Mitch Albom · 512 pages
Rating: (22.9K votes)
“All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“The secret is not to make your music louder, but to make the world quieter.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“This is life. Things get taken away. You will learn to start over many times -- or you will be useless.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“You cannot write if you do not read,” the blind man said. “You cannot eat if you do not chew. And you cannot play if you do not”—he grabbed for the boy’s hand—“listen.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“But you cannot change your past, no matter how you craft your future.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“In every artist’s life, there comes a person who lifts the
curtain on creativity. It is the closest you come to seeing
me again.
The first time, when you emerge from the womb, I am a
brilliant color in the rainbow of human talents from which
you choose. Later, when a special someone lifts the curtain,
you feel that chosen talent stirring inside you, a bursting
passion to sing, paint, dance, bang on drums. And you are never the same.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Every loss leaves a hole in your heart.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“You humans are always locking each other away. Cells. Dungeons. Some of your earliest jails were sewers, where men sloshed in their own waste. No other creature has this arrogance—to confine its own. Could you imagine a bird imprisoning another bird? A horse jailing a horse? As a free form of expression, I will never understand it. I can only say that some of my saddest sounds have been heard in such places. A song inside a cage is never a song. It is a plea.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Sometimes I think the greatest talent of all is perseverance.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“You cannot ask things to do what they are not meant to do. Eventually, they will break.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Truth is light. Lies are shadows. Music is both.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“There are moments on earth when the Lord smiles at the unexpected sweetness of His creation.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“You cannot unplay your notes. Time, like music, is indelible that way.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“There is a reason you glance up when you first hear a melody, or tap your foot to the sound of a drum. All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up—through distance, differences, divorce, or death.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“You’re never in love with anyone the way you are when you’re eighteen,”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“At a certain point, your life is more about your legacy to your kids than anything else.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“What would you give to remember everything? I have this power. I absorb your memories; when you hear me, you relive them. A first dance. A wedding. The song that played when you got the big news. No other talent gives your”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Music is in the connection of human souls, speaking a language that needs no words. Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world. Frankie’s”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“I have said that music allows for quick creation. But it is nothing compared with what you humans can destroy in a single conversation.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Inside all humans is the entirety of your memories, the ones you can access and the ones you cannot.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Talent is a piece of God's shadow. And under that shadow, human stories intersect.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“A teacher’s shadow can hover for life.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Remember this, Francisco,” he said. “The secret is not to make your music louder, but to make the world quieter.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Man searches for courage in drink, but it is not courage that he finds, it is fear that he loses. A drunken man may step off a cliff. That does not make him brave, just forgetful.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“Do not cry for losing blood. Not for something you love.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
“I [Music] was born in the open air, in the breaks of waves and the whistling of sandstorms, the hoots of owls and the cackles of tui birds. I travel in echoes. I ride the breeze. I was forged in nature, rugged and raw. Only man shapes my edges to make me beautiful. [Chapter 2]”
― Mitch Albom, quote from The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
Mitch Albom
Born place: in Passaic, New Jersey, The United States
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“There was a few seconds' pause. Then Amit said: I meant, what were you thinking just now.
When? said Lata.
When you were looking at Pran and Savita. Over the pudding.
Oh.
Well, what?
I can't remember, said Lata with a smile.
Amit laughed.
Why are you laughing? asked Lata
I like making you feel uncomfortable, I suppose.
Oh. Why?
--Or happy--or puzzled--just to see your change of mood. It's such fun. I pity you!
Why? said Lata, startled.
Because you'll never know what a pleasure it is to be in your company.
Do stop talking like that, said Lata. Ma will come in any minute.
You're quite right. In that case: Will you marry me?
Lata dropped her cup. It fell to the floor and broke. She looked at the broken pieces--luckily, it has been empty--and then at Amit.
Quick! said Amit. Before they come running to see what's happened. Say yes.
Lata had knelt down; she was gathering he bits of the cup together and placing them on the delicately patterned blue-and-gold saucer.
Amit joined her on the floor. Her face was only a few inches away from his, but her mind appeared to be somewhere else. he wanted to kiss her but he sensed that there was no question of it. One by one she picked up the shards of china.
Was it a family heirloom? asked Amit.
What? I'm sorry--said Lata, snapped out of her trance by the words.
Well, I suppose I'll have to wait. I was hoping that by springing it on you like that I'd surprise you into agreeing...
...Do stop being idotic, Amit, said Lata. You're so brilliant, do you have to be so stupid as well? I should only take you seriously in black and white.
And in sickness and health.
Lata laughed: For better and for worse, she added.”
― Vikram Seth, quote from A Suitable Boy
“Life is hard, and children have to be told how hard life can be…So they will be sympathetic to others. So they will understand that some people have it harder than they do and that a trip through this world can be a wildly different experience, depending on what chemicals are raging through one’s mind.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Silver Linings Playbook
“I always say the truth is best even when we find it unpleasant. Any rat in a sewer can lie. It's how rats are. It's what makes them rats. But a human doesn't run and hide in dark places, because he's something more. Lying is the most personal act of cowardice there is.”
― Nancy Farmer, quote from The House of the Scorpion
“...the past was so painful at any point. It seared and burned.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy
“With me, it was my liver that was out of order. […] I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being "a general disinclination to work of any kind."
What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, quote from Three Men in a Boat
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