quotations about absence
Life has become the ideology of its own absence.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life
May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.
BIBLE
Genesis 31:49
You can decorate absence however you want--but your still gonna feel what's missing.
SIOBHAN VIVIAN
Same Difference
Of course I'll hurt you. Of course you'll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
Manon, Ballerina
But love will long for the absent things,
Ever the old earth over.
J.U. NICOLSON
String Stars for Pearls
Though absent, present to desires they be;
Our soul much further than our eyes can see.
MICHAEL DRAYTON
The Barons' Wars
Return, while night clatters and mirrors open and everything tears inside because of your absence. Everything wants to get on with the wind, the sky. To register a terrible gesture, some way ofbeing without you.
ALEJANDRA PIZARNIK
The Galloping Hour
Absent in body, but present in spirit.
APOSTLE PAUL
1 Corinthians 5:3
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Sonnet XCVII
Ye flowers that droop, forsaken by the spring,
Ye birds that, left by Summer, cease to sing,
Ye trees, that fade when Autumn-heats remove,
Say, is not absence death to those who love?
ALEXANDER POPE
Pastorals: Autumn
There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realise that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realise, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps.
HELEN MACDONALD
H is for Hawk
But now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird.
AUDREY NIFFENEGGER
The Time Traveler's Wife
Until she come again
The May is not the May,
And what she calls a week
Is forever and a day!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
Forever and a Day
Times daily change and we likewise in them;
Things out of sight do straight forgotten die.
WILLIAM ALEXANDER
Aurora
Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Maxims
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY
Isle of Beauty
In the absence of affection
We'll take anything and call it love
ROB THOMAS
"Absence of Affection", The Great Unknown
I felt her absence. It was like waking up one day with no teeth in your mouth.
JAMES DASHNER
The Scorch Trials
The absent party is still faulty.
GEORGE HERBERT
Jacula Prudentum
ABSENT, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary