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


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


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

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust

Tags: Eliza Cook


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"


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

TIM PRATT

Cup and Table


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


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 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


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


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


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


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'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 teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

SOPHOCLES

Antigone

Tags: Sophocles


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

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics

Tags: William Hazlitt


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


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


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


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