Mitch Albom Quotes

Last words are only words.

Go away. I'm all right. [last words]

My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning.

At the end of your life, do you give a concession speech?

Once someone asked me, "What do you want to be your epitaph?" So I said, "Paulo Coelho died when he was alive.

It was an indulgence, learning last words. Other people had chocolate; I had dying declarations.

When I die, my epitaph or whatever you call those signs on gravestones is going to read: "I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like." I am so proud of that I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And when you come to my grave you will find me sitting there, proudly reading it.

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died, who neither listen nor speak.

My epitaph? My epitaph will be, 'Curiosity did not kill this cat'.

Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one. "That’s what I was supposed to say..." he gasped out. Those were his last words.

If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said.

A distinguished man should be as particular about his last words as he is about his last breath. He should write them out on a slip of paper and take the judgment of his friends on them. He should never leave such a thing to the last hour of his life, and trust to an intellectual spurt at the last moment to enable him to say something smart with his latest gasp and launch into eternity with grandeur.

When a man sees his end, he wants to know there was some purpose to his life.

Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten.

Taking life seriously requires taking death seriously.

[Suggesting an epitaph for herself:] This is on me.

People die, but money never does.

I realized people would soon forget me once I was dead. I couldn't even say that this was hard to stomach; really, there's no idea to which one doesn't get acclimatized in time.

I kept thinking how they were all names of dead people, and how names are basically the only thing dead people keep.

A hundred wise men have said in various ways that love transcends the power of death, and millions of fools have supposed that they meant nothing by it. At this late hour in my life I have learned what they meant. They meant that love transcends death. They are correct.

I like to think that people live on in other people's memories.

Death is something inevitable. When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace. I believe I have made that effort and that is, therefore, why I will sleep for the eternity.

Jump to the day we'll all be dead and none of this will matter. Jump to the day another house will stand here and the people living there won't know we ever happened.

Maybe you should say goodbye, Cal.' 'No.' 'It might be important.' 'It might make her die.

My tombstone? I'm thinking something along the lines of, 'Geez, he was just here a minute ago.'