GRIEF QUOTES
quotations about grief
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
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
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
It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.
SUE MONK KIDD
The Secret Life of Bees
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
RUMI
attributed, The Philosophy Book
Grief comes, a giantess, with strength to bind;
She grips our hand and glares into our eyes;
If we but kiss her mouth, she daily dies,
Fades into air, and leaves a flower behind.
WILLIAM WILSEY MARTIN
"Grief"
Receding from grief, it seems necessary to retrace the same steps that brought us there.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
For wherein is life sweet to him who suffers grief?
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Hoplon Krisis
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"
It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as if grief could be lessened by baldness.
CICERO
Tusculan Disputations
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
Self carries grief as a pack mule carries the side bags,
being careful between the trees to leave extra room.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Burlap Sack"
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
Grief never mended no broken bones.
CHARLES DICKENS
Sketches by Boz
I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Return of the King
Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
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
You do come out of it, that’s true. After a year, after five. But you don’t come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life.
JULIAN BARNES
Flaubert's Parrot
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
Slowly, grief tires and sleeps, but never dies. In time it grows used to its prison, and a relationship of respect develops between prisoner and jailer.
JOSEPHINE HART
Damage