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I was 33 when I read my first book by Mitch Albom, and I can say I have never come across anything like it.

I understood why the Los Angeles Times would call Albom “A writer with soul.”

As many avid readers and book collectors, lending a book is like giving away a part of yourself, so we end up giving so many excuses to avoid the situation. However, that wasn’t the case after I finished reading Tuesdays with Morrie.

I wanted to share this treasure with all my loved ones and more than 10 people ended up reading the same copy of the book. I knew they felt the same when they bought their own copies and even started gifting the book to their loved ones.

Ever since, I have read all of Mitch Albom’s books, including his latest moving memoir Finding Chika. I have tried to share my story in nine favorite quotes from nine Mitch Albom books that I’ve read because I strongly believe that “Nothing haunts like the things we don’t say.”

Here are my nine favorite ones from him that connect me to everything in this life:

“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.” ~ Tuesdays with Morrie

“Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them—a mother’s approval, a father’s nod—are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.” ~ The Five People you Meet in Heaven

“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 begin.” ~ For One More Day

“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man, alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.” ~ The Time Keeper

“Faith, it is said, is better than belief, because belief is when someone else does the thinking.” ~ The First Phone Call from Heaven

“In every artist’s life, there comes a person who lifts the curtain on creativity. It is the closest you come to seeing me again. The first time, when you emerge from the womb, I am a brilliant color in the rainbow of human talents from which you choose. Later, when a special someone lifts the curtain, you feel that chosen talent stirring inside you, a bursting passion to sing, paint, dance, bang on drums. And you are never the same.” ~ The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

“There is a reason you glance up when you first hear a melody or tap your foot to the sound of a drum. All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?” ~ The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

“Did you know,” the old woman said now, standing beside the grown-up Annie, “that a dog will go to a crying human before a smiling one? Dogs get sad when people around them get sad. They’re created that way. It’s called empathy. “Humans have it, too. But it gets blocked by other things—ego, self-pity, thinking your own pain must be tended to first. Dogs don’t have those issues.” ~ The Next Person You Meet in Heaven

“The most precious thing you can give someone is your time, Chika, because you can never get it back. When you don’t think about getting it back, you’ve given it in love. I learned that from you.” ~ Finding Chika

“‘When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this?’
He made a fist.
‘Why? Because a baby, not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say, ‘The whole world is mine.’
‘But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned his lesson.’
What lesson? I asked.
He stretched open his empty fingers.
‘We can take nothing with us.'” ~ Have a Little Faith

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