The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course.

I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.

Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.

Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.

What they never tell you about grief is that missing someone is the simple part.

memory is both the curse of grief and the eventual talisman against it; what at first seems unbearable becomes the succor that can outlast pain.

Hope in the beginning feels like such a violation of the loss, and yet without it we couldn't survive.

The real hell of this," he told her, "is that you're going to get through it.

the territory of grief ... is both cruel and commonplace.

That she was irreplaceable became a bittersweet loyalty: Her death was what I had now instead of her.

dear kiara, The women in the shop told me that yellow rose represents friendship and red rose shows love. And the rosery is the only thing i own that i care for, its yours i'm yours C

The Art of Muses is the Bridge of Feeling.

I believe people are much more complicated than they can handle.

Never send a boy to do a woman's job.

Eighteen might look at thirty-four through a rising mist of adolescence, but twenty-two would see thirty-eight with discerning clarity.

There never was found a man who had courage to acknowledge himself a coward.

Beginning to create again was something that I took for granted but I never will take it for granted again.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

How come I love having an episode of deja vu? It's akin to an out-of-body experience, I would think. It sits with me, happily, begging me to delve into my memory to find its match point.

There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.