GRIEF QUOTES II

quotations about grief

Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Written on the Body

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


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 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


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


Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

SOPHOCLES

Antigone

Tags: Sophocles


Grief--unlike sex, music, and cheating at cards--was not a skill that could be honed by practice.

TIM PRATT

Cup and Table


Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.

XENOPHON

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Xenophon


She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.

JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Everything Is Illuminated


For wherein is life sweet to him who suffers grief?

AESCHYLUS

fragment, Hoplon Krisis

Tags: Aeschylus


Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wafters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Much Ado About Nothing

Tags: William Shakespeare


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


Grief never mended no broken bones.

CHARLES DICKENS

Sketches by Boz

Tags: Charles Dickens


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


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


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

CICERO

Tusculan Disputations

Tags: Cicero


To me, and to the state of my great grief,
Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great
That no supporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up: here I and sorrow sit;
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

King John

Tags: William Shakespeare


Grief and guilt. A powerful combination. Guilt like a liquid, a thin liquor, seeping everywhere, informing everything, saturating the whole--corrosive, like seawater, scented with the rich stench of ordure and corruption, and carrying with it hard, abrasive shards of grief.

SIMON MAWER

The Gospel of Judas

Tags: Simon Mawer


Love is an engraved invitation to grief.

SUNSHINE O'DONNELL

Open Me


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