Mitch Albom

You have to stop and you have to listen.

And I began to become a listener.

Well, I think it's kind of cynical to look at something that moves people and say, oh, you're just manipulating them.

I don't know what drives a person to think of criticism like that.

I don't think I've ever looked at anything that's moved me and felt that the author, the director, the songwriter was out there to just try to trick me.

I've never done that in my life.

I wouldn't know how.

And in fact, what's funny is Tuesdays with Maury,

I had one goal in writing Tuesdays with Maury from a writing perspective, and that was don't overdo it.

You know, I had read, I was a sports writer.

I'd never written anything like that before.

And I read a bunch of books about death and, you know, different accounts of death.

And they were beautiful.

You know, some of them were so beautiful.

poetic in the words that they use.

And I said to myself, you can't do that.

You don't have that skill set at your age.

and your experience with sports, keep it simple.

Just strip it down.

In fact, when I turned the book in, it was supposed to be 300 pages, and I didn't really keep a very good count of it.