GRIEF QUOTES

quotations about grief

Grief quote

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


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


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


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


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

Tags: Julian Barnes


Grief does not change you.... It reveals you.

JOHN GREEN

The Fault in Our Stars

Tags: John Green


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


It is better to drink of deep griefs than to taste shallow pleasures.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics

Tags: William Hazlitt


Self carries grief as a pack mule carries the side bags,
being careful between the trees to leave extra room.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

"Burlap Sack"

Tags: Jane Hirshfield


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


Grief does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature. It becomes a kind of personal weather system. Snow settles in the liver. The bowels grow thick with humidity. Ice congeals in the stomach. Frost spiderwebs in the lungs. The heart fills with warm rain that turns to mist and evaporates through a colder artery.

ADAM RAPP

Nocturne

Tags: Adam Rapp


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 better to keep grief inside. Grief inside works like bees or ants, building curious and perfect structures, complicating you. Grief outside means you want something from someone, and chances are good you won't get it.

HILARY THAYER HAMANN

Anthropology of an American Girl


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


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


For wherein is life sweet to him who suffers grief?

AESCHYLUS

fragment, Hoplon Krisis

Tags: Aeschylus


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


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


Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to woe;
Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.

JOHN FLETCHER

The Queen of Corinth

Tags: John Fletcher


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