GRIEF QUOTES II

quotations about grief

grief is a house
where the chairs
have forgotten how to hold us
the mirrors how to reflect us
the walls how to contain us

JANDY NELSON

The Sky Is Everywhere


Receding from grief, it seems necessary to retrace the same steps that brought us there.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Tender Is the Night

Tags: F. Scott Fitzgerald


Whatever sorrow thy young heart have found,
Open it well, this ever-sacred wound
Dealt by dark angels--give thy soul relief.
Naught makes us nobler than a noble grief.

EMMA LAZARUS

"Muse"

Tags: Emma Lazarus


Joy and grief are things of great hazard and danger in the life of man: The one breaks the heart; the other intoxicates the head.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms

Tags: Benjamin Whichcote


Ye, O ye
Shall grieve, and ye shall grieve, and ye shall grieve.
Your Life shall bend and o'er his shuttle toil,
A weaver weaving at the loom of grief.

SIDNEY LANIER

"The Jacquerie: A Fragment"


We postpone the finality of heartbreak by clinging to hope. Though this might be acceptable during early or transitional stages of grief, ultimately it is no way to live. We need both hands free to embrace life and accept love, and that's impossible if one hand has a death grip on the past.

KRISTIN ARMSTRONG

O Magazine, Feb. 2007

Tags: Kristin Armstrong


There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.

JODI PICOULT

My Sister's Keeper


I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.

J. R. R. TOLKIEN

The Return of the King

Tags: J. R. R. Tolkien


It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

The Brothers Karamazov

Tags: Fyodor Dostoevsky


Oh, what grief not to have
grief, and to spend your life
on the colorless grass
of the undecided path!

FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

"Crossroads"

Tags: Federico Garcia Lorca


It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as if grief could be lessened by baldness.

CICERO

Tusculan Disputations

Tags: Cicero


Grief never mended no broken bones.

CHARLES DICKENS

Sketches by Boz

Tags: Charles Dickens


We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.

C. S. LEWIS

A Grief Observed

Tags: C. S. Lewis


For wherein is life sweet to him who suffers grief?

AESCHYLUS

fragment, Hoplon Krisis

Tags: Aeschylus


Grief is like the wake behind a boat. It starts out as a huge wave that follows close behind you and is big enough to swamp and drown you if you suddenly stop moving forward. But if you do keep moving, the big wake will eventually dissipate. And after a long time, the waters of your life get calm again, and that is when the memories of those who have left begin to shine as bright and as enduring as the stars above.

JIMMY BUFFETT

A Salty Piece of Land


It's funny, how one can look back on a sorrow one thought one might well die of at the time, and know that one had not yet reckoned the tenth part of true grief.

JACQUELINE CAREY

Kushiel's Dart

Tags: Jacqueline Carey


Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.

JOAN DIDION

The Year of Magical Thinking

Tags: Joan Didion


Perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.

SARAH WATERS

The Little Stranger


All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness, while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points.

MADAME SWETCHINE

"Airelles,", The Writings of Madame Swetchine

Tags: Madame Swetchine


Love is an engraved invitation to grief.

SUNSHINE O'DONNELL

Open Me