GRIEF QUOTES

quotations about grief

Grief quote

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

Tags: Josephine Hart


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


Compare your griefs with other men's, and they will seem less.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust

Tags: Eliza Cook


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


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


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


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


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 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


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

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Written on the Body

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


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

Tags: Sue Monk Kidd


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"

Tags: William Wilsey Martin


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


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

CICERO

Tusculan Disputations

Tags: Cicero


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


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'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


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


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


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

JOHN GREEN

The Fault in Our Stars

Tags: John Green