MORRIE SCHWARTZ

We're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going.

I'd always been interested in psychology.

The little things, I can obey. But the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone - or any society - determine those for you.

It's not to late to... ask yourself if you really are the person you want to be, and if not, who you do want to be.

After you have wept and grieved for your physical losses, cherish the functions and the life you have left.

Everything that gets born dies.

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.

Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.

The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.

We have a sense that we should be like the mythical cowboy... able to take on and conquer anything and live in the world without the need for other people.

Dying is only one thing to be sad over... Living unhappily is something else.

Learn how to live and you'll know how to die; learn how to die, and you'll know how to live.

Grieve and mourn for yourself not once or twice, but again and again.

This is how you start to get respect: by offering something that you have.

When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.

It's not too late to develop new friendships or reconnect with people.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.

What tipped the scales was that psychology involved working with rats.

One hundred and ten years from now no one who is here now will be alive.

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.

You don't understand. You're not a wave. You're part of the ocean.

Be compassionate, and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much a better place.

Acceptance is not a talent you either have or don't have. It's a learned response. My meditation teacher made a great point about the difference between a reaction and a response: You may not have control over your initial reaction to something, but you can decide what your response will be. You don't have to be at the mercy of your emotions, and acceptance can be your first step toward empowerment . . . For me, acceptance has been the cornerstone to my having an emotionally healthy response to my illness.

And, in addition to all the miseries, the young are not wise. They have very little understanding about life. Who wants to live every day when you don't know what's going on? When people are manipulating you, telling you to buy this perfume and you'll be beautiful, or this pair of jeans and you'll be sexy-and you believe them! It's such nonsense.

Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.