Grief Quotes

Death seemed to lose its terrors and to borrow a grace and dignity in sublime keeping with the life that was ebbing away.

No point carrying useless ballast. It won't change a thing.

Acknowledgment--being seen and heard and witnessed inside the truth about one's own life--is the only real medicine of grief.

Every loss is valid. And every loss is not the same. You can't flatten the landscape of grief and say that everything is equal. It isn't.

True comfort in grief is in acknowledging the pain, not in trying to make it go away. Companionship, not correction, is the way forward.

Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.

When you try to take someone's pain away from them, you don't make it better. You just tell them it's not OK to talk about their pain.

For this reason, it is well said that misfortune is sometimes good for something, for it teaches at the same time that it hurts.

If you did not live lovingly and love deeply, you would not feel the pain of separation. But neither would you feel the joy, passion, and happiness that living fully and loving deeply bring.

Love is a powerful force. There is nothing in this world, no other energy, as powerful as the force of genuine, unconditional love.

May you know always that you are never alone, that life and love are eternal, and that you are extraordinary.

There is an old phrase, ‘hiding in plain sight.’ This is where we find the loved one we miss so much. All we need to do is open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts.

What is hope? Like love, it is hard to define, but easy to recognize, a state of being that compels us to go on. It is a feeling that we have what we need to continue our journey to the next moment.

If that’s the case, I understand why emotions are hard for you. You’ve numbed yourself to make room for the grief you carry.

I gave up drinking before my twentieth birthday. I haven’t touched the stuff since. And I’ve discovered that not everyone who does horrible things is a horrible person.

See, you’ve got to understand, son. There’s two types of guys in this world. There’s guys . . . who think they’re in control, and guys like us who live in the moment. Who accept life as it is.

It’s like you’re always living in your head. . . . Relax and appreciate your surroundings a little.

I lost someone close to me once . . . Taught me to live in the moment. Life is short, you know?

It feels like I’m stuck in one spot. It’s been this way for a long time. I know you understand, but now you’re moving on without me. And I—I’m not ready to be alone.

It’s like everyone has their own little recipe for happiness, but no one really seems all that happy.

Happiness isn’t something you work toward, the same way misery isn’t something you work toward.

I know it is difficult to believe in your own courage or fortitude when everything inside of you feels weak and shattered. But do not believe what you feel. You will not be easily broken.

What else has kept any of us going, but love of someone or the memory of that love?

We weren’t that different after all, our souls laden with the same ache of loss, our hearts bursting with the same longing to save what remained of all we loved.

Embrace the pain

My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.

How many times can a heart be shattered and still be pieced back together? How many times before the damage is irreparable?

He wipes tears off my face and then snot. He uses his hands. He loves me that much.

I’d give in to the grief but make sure I wasn’t loud enough to draw attention from those who think words will make me feel better.

His absence is so big it's like he's there.

I lost my father this past year, and the word feels right because I keep looking for him. As if he were misplaced. As if he could just turn up, like a sock or a set of keys.

There is uncertainty in hope, but even with its tenuous nature, it summons our strength and pulls us through fear and grief— and even death.

And thus we all are nighingThe truth we fear to know:Death will end our cryingFor friends that come and go.

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. It's a plague. It's like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and someone just keep pulling it and pulling it."STATE OF WONDER

Nobody died. how can you kill an idea? How can you kill the personification of an action?""Then what died? who are you mourning?""A point of view.

I don't say goodbye very easily, Anna. Not gracefully or prettily.Goodbye tears your heart out and leaves it a feast for carrion birds who happen by.

...do you actually think that how long a person grieves is a measure of how much they loved someone?

The day she was born, her grandfather made her a ring of silver and a polished stone, because he loved her already.

She was made mostly of coffee and empty spaces.

Psychologists have clinically observed that overly prolonged grief in the bereaved usually signifies a poor relationship with the one who died.

There was something about other people's grief that was so exposing, so personal, that she felt she shouldn't be looking.

And this evening when I close my eyes against the darkness and think about her, I'll imagine iridescent wings fluttering, if only for a moment, against cloudless blue skies.

I wonder if my first breath was as soul-stirring to my mother as her last breath was to me. – From 14 Days: A Mother, A Daughter, A Two-Week Goodbye

Oh dire, dreadful death, you drag your heels.Why dawdle and draw back? You drown my heart.

...the only thing really worth doing in this life is giving love to everyone around you.

more. To have days cut off and at their end. To never again..........anything.

Adam pressed his hand to his face. Sighed. "Right. It's just that… He died. And I'm so freaking pissed off, I swear I'd punch him in the face if he were standing right here.

... [They] took it upon themselves to start the laborious process of cranking up life again, after death has stopped us all in its tracks.

Why wait to forgive and let go only after you have sufficiently wallowed in your despair? Why not forgive and let go now?

In this quiet place on a quiet streetwhere no one ever finds usgently, lovingly, freedom gives back our pain.--from poem In a Quiet Place on a Quiet Street