smiles at me. "You think that's strange?"
I study his shrunken frame, the loose clothes, the socks-wrapped feet that rest stiffly off from rubber cushions, unable to move, like a prisoner in leg irons. I picture a gazelle racing across the desert.
No, I say. i don't think that's strange at all.
--
"The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a three-year-old,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. Do you understand?"
"How can I be envious of where you are - when I've been there myself?"
--
Because I worked among rich and famous athletes, I convinced myself that my needs were realistic, my greed inconsequential compared to theirs."
--
With each visit, Morrie seemed to be melting into his chair, his spine taking on its shape. still, every morning he insisted on being lifted from his bed and wheeled to his study, deposited there among his books and papers and the hibiscus plant on the windowsill.
--
"It's sad, because a loved one is so important. You realize that, especially when you're in a time like I am, when you are 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."
---
I saw the paleness of his skin, the stray white hairs, the way his arms hung limp and helpless.
--
"The problem, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.
"Believe me, 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?"
---
It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandeis gym. The team is doing well, and the student section begins a chant, "We're number one! We're number one!" Morrie is sitting nearby. He is puzzled by the cheer. At one point, in the midst of "We're number one!" he rises and yells, "Whats wrong with being number two?"
---
Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do?
--
page 170:
"You'll come to my grave? To tell me your problems?"
My problems?
“Yes.”
And you'll give me answers?
“I'll give you what I can. Don't I always?”
I picture his grave, on the hill, overlooking the pond, some little nine-foot piece of earth where they will place him, cover him with dirt, put a stone on top. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe in a few days? I see myself sitting there alone, arms across my knees, staring into space.
It won't be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk.
“Ah, talk…”
He closes his eyes and smiles.
“Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I listen.”
---
page 172:
"I had a terrible spell. It went on for hours. And I really wasn't sure I was going to make it. No breath. No end to the choking. At one point,I started to get dizzy... and then I felt a certain peace. I felt that I was ready to go."
--
p. 173

“It's natural to die,” he said again. “The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves a part of nature. We think because we're human we're something above nature.”
He smiled at the plant.
“We're not. Everything that gets born, dies.” He looked at me.
“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.”

This is the last sentence Morrie got out before I did: “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

--
More at http://www.ck2i.com/j105c/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=73&Itemid=37

Madagascar 2

My fav quotes!

1.

Random Zebras (As Alex is walking through the herd with his 'hat of shame' on, trying to find Marty) : "Cool Hat!" "Where'd you get the hat?" "Leave the hat!"

2.

Melman : "Listen Mototo, you'd better treat this lady like a queen. Because you've found yourself the perfect woman. If I was ever so lucky to find the perfect woman, I would give her flowers every day! Her favorites are orchids - white orchids. And breakfast in bed! Six loaves of wheat toast, with butter on both sides! No crust! The way she likes it. I'd be her shoulder to cry on and her best friend. And I'd spend every day trying to think of how to make her laugh. She has the most amazing laugh. That's what I would do if I were you. But I'm not. So you do it!"

3.

Alex : "It is lackin' in the crackin' my friend."

4.

Private : "Can I kiss the bride, Skipper?"
Skipper: "NO!" *slaps Private*

5.

Melman: "Gloria, I just want you to know, back at the zoo, it was never the doctors or the perscriptions that kept me going. It was always you. Seeing you every day. That's what kept me going!"

6.

Gloria (holding Melman over volcano by the horn): "Melman, I've got to know, Did you really mean all those things you said about me?"
Melman: "Of course I did."
Gloria (Holds Melman in her arms with his arms around her neck): "It's crazy."
Melman: "It is?"
Gloria: "It's crazy to think that I had to go halfway around the world to find out that the perfect guy for me lived right next door."
Melman: "Then I guess it's you and me neigbor, For the next...eighteen hours."
Gloria: "I'll take whatever I can get." (The two touch forheads)

7.

Marty: "How about a t-shirt that says I'm with stupid?"
Random Zebra: "I'm not stupid!"
Marty: "Not you stupid! Him stupid!"

8.

Melman (at the penguin wedding): "It's not gonna last." (Gloria nods in agreement)


King Julius," Stop him! He's carrying scissors and heand cream!"


Alex: I Know you won't mind if I tell you.....
Marty: Tell me anything come on!
Alex: I BROKE YOUR IPOD!
Marty: WHAT?!
Alex: The buttons were so small, it made me mad!
Marty: THE HORROR!!!

Alex: Me...ALEX. Me and me friends....fly...fly in great metal bird...then...PLUMMET! Smash ground! Go boom! Then here we...emerge. We offer only happiness and good greetings!


Melman: You don't have a doctor? What if you catch a cold?
Other Giraffe: We pick out a dying hole, and we die.
Melman: Ok you guys REALLY need a doctor!

Skipper: Operation Tourist trap is a go!
Private: Oh I like that one! It's a good one!
Kowalski: It works on many levels!
Skipper: You guys are a bunch of suckups!
Kowalski: That too sir!
Private: Absolutely!
Skipper: Hey stations!

Private:[after throwing old lady out of the jeep] Is she dead?
[old lady gets up]
Skipper: NO!!!
[rams her. lol]

Alex's mom: You used to call this...foofi
Alex: Foofi......FOOFI!!
Zuba: Come on he doesn't need that old thing
Alex: MY FOOFI!!!

King Julian: Yes. And you are only a sad little head. But there must be something you want to do before you...DIE!
Melman: Well there is this one thing...
King Julian: What is it? Tell me!
Melman: Well I don't know...
King Julian: What is it?
Melman: You know I never really go the guts to tell gloria...
King Julian: What is it?!
Melman: ...how I fell about her.
King Julian: PLEASE TELL ME!
Melman: How I've always felt about her.
King Julian. FINE! Don't tell me!....OH! Is it a woman? You didn't tell me it was going to be a woman.
Maurice: What are you afriad of? Your a dead man anyway.
Melman: Yeah...yeah your right...
King Julian: Well you gotta march right up to this lady alright? Then you look her right in the eyes...lean forward just a little almost all the way...just a lips distance away fromeach other...and then you just tell her how much you hate her.
Melman: Actually...it's more like...love.
King Julian: OH! You sly dog! Woof! You are a real playa you know that? You gotta rise! You hearing me? I can't hear you!
Melman: Yeah!
King julian: You gotta rise!
Melman: Yeah!
King Julian: You gotta get outta that hole!
Melman: I'm rising outta the hole!
King Jlian: Rise him Maurice!
Melman: I'm rising Maurice!
King Julian: You gotta go right up to this woman!
Melman: YEAH!
King Julian: You gotta go right up to her face!
Melman: I'm going to tell her!
King Julian: And then say "Baby, I dig ya!" YEAH!
Melman: Yeah! I'm going to do it! I'm going to do it!
King Julian: I love that happy little head.

King Julian: There is only one one way to get your precious water..I, King Julian, will simply make a small sacrifice to my good friends the water gods in....THE VOLCANO!!
Animal: What does that do?
King Julian: What does that do? Excellent question! My sacrifice goes in the volcano, then the firendly gods will eat up my sacrifice, "Mmm thank you for the sacrifice" "please have another sacrifce" "No I've had enough for the day" "listen, I'm going to be very upset if you don't have another" "I don't want another sacrifice ok?!" "Come on you look so skinny!" "No I think I've had enough is that clear?!"......The gods eat the sacrifice..they are grateful, they give me some of their water, and I will give it to you.
Animal: Does it work?
King Julien: No...I mean yes! I mean...um...Maurice?
Maurice: Ehh....50/50

Little Book of Love Poems by Purple Ronnie

Being in Love
Whenever I'm with you
My heart starts to thump
And I come over wonky and flustered
I try to stayu calm
But pour milk on my toast
and butter my coffee with mustard.

You Make Me Happy
Sometimes I close my eyes tightly
And dream of you while you're away
Cos thinking of you makes me happy
So that's what I wanted to say

I love you
This poem says I love you
ANd you make my life complete
Except for all your bottom burps
and your stinky feet

MY secret wish
I wanted just to tell you
what my special secret wish is
I'd love to tear your clothes off
And then cover you with kisses

LOve poem
Sometimes my heart goes all mushy
Remembering good times we had
So I thought I'd write you this poem
To say I still love you like mad

My Lover
The smashing thing about you
That makes me think you're great
Is you're not only my lover
You're also my best mate

I Love you
Sometimes when it's late at night
And we're alone together
I want to take you in my arms
And cuddle you forever

for a Gorgeous person
I've got this great feeling inside me
I think you can probably tell
I don't only think that you're totally fab
But I fancy your pants off as well

My little own way
I sometimes get rather embarrassed
And don't always know what to say
When it comes to expressing my feelings
but I try in my own little way

Love poem
I just want to tell you
I love you so much
that each time I look at your face
My heart jumps a somersault
Round in the air
and my feelings explode into space

you're special
You're a very special person
And you mean alot to me
When you're around you make the world
A better place to be

Lover
If someone invented a gadget
That made me terrific in bed
I think I'd buy twentyfive thousand
And do it with you til I'm dead

Snuggle pie
You to me are everything
That money just cant buy
Like creamy cuddle custard
And scrumptious snuggle pie

you're lovely
If I was more clever
I would find a special way
TO tell you that you're lovely
Cos that's all I want to say

I love yOU
When I'm lying alone in my bed
All sorts of thoughts come into my head
Like why do I love you and as much as I do
Then I know it's because you are You

Smiley inside
Love makes you feel all cuddly and warm
Love makes your tongue get all tied
IT makes you go wobbly
and weak at the knees
And all sort of smiley inside

To someone I like
I sometimes find it rather hard
To say I really care
And that I like you quite alot
But I've said it now- so there

Love
Sometimes it makes you feel happy
ANd sometimes it makes you feel blue
But i find it makes me feel smashingly fab
And thats cos I'm in it with you

Love poem (soppy)
Crikey I love you to pieces
My heart wants to jump up and shout
Let's walk through the flowers
and huggle for hours
and let all our loveliness out

Missing you
There are times I really do miss you
and think of you missing me too
so I close my eyes tight
and i daydream
that I'm together with you

My lover
I want to tell you something
Now at last I've found a way
I love you more than chocolate
and that's all I need to say

I love you
Here's a little note to say
That since we've been together
I've never felt so happy
And I love you more than ever

1. My life is likely to last 10-15 years. Regular separation from you will be painful and can even cause depression. Think before you buy me.

2. Give me time to understand what you want from me don’t be impatient, short-tempered or irritable.

3. Place your trust in me and I will always trust you back, respect is earned not given as some sort of inalienable right.

4. Don’t be angry with me for long, and don’t lock me up as punishment. I am not capable of understanding why I am being locked up. I only know I have been rejected. You have your work, entertainment and friends. I only have you.

5. Talk to me sometimes. Even if I don’t understand your words, I do understand your tone. “You only have to look at my tail” to know that.

6. Be aware that however you treat me, I will never forget, if that treatment is unjust or bad, it may spoil the special bond between us.

7. Please do not hit me. I cannot hit back, but I can bite and scratch and I don’t ever want to feel the need to do that.

8. Before you tell me off me for being uncooperative, obstinate, or lazy, ask yourself if something might be wrong with me. Perhaps I’m not getting the right food or I’ve been out in the sun too long, maybe my heart is getting old and weak, or maybe I’m just dog-tired.

9. Take care of me when I get old. You too will grow old and will also want care, love, and affection.

10. Go with me on difficult journeys. Never say, “I can’t bear to watch” or “Let it happen in my absence”. Everything is easier for me if you are there. Remember, Irrespective of what you do I will always love you.

from http://anonymousxwrites.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-are-10-promises-to-my-dog-promise.html

Square root 3

The Square Root of 3 by Dave Feinberg
I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

Thoughts

Everyday of my life I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've been wise enough to accept, too. I think there's something to be said for living a simple life. I need very little, therefore, I am in need very little. And it just seems to work out that the less I need, the more I have. I'm pleased with myself, I feel responsible. I feel wise.

I took responsibility for not only my mistakes, but someone else's, too. Oh, and I stopped asking "why."

Everyone is not going to do what I think they should do Many, many people will prefer to walk the other way. I'm fine with that idea. Sometimes I need to walk the other way, too.

I grew up with the idea that it was not okay to be angry. Yet, I was. No matter what I did, no matter how "good" I wanted to be, something would come along and make me angry.
I no longer swallow my anger. I've learned that if you do, it always comes right back up. And at the worst time and in the worst way. If something pisses me off, I try to let it out right then and there. That way, there is no mistake as to what I;m angry about. There is no resentment brewing inside. There is no need to devise a plan to get back at anyone. There is no anger anymore. Until the next time.

Thank you. Thank you for holding your vision close and making it happen. Thank you for not deciding it wasn't worth it. THank you for being prosperous enough to extend yourself far and wide. Thank you for knowing who you are. If everybody did everything I thought they would do? Boy, would I be cheated out of my own self-realization.

A moment that melts. The moment that brings the walls tumbling down. What magnificent joy! What a powerful and altering experience.
What about when the moment is gone? In case you're stumped, let me tell you. It hurts like crazy.

As certain death entered the picture, I decided, "who cares? Who cares what people think? Who cares if Im too young to do this? Who cares who cares?"
It has een my experience that the more darkness I encounter, the greater my capacity for light. Ugliess turns to beauty to uglieness to beauty. The negative with the positive. Up, down. Black and white.

Koizora 恋空

もしもあの日、きみに出会っていなければ
こんなに苦しくて　こんなに悲しくて
こんなにせつなくて　こんなに涙があふれえるような想いはしなかったと思う。
けれど、きみに出会っていなければ、
こんなにうれしくて　こんなに優しくて
こんなに愛しくて　こんなに温かくて
こんなに幸せな気持ちを知る事もできなかったよ。。。
(If on that day I didn't meet you,
It wouldn't be so difficult, It wouldn't be so sad,
It wouldn't be so painful, My thoughts wouldn't be like overflowing tears.
However, If I didn't meet you
I wouldn't be so happy, I wouldn't be so kind,
I wouldn't be so lovely, I wouldn't be so warm
I wouldn't be able to understand happiness...)


きみは幸せでしたか？ [did you get happiness?]
とても幸せでした. [i got excessive happiness before.]

Mika: If only that night... if I took a different way, would it have changed our fates a little?



Yu: Take all your mixed feelings with you until you have sorted them out. Will you be with me?


Yu: If a man loves a woman he wont want her to be unhappy. But if he hurts you I'll take you from him in any way I can.
[turns Mika back facing him]
GO! Before I start crying...



Hiro: Where do humans go after they die?
Mika: Heaven.
Hiro: I want to be the sky. So I always know where you are.
Mika: Like a stalker.
[Hiro smiles]
Mika: Clear skies will mean you are happy. Rain will mean you're crying. Sunset means you are embarrassed. Night will mean you are gently holding me.



Hiro: Mika.. smile.