Author Amy Tan was pretty spot on when she praised this masterpiece by Mitch Albom by describing it as "...the fable you will devour when you fall in love. This is the tale you will keep by your side when you are lost. This is the story you will turn to again and again, because it possesses the rare magic to let you see yourself and the world anew. This book is a gift to the soul." I devoured The Five People You Meet in Heaven in mid July, and let me tell you it wasn't just the summer heat that had my heart warm. Here are some exerts I hold near and dear to my heart.
***
"I was upside down", he tells her. "I saw," she says.
***
"The sky was the colour of lemons."
***
"You cannot talk when you first arrive", he smiled, "it helps your listen."
***
"All endings are also beginnings, we just don't know it at the time."
***
"Strangers, the blue man said, are just family you have yet to come to know."
***
It's the thinking that gets you killed." (written about shooting at war)
***
"Eddie wants to hug her so badly, he thinks he'll burst. He doesn't care what's in the box. He only wants to remember her holding it out for him. As always, with Margerite, Eddie mostly wants to freeze time."
***
"That's what heaven is, you get to make sense of your yesterdays."
***
"All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair."
***
"The worst part is the general darkness the dream leaves over him, a grey film that clouds the day. Even his happy moments feel encased, like holes jabbed in a hard sheet of ice."
***
"People don't die because of loyalty." "They don't? Religion? Government? Are we not loyal to such things, sometimes to the death? Better to be loyal to one another."
***
"But hatred is a curved blade, and the harm we do, we do to ourselves."
***
"No one is born with anger. In order to move on you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it."
***
"The waters of their love fell again from above and soaked them as surely as the sea that gathered at their feet."
***
"The little girl appeared to be asian, maybe five or six years old, with a beautiful cinnamon complexion, hair the colour of a dark plum, a small flat nose, full lips that spread joyfully over her gapped teeth, and the most arresting eyes, as black as a seal's hide, with a pinhead of white serving as a pupil."
***
"Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes you partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. Life has to end, love doesn't."
***
"And even though she was sitting in the seat next to him, Eddie felt her in everything, in the steering wheel, in the gas pedal, in the blinking of his eye, in the clearing of his throat. Every move he made was about hanging on to her."
***
"I was upside down", he tells her. "I saw," she says.
***
"The sky was the colour of lemons."
***
"You cannot talk when you first arrive", he smiled, "it helps your listen."
***
"All endings are also beginnings, we just don't know it at the time."
***
"Strangers, the blue man said, are just family you have yet to come to know."
***
It's the thinking that gets you killed." (written about shooting at war)
***
"Eddie wants to hug her so badly, he thinks he'll burst. He doesn't care what's in the box. He only wants to remember her holding it out for him. As always, with Margerite, Eddie mostly wants to freeze time."
***
"That's what heaven is, you get to make sense of your yesterdays."
***
"All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair."
***
"The worst part is the general darkness the dream leaves over him, a grey film that clouds the day. Even his happy moments feel encased, like holes jabbed in a hard sheet of ice."
***
"People don't die because of loyalty." "They don't? Religion? Government? Are we not loyal to such things, sometimes to the death? Better to be loyal to one another."
***
"But hatred is a curved blade, and the harm we do, we do to ourselves."
***
"No one is born with anger. In order to move on you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it."
***
"The waters of their love fell again from above and soaked them as surely as the sea that gathered at their feet."
***
"The little girl appeared to be asian, maybe five or six years old, with a beautiful cinnamon complexion, hair the colour of a dark plum, a small flat nose, full lips that spread joyfully over her gapped teeth, and the most arresting eyes, as black as a seal's hide, with a pinhead of white serving as a pupil."
***
"Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes you partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. Life has to end, love doesn't."
***
"And even though she was sitting in the seat next to him, Eddie felt her in everything, in the steering wheel, in the gas pedal, in the blinking of his eye, in the clearing of his throat. Every move he made was about hanging on to her."