Morrie Schwartz Quotes

In the first moments when we come away from the presence of death, every other relation to the living is merged, to our feeling, in the great relation of a common nature and a common destiny.

After that I could never pass a dead man without stopping to gaze on his face, stripped by death of that earthly patina which masks the living soul. And I would ask, who were you? Where was your home? Who is mourning for you now?

Above all things let us never forget that mankind constitutes one great brotherhood; all born to encounter suffering and sorrow, and therefore bound to sympathize with each other.

I'm human just like everyone.

At the end of the day, we are all humans.

...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.

Any woman's death diminishes me.

I am because we are. We all bleed the same color. We all want to love and be loved.

Loss is the great unifier, the terrible club to which we all eventually belong.

I have heard people say that they felt closer to their parents after they have died. Maybe if I treat people as if they were dead, I could get along with them better

Loss doesn't feel redeemable. But for me one consoling aspect is the recognition that, in this at least, none of us is different from anyone else: We all lose loved ones; we all face our own death.

Death is an absolute marvel.

The sole equality on earth is death.

I'm a humanist at heart: at the end of the day, we are all human beings.

I see the human in everyone and everything. No one is more important than anyone else; I still hang out with my high school friends.

Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.

It is like visiting one's funeral, like visiting loss in its purest and most monumental form, this wild darkness, which is not only unknown but which one cannot enter as oneself.

I want to tell you what it was really like to think death is imminent, but I can't. It's a taste in your mouth. And an emptiness.

The thing about death is that it's honest.

Death is something that happens to others, you think, until it happens to you.

I'm not sure I've learned anything new about life; but I've had to think harder about death and what comes after for other people.

Animals have a much better attitude to life and death than we do. They know when their time has come. We are the ones that suffer when they pass, but it's a healing kind of grief that enables us to deal with other griefs that are not so easy to grab hold of.

I have sometimes imagined my own death and brought myself to tears.

For better or for worse, I've watched people die in front of me. I see how they are in the end. And they're not cynical. In the end, they wanna hold somebody's hand. And that's real to me.

No one's death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humanness.