The Time Keeper

Mitch Albom, 2012


Man alone measures time
Man alone chimes the hour
And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures
A fear of time running out

Most small demonstrations of love, it had a large impact

The thing that moved man further from the simple light of existence and deeper into the darkness of his own obsession. Time.

As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart. People fretted over missed chances, over inefficient days; they worried constantly about how long they would live, because counting life's moments had led, inevitably, to counting them down.

Man invents nothing that God did not create first.

It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.

You marked the minutes, but did you use them wisely? To be still? To cherish? To be grateful? To lift and be lifted?

Only God can write the end of your story.

The hands of a clock will find their way home.

Sometimes, when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will.

With his power over time, Dor could have taken anything he desired from this new world. But a man who can take anything will find most things unsatisfying. And a man without memories is just a shell.

We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have.

The tools of this era - phones, computers - enabled people to move at a blurring pace. Yet despite all they accomplished, they were never at peace.

Knowing something and understanding it were not the same thing.

What you have done to this point cannot be undone. What you do next.... It is still unwritten.

When we are most alone is where we embrace another's loneliness.

Hurting ourselves to inflict pain on others is just another cry to be loved.

Time is not something you give back. The very next moment may be an answer to your prayer. To deny that is to deny the most important part of the future - Hope.

Ends are for yesterdays, not tomorrows.

With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can't appreciate what we have.

There is a reason God limits our days. To make each one precious.

There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between sunrises was gone.

Everything man does today to be efficient, to fill the hour - it does not satisfy. It only makes him hungry to do more. Man wants to own his existence. But no one owns time.

When you are measuring life, you are not living it.

All who are born are always dying.

We cannot stop what Heaven chooses.