You count the hours you could have spent with your mother, it's a lifetime in itself.

And I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know.

There is everything you know and there is everything that happens. When the two do not line up, you make a choice.

..I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died.. which I figured was my natural fate.

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.

There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I'm so angry and bitter. But it doesn't last too long. Then I get up and say, 'I want to live..'
'So far, I've been able to do it. Will I be able to continue? I don't know. But I'm betting on myself I will.'
Koppel seemed extremely taken with Morrie. He asked about the humility that death induced.