Tuesdays With Morrie Chapter 13 Quotes
Tuesdays With Morrie Chapter 13 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
(Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
"Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?'" (13.9)
Morrie draws from Buddhism here, and the idea is to work on perfecting yourself so that when the time comes, we're ready to go. The people we're accountable to are ourselves.
Quote 2
"Mitch," he said, laughing along, "even I don't know what 'spiritual development' really means. But I do know we're deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us." (13.40)
Morrie is admitting that spiritual stuff is a lot to figure out, even in his old age. But he does know that it's something that is the opposite of materialism. There's definitely something else out there that we need, because material things just don't cut it.
Quote 3
So we kid ourselves about death, I said.
"Yes. But there's a better approach. To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you're living." (13.7-8)
Here's the idea of life and death again: If you understand one, you understand the other. Sadly, the way that it seems to work is backward from what people expect. Only when we understand what it means to die can we take advantage of our humanity and learn how to live.