Best 3947 quotes in «grief quotes» category

There was a super-8 steel town somewhere, where all the forgotten things in the cruel world ended up eventually, Mandy was sure of it… this place, she decided, was called Smog City.

There was healing in the tyranny, and tyranny in the healing.

There was little Hiroko Tanaka hadn’t learnt about the shameful resilience of the human heart.

There was the woman I was before my mom died and the one I was now, my old life sitting on the surface of me like a bruise.

There was this constant urge in me to tear my insides apart, I didn't know why. By the time I made my mind that it was impossible for me to do, there alighted the fear, haunting me with the words that rang constantly in my head, "You're not brave enough". I didn't feel devastated, I felt the urge to be devastated.

...there was something in the texture of the weave that felt happy: the echo of a memory so far down in his soul it was all emotion, a burst of colour and warmth, adrift from time and place.

There was this competitive grieving thing that could happen. People would crowd into the hospital and stand around for days, sort of posturing. That sounds terrible, but it's true. Not that they had bad intentions, just...you always want to believe you're important in someone's life. And sometimes, in the end, it turns out you aren't.

There will come a time when people decide you've had enough of your grief, and they'll try to take it away from you.

The risk of all friendship is, alas, a little grief.

The road of grief is often long and lonely and many stones need to be moved out of the way, but it is not without its lighter moments.

... the room rose in a rhythmic swaying motion, eyes ablaze or closed in tight serenity, afraid to let go of the emotion, joy, suffering and pain merged in the euphoria of the moment. (Vindication Across Time)

The role of Cherishing in Bereavement - I think that the key to healthy grieving is to cherish those who have passed on, so that you celebrate their lives and the times you did have together with thankfulness, instead of trying to cling on and wish that things were different. I believe that you should let them go in peace with love, not try to hang on to their spirits, just hold the precious moments gently in your heart.

The saddest sound in the universe is made when the heart breaks.

…the sad part is, that I will probably end up loving you without you for much longer than I loved you when I knew you. Some people might find that strange. But the truth of it is that the amount of love you feel for someone and the impact they have on you as a person, is in no way relative to the amount of time you have known them.

The sad fact is there are no natural deaths, despite what doctors say. Every death is felt by someone as a murder, the unjust taking of a loved being. And even the luckiest of us will encounter at least one murder in our own lives: our own. It is our fate. We all live a murder mystery of which we are the victim.

The scene sucker-punched Max. He never saw it coming. It encapsulated in one poignant instant the tragic beauty of his family history.

The sea of grief has no shores, no bottom; no one can sound its depths.

The sentiment that one "should have done something more" reflects, it seems to me, an underlying wish to control the uncontrollable. After all, if one is guilty about not having done something that one should have done, then it follows that there is something that could have been done - a comforting thought that decoys us from our pathetic helplessness in the face of death.

The shovel worked in and out of the light beams as the dirt hit him in the stomach, on his back, fell into his ears, his eyes, as I covered him along with the things that had made him: his walks, his rest, his eating when hungry, the stars he watched sometimes, the first day I brought him home, the first time he saw snow, and every second of his friendship, what he took with him into silence and stillness ...

The sharp, superficial pain at being spoken to unkindly had obscured the deeper pain, which had not yet turned into something hard and heavy.

The Silence of the Final Goodbye I knew you best from the silences, The time and space in between, The moment before our lips touched, The way your arms went up in the air before you laughed, The smile that we shared before we talked, The redness on your face before your tears, The sensation of your arms around me after you released the embrace. The look you gave me before you walked away, Nothing had ever been so painful, No words could say what your eyes told me, When I wake in the morning without you, It’s the first thing I hear… The silence of the final goodbye.

The soul's hands carry the heart's burdens.

The soul's tears are worth more than the heart's smiles.

The sounds of a man crying is a piteous noise, almost worse than an infant's cry. Babies are either hungry, sick or bored, or need changing. This man was none of those things. He was wrapped in grief as deep as the ocean, and no one could do anything to help him.

The spiritual messages for mum kept coming to me in meditation. I never questioned them, I just passed them on.

The Staging In the weeks after my mother's death, I sleep Four or five hours a night, often interrupted By dreams, and take two or three naps a day. It seems like enough. I can survive if I keep This sleep schedule as it has been constructed For me. But if it seems my reflexes are delayed, Or if I sway when I walk, or weep or do not weep, Please don't worry. I'm not under destruction. My grief has cast me in a lethargic cabaret. So pay the cover charge and take your seat. This mourning has become a relentless production And I've got seventy-eight roles to play.

The strength you seek to survive grief’s demands is not found in resistance but within the tenderness of your loving heart.

The sunlight now lay over the valley perfectly still. I went over to the graveyard beside the church and found them under the old cedars... I am finding it a little hard to say that I felt them resting there, but I did. I felt their completeness as whatever they had been in the world. I knew I had come there out of kindness, theirs and mine. The grief that came to me then was nothing like the grief I had felt for myself alone... This grief had something in it of generosity, some nearness to joy. In a strange way it added to me what I had lost. I saw that, for me, this country would always be populated with presences and absences, presences of absences, the living and the dead. The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, and of the world that is to come.

The sun still rises and sets, like it always has. It seems cruel that it wouldn’t stop, just for a little while, to show how much darker the world is without them in it.

...the sweetness of grace and freedom comes hand in hand with the uncomfortable, bitter-rawness of honest emotions and grief.

The theologian Karl Barth said, “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” If we can access our gratitude for having known and loved those we have lost, perhaps we can begin again to experience joy.

The tears of our grief - and the stories we tell in remembrance - are what carry the dead across to the other side.

The ticking of the clock has gotten so loud." - 74

The thing about dead people... The thing is you sound like a bastard if you don't romanticize them, but the truth is... complicated, I guess.

The thought of leaving her alone haunted me. The sadness was suffocating me and twisting my chest and my heart and I couldn't breathe properly. I wanted to escape my own body as the sadness drowned me. I felt like I could barely keep my head above water. This was a new depth of sadness.

The tears I feel today I'll wait to shed tomorrow. Though I'll not sleep this night Nor find surcease from sorrow. My eyes must keep their sight: I dare not be tear-blinded. I must be free to talk Not choked with grief, clear-minded. My mouth cannot betray The anguish that I know. Yes, I'll keep my tears til later: But my grief will never go.

The territory of grief is heavy. Even the word carries weight. Grief comes from the Latin word 'gravis,' meaning 'heavy,' from which we also get grave, gravity and gravid. We use the word gravitas to speak of a quality in some people who are able to carry the weight of the world with a dignified bearing. And so it is, when we learn to carry our grief with dignity.

The tough times start," he said, "the day the last casserole dish is returned.

The tragedy of her death was not that it made one, now and then and very intensely, unhappy. It was that it made her unreal; and us solemn, and self-conscious. We were made to act parts that we did not feel; to fumble for words that we did not know. It obscured, it dulled.

The voice of grief is rather convincing, isn’t it? It tells you you’re “too old,” “not good enough,” or “not worthy enough” for another chance at life, that starting over is impossible. This voice in your head is the first thing you hear in the morning and the last thing you hear at night. It drives with you to work. It stays with you at lunch. Its message is so consistent that because of its repetitive power, you may be inclined to believe it. But, as persuasive as the voice of grief is, everything it says is a lie. It’s all a pack of lies. Do you want the truth? If you do, then start listening to life calling to you inside your grief. How? Every time you are yearning to be held and loved, to laugh again, listen to your yearning. Do not listen to your fear . . . Listen to life calling you, “I am here, come on over. Take a chance on me. I am your life, and you’re all that I’ve got.

The times might be unpleasant, repulsive. The ghastly chaos, the abhorrent uncivility might be intolerable, might force us into argument or leave us panic-stricken. On such occasions people build within themselves a conviction, that the world outside is diabolical. The whimsical insults test our level of endurance causing us to plead for mercy, wanting us to be pitied than exploited and victimized. Often this grief and shame form a delusion within us that there no longer exists good in this world, that good people are fictitious and that goodness has lost its definition altogether. But such is not true because there are still people who are virtuous, unselfish, willing to help and possessing the ability of restoring our faith in humanity, to disregard them, their presence would be as heinous as the deeds of the people who are unlike them. The times might be unpleasant, repulsive but we’ll come out it, unharmed and liberated.

The truth is, we never know what life will bring us and we don't have as much control as we might think we have. But we CAN choose how we walk through life and how we spend our time.

The universe acknowledges the value of your tears; for when it rains, it is shedding its own.

The very nastiest and coarsest, I can't tell you. It is not grief, not dullness, but much worse. It is as if all that was good in me had hidden itself, and only what is horrid remains.

The way you eliminate the sad messages that play in your brain over and over again, is to do a workout every day to hear the solutions and not only the pain.

The whole encounter was surreal. No one had mentioned cancer. I hadn’t requested special treatment for Jacob. Yet he’d just nabbed a private meeting with an actor from his favorite movie. I would later ask Mike, the comic book store owner, what had prompted him to invite Jacob to the supper and a private meeting with Mr. Bulloch. “It was Jeremy at the door. He recognized something in Jacob. Jeremy is a cancer survivor.

The wife watched her neighbor get fat over the next year. The Germans have a word for that. Kummerspeck. Literally, grief bacon.

The train blows, just when I was forgetting. Forgetting that I am here alone. And I wonder if those cars got held up by its passing, just as I have yours.

The train blows through town delivering reality, slapping my face and screaming, “You are alone” Rose colored memories drown, taking their last breath.

The truth of it was he didn't want her. He wanted Mary Kate with every cell of his body. He missed everything about her. The feel of her sleeping at his side. Her gentle snores. Her soft brown curls tickling his nose enough to wake him from a sound sleep even on nights when he needed it most. Her smile. The smell of her. At odd moments he thought he had heard her laughter, or he'd catch a glimpse of her in the corner of an eye, but all of it was a lie, and every time it happened it was as if someone had ripped a deep wound in his chest. The pain was raw enough to make him want to take a razor to his wrist, but each time he considered acting upon the idea something stopped him, and so, he stumbled on barely alive and wishing for an end. At times he couldn't breathe, couldn't move without wanting to scream.