“What about a man who sits down to wonderWhy life has cheated him?Thinks about his situationHangs his head and criesWill we pretend, his problems don't exist?He's reaching out for help-will we selfishly resist?What about your brother? He's cryingWhat about your brother? He's dyingWhat about your brother?”

“Instead, he did what we all do. He went about his dull routine as if all the days in the world were still to come.”

“Sometimes during the night, your father awakened. He rose from his bed, staggered across the room, and found the strength to raise the window sash. He called your mother's name with what little voice he had, and he called yours, too, and your brother, Joe. And he called for Mickey. At that moment, it seemed, his heart was spilling out, all the guilt and regret. Perhaps he felt the light of death approaching. Perhaps he only knew you were all out there somewhere, in the streets beneath his window. He bent over the ledge. The night was chilly. The wind and damp, in his state, were too much. He was dead before dawn.”

“Had he known his death was imminent, he might have gone somewhere else. Instead, he did what we all do. He went about his dull routine as if all the days in the world were still to come.”

“Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.”

“He thought about his son’s stone flying across the yard, the youthful idea that you could toss away the future ifyou didn’t like it—and he realized, suddenly, what he needed to do.”

“Morrie talked about his most fearful moments, when he felt his chest locked in heaving surges or when he wasn't sure where his next breath would come from. These horrifying times, he said, and his first emotions were horror, fear, anxiety. But once he recognized the feel of those emotions, their texture, their moisture, the shiver down the back, the quick flash of heat that crosses your brain - then he was able to say, "Okay,. This is fear. Step away from it. Step away.”