بریده‌های کتاب Tuesday with Morrie: an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson

The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other weves in front of him, crashing against the shore. " My God, this is terrible,' the wave says. Look what's going to happen to me!" Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "why do you look so sad?" The first wave says, " you don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?" The second wave says, " No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean.

"Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it-and have it repeated to us-over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise.

At one point, in the midst of "we're number one!" He rises and yells, "what's wrong with being number two?" The students look at him. They stop chanting. He sits down, smiling and triumphant.

Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going to work? Morrie smiled. "Things are not that simple, Mitch. "I know. "Still," he said, "there are a few rules I know to be 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. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, 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. "And the biggest one of those values, Mitch? Yes? "Your belief in the importance of your marriage.

Morrie made that obvious. "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.

"Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn."