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Tuesdays With Morrie
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Tuesdays With Morrie (1997) (edit title/settings)

An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

by Mitch Albom (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.
For Mitch Albom, that person was... read more

Summary edit see section history

Tuesdays with Morrie is a true story about sports writer Mitch Albom and his favorite college professor Morrie Schwartz. During Albom's undergraduate years at Brandeis University, when he takes every class taught by his mentor, he and Schwartz form a bond that goes beyond the typical... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

Tuesdays with Morrie is a true story about sports writer Mitch Albom and his favorite college professor Morrie Schwartz. During Albom's undergraduate years at Brandeis University, when he takes every class taught by his mentor, he and Schwartz form a bond that goes beyond the typical student/teacher relationship.

After graduation, Albom promises to stay in touch with his professor and moves to New York City with the intention of pursuing a career as a professional musician. He spends several frustrating years working odd jobs and wondering what he is doing wrong. He loses touch with all of his college friends and with Schwartz. His musical dreams are dying a frustrating death, and he feels like a failure for the first time in his life.

Around that time, a favorite uncle passes away from cancer at the age of forty-four. This frightens Mitch Albom into action. He returns to school and earns graduate degrees in journalism and business administration from Columbia University in New York. Albom accepts a job as a sports writer and begins working long, grueling hours, determined not to end up at a corporate job he hates like his uncle did. He bounces around the country working for different newspapers and magazines before finally settling at The Detroit Free Press, where his career really begins to take off. However, when his career nosedives and disappears, Albom does not know what to do with himself.

As Albom's career grows, so do his income and his material possessions. The more he gets, the more he wants and the harder he works. During this time, he also gets married. His wife wants to start a family, and he promises her "someday." One evening while flipping channels on the television, Albom catches the introduction to Nightline and hears the name Morrie Schwartz. His long-forgotten favorite professor is the subject of a Ted Koppel interview. Albom watches in shock as he learns Schwartz is dying of ALS.

Shortly after learning the diagnosis, Schwartz makes an important decision. He isn't going to hide behind his illness. He isn't going to be ashamed or afraid of dying. He's been a teacher all his life and decides he'll teach one final class, teaching his students how to die. That's where Schwartz's old student and friend Mitch Albom comes in. After seeing the Nightline interview, Albom visits Schwartz and makes another promise to keep in touch. And tried not to think about the last time he did promised him.

A few weeks later, Albom's newspaper goes on strike, and he is out of a job. Left with too much time on his hands and too many unsettling thoughts in his head, he returns to Massachusetts to see Schwartz. In fact, he returns to Massachusetts every Tuesday until the end of Schwartz's life.

After a couple of visits, Albom begins recording their talks, with Schwartz's permission and his encouragement. He wants to share this journey with the world and knows that Albom can help him reach beyond the walls to which his disease has confined him. For the next fourteen weeks, Schwartz and Albom discuss everything from regrets and death to money and marriage, from family to forgiveness. Their conversations and the insights they give into the way Schwartz has lived his life and accepts his death become the foundation around which Tuesdays with Morrie is written.

Characters edit see section history

  • Mitch Albom: Morrie's former student at Brandeis University, and the narrator of the book.
  • Morrie Schwartz: Mitch's favorite professor from Brandeis University, and the focus of the book, who suffers from ALS, a debilitating, incurable disease which ravages his body, but, cruelly, leaves him intellectually lucid. He had taught sociology at Brandeis University. In the book he talks to Mitch about life, such as afterlife, love etc.
  • Ted Koppel: Host of ABC-TV's "Nightline" show. Does three interviews of Morrie during his declining health.
  • Charlotte: Morrie's wife.
  • Peter: Mitch's younger brother.
  • Charlie: Morrie's father.
  • David: Morrie's younger brother.
  • Connie: Morrie's caregiver/home care worker until the last days of his life.
  • Janine: Mitch's wife.
  • Tony: Home care worker of Morie.
  • Bertha: Home care worker of Morie.
  • Amy: Home care worker of Morie.
  • David Martinez: Add a description of this character.
  • Barbara: Schoolteacher in Pennsylvania who wrote to Morrie.
  • Eva: Stepmother of Morrie.
  • Rob: Morrie's son who is a journalist in Tokyo.
  • Jon: Morrie's son who is a computer expert in Boston.
  • Norman: Friend of Morrie who did a sculpture of him.
  • Al Axelrad: A rabbi from Brandeis and a friend of Morrie.
  • Marsha: Cousin of Charlotte.
Show all 20 characters
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “Build a little community of those you love and who love you.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Do the kinds of things that come from the heart.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else, something hurts you, yet you Know it shouldn't, you take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted....”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do, accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it, learn to forgive yourself and forgive others, don't assume that it's too late to get involved.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Dying is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “These were people so hungry for love they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Take my condition. The things I am supposed to be embarrassed about now — not being able to walk, not being able to wipe my ass, waking up some mornings wanting to cry — there is nothing innately embarrassing about them. It's the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe. Don't believe it.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “When you're in bed, you're dead.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Coach. All right, I'll be your coach. And you can be my player. You can play all the lovely parts of life that I'm too old for now.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Morrie: A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.Mitch: Sounds like a wrestling match.Morrie: A wrestling match. Yes, you could describe life that way. Mitch: So which side wins? Morrie: Which side wins? Love wins. Love always wins.”
    Morrie Schwartz, Mitch Albom
  • “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. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.”
    Mitch Albom
  • “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. Let it come in. We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, 'Love is the only rational act.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “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.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Koppel imagined the two men together one day, one unable to speak, the other unable to hear. What would that be like?Morrie: We will hold hands. And there'll be a lot of love passing between us. Ted, we've had thirty-five years of friendship. You don't need speech or hearing to feel that.”
    Ted, Morrie
  • “Morrie: Dear Barbara . . . I was very moved by your letter. I feel the work you have done with the children who have lost a parent is very important. I also lost a parent at an early age . . . I lost my mother when I was a child . . . and it was quite a blow to me . . . I wish I'd had a group like yours where I would have been able to talk about my sorrows. I would have joined your group because . . . because I was so lonely . . .Koppel: Morrie, that was seventy years ago your mother died. The pain still goes on?Morrie: You bet.”
    Ted, Morrie
  • “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
    Henry Adams
  • “Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Without love, we are birds with broken wings.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Learn to detach. You know what the Buddhists say? Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Fate succumbsmany a species: one alonejeopardizes itself.”
    W.H. Auden, Morrie's Favorite Poet
  • “Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “The truth is, you don't get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction? Offering others what you have to give.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Each night, when go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
    Mahatma Gandhi
  • “Morrie: Someone asked me an interesting question yesterday.Mitch: What was the question?Morrie: If I worried about being forgotten after I died?Mitch: Well? Do you?Morrie: I don't think I will be. I've got so many people who have been involved with me in close, intimate ways.And love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”
    Morrie Schwartz, Mitch Albom
  • “Still, there are a few rules I know true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Morrie: And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?Mitch: Yes?Morrie: Your belief in the importance of marriage.”
    Morrie Schwartz, Mitch Albom
  • “People are only mean when they're threatened.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don't see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right? But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “For me, Ted, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Love each other or die.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Koppel: You did a good job.Morrie: I gave you what I had.Koppel: You always do.Morrie: Ted, this disease is knocking at my spirit. But it will not get my spirit. It'll get my body. It will not get my spirit.Koppel: You done good.Morrie: You think so. I'm bargaining with Him up there now. I'm asking Him, 'Do I get to be one of the angels?'”
    Ted, Morrie Schwartz
  • “Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on--in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”
    Morrie Schwartz page 174
  • “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
    Morrie Schwartz page 174
  • “Sometimes, when you're losing someone, you hang on to whatever tradition you can.”
    Mitch Albom
  • “Mitch: Coach?Morrie: Ahh?Mitch: I don't know how you say goodbye.Morrie: This . . . is how we say . . . goodbye . . . Love . . . you.Mitch: I love you, too, Coach.Morrie: Know you do . . . know . . . something else . . .Mitch: What else do you know?Morrie: You . . . always have. . .”
    Morrie Schwartz, Mitch Albom
  • “My father moved through theys of we,singing each new leaf out of each tree(and every child was sure that springdanced when she heard my father sing) . . .”
    A poem by E. E. Cummings, read by Morrie's son, Rob, at the memorial service
  • “If you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time-- then you might not be as ambitious as you are.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “What's wrong with being number two?”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it.”
    Morrie Schwartz p. 42
  • “I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity.”
    Mitch Albom p. 57
  • “Am I being the person I want to be?”
    Morrie Schwartz p. 81
  • “We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us.”
    Morrie Schwartz p. 84
  • “Still," he says, "if you really want it, then you'll make your dream happen. "I want to hug him, to thank him for saying that, but I am not thatopen. I only nod instead.”
    Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz
  • “I decide I'm going to live- or at least try to live- the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decaying, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.”
  • “I mourn my dwindling time, but i cherish the chance it gives me to make things right.”
    Morrie Schwartz
  • “In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you're too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else's situation as you are about your own.”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
    Highlighted by 978 Kindle customers
  • Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
    Highlighted by 906 Kindle customers
  • “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. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
    Highlighted by 888 Kindle customers
  • “Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do” “Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it” “Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others” “Don’t assume that it’s too late to get involved.”
    Highlighted by 787 Kindle customers
  • 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.”
    Highlighted by 739 Kindle customers
  • “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”
    Highlighted by 579 Kindle customers
  • “The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”
    Highlighted by 545 Kindle customers
  • “Mitch, if you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”
    Highlighted by 528 Kindle customers
  • “People are only mean when they’re threatened,” he said later that day, “and that’s what our culture does. That’s what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.”
    Highlighted by 438 Kindle customers
  • “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
    Highlighted by 207 Kindle customers
Show all 66 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

Organizations edit see section history

First Sentence edit see section history

The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 - The Curriculum
Chapter 2 - The Syllabus
Chapter 3 - The Student
Chapter 4 - The Audiovisual
Chapter 5 - The Orientation
Chapter 6 - The Classroom
Chapter 7 - Taking Attendance
Chapter 8 - The First Tuesday: We Talk About the World
Chapter 9 - The Second Tuesday: We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself
Chapter 10 - The Third Tuesday: We Talk About Regrets
Chapter 11 - The Audiovisual, Part Two
Chapter 12 - The Professor
Chapter 13 - The Fourth Tuesday: We Talk About Death
Chapter 14 - The Fifth Tuesday: We Talk About Family
Chapter 15 - The Sixth Tuesday: We Talk About Emotions
Chapter 16 - The Professor, Part Two
Chapter 17 - The Seventh Tuesday: We Talk About the Fear of Aging
Chapter 18 - The Eight Tuesday: We Talk About Money
Chapter 19 - The Ninth Tuesday: We Talk About How Love Goes On
Chapter 20 - The Tenth Tuesday: We Talk About Marriage
Chapter 21 - The Eleventh Tuesday: We Talk About Our Culture
Chapter 22 - The Audiovisual, Part Three
Chapter 23 - The Twelfth Tuesday: We Talk About Forgiveness
Chapter 24 - The Thirteenth Tuesday: We Talk About the Perfect Day
Chapter 25 - The Fourteenth Tuesday: We Say Good-Bye

Graduation
Conclusion

Glossary edit see section history

  • Sclerosis: Hardening of tissue.
  • Amphetamines: A drug that settles the central nervous system
  • Inducing: To lead or move by persuasion
  • Insidious: Stealthily treacherous or deceitful
  • Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): Also referred to as motor neuron disease in British English, is the most common form of the motor neuron diseases. The condition is sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease in North America, after the New York Yankees baseball player who was diagnosed with the disease in 1939. The disorder is characterized by rapidly progressive weakness, muscle atrophy and fasciculations, muscle spasticity, difficulty speaking (dysarthria), difficulty swallowing (dysphagia), and decline in breathing ability.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 44 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2010). (authoritative list)
This is book 44 of 194 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2010). (authoritative list)
This is book 48 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2011). (authoritative list)
This is book 53 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2011). (authoritative list)
This book is in Book Lover's Cook Book, The. (authoritative list)
This book is in The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Mitch Albom (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Jeffrey Hatcher

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Random House
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48451-8
Page Count: 192

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: LD571.B418
  • Dewey: 974.44

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Young Adults

A Deep and satisfying read requires the readers to be at least 15. There are several use of word "a**" throughout the book (but not many and used as a joke)

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
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  • Once upon a More Enlightened Time: More Politically Correct Bedtime Stories
  • The Measure of a Man
  • The Dead Fathers Club
  • The Sledding Hill

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   

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