Best 451 quotes in «mourning quotes» category

...And yet a knowledge is here that tenses the throat as for song: the inheritance of the ones, alive or once alive, who stand behind the ones I have imagined, who took into their minds the troubles of this place, blights of love and race, but saw a good fate here and willingly paid its cost, kept it the best they could, thought of its good, and mourned the good they lost. (From the ending of Where in Clearing, p179)

An explosion in space makes no sound at all.

Are you past pity? If you have consciousness now, if I something I can call "you" has something like "consciousness," I doubt you remember the last days. I play them over and over: I lift your wasted body onto the commode, your arms looped around my neck, aiming your bony bottom so that it will not bruise on a rail. Faintly you repeat, "Momma, Momma.

As they walked out onto Second Avenue, with David in a body bag, there was one last surreal moment. The singer and composer Diamanda Galás happened to be walking by. She and David had never met, but they'd spoken once on the phone. She shared his commitment to addressing AIDS, in her case through 'The Plague Mass,' which showcased her five-octave range and fierce persona. Galás does not remember being on Second Avenue that night, but she made an indelible impression on Zimmerman and Glantzman. She had walked by, but as they were putting David into the hearse, she spun around and ran back, yelling, 'Who is that? Is that David Wojnarowicz?' Zimmerman and Brown didn't answer. What Glantzman remembers is that Diamanda Galás was there at the door, screaming. 'As if our feelings were amplified,' said Glantzman. 'Hysterical screaming.

As soon as someone dies, frenzied construction of the future (shifting furniture, etc.): futuromania.

A woman protested saying, "Of course it was a righteous war. My son fell in it.".

A teraz, już po wszystkim, coś nowego się zaczęło, nowego dla mnie - trudna sztuka życia po śmierci.

Axsem would say nothing more to any of them. No sooner had Fallon released him than he fled deep into the trees, staff in hand, with Hailos following after. Through the morning air, they heard the wail of his mourning. The scarred heart of the general was torn wide open by having to recall even one abbreviated story from his past. He needed time to coddle his mangled heart and push away the torturous memories.

Bereavement seemed to work on him as a kind of blanket allergy, making him edgy and irritable to all the outside world. And of course it was reciprocal; the world receded on him.

Be sure that your praise songs are numbered higher than your sorrowful dirges and your utmost hope, firmer than your woeful regrets. Be positive.

...blessing and cursing are born as twins and separated at birth to meet again in mourning

But someone I know is dying-- And though one might say glibly, "everyone is," The different pace makes the difference absolute.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. [Matt 5:4]

Broken and bewildered, my brother had the house cleared and packed away, painted and polished, all in the first month or two after the wave. For him, that was the practical thing to do, to impose order on the unfathomable, perhaps.

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love: A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! —Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

But we are not going to talk about that right now, because to talk about it I'll have to think about it, and I've thought it to death over the last year. There are parts of my brain that are still tirelessly thinking about it, about her, an entire research and development department wholly dedicated to finding new ways to grieve and mourn and feel sorry for myself. And let me tell you, they're good at what they do down there. So I'll leave them to it.

But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying, If I am dead, as dead I well may be, You'll come and find the place where I am lying, And kneel and say Ave there for me, And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me, And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be, For you will bend and tell me that you love me, And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me

Music, When Soft Voices Die Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.

But most of all I wrote about him - now called Max - my brother, our friend, missing now for 10 days. And I wrote about what I’d lost that morning. The witness of my soul, my shadow in childhood when dreams were small and attainable for all. When sweets were a penny and God was a rabbit.

But perhaps it's that Grey is dead. It still feels like the moon fell out of the sky.

Christmas lights, again, piercing like knives. The spirit of that season was never more remote than during those dark December days.

Can you remember another time when your chest felt like this?” My fingers splayed across my aching chest as I carefully pondered her question. Then I nodded vigorously as I remembered. Tears streamed down my cheeks unchecked as I whispered hoarsely, “Yes, I do remember.After my husband died, it hurt like this. My chest felt full and heavy, and I thought then, Oh, this is what it feels like to have your heart break.

Contrary to what a lot of people believe (or hope), comfort doesn’t take the pain away. Comfort slides in beside the pain, pulling up a chair so that we have something more than sorrow in our hearts. Comfort gently expands our spirits so that we can breathe again. Comfort opens our eyes so that we can see possibility again. And on those days, whether it is the next day or five years removed, on that day when grief rears its dark head again, comfort helps us remember that pain is not all there is

Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.

Clown: Good Madonna, why mournest thou? Olivia: Good Fool, for my brother's death. Clown:I think his soul is in hell, Madonna. Olivia:I know his soul is in heaven, Fool. Clown: The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven.

Death moved in the night, in search for blood, and when it found Life, it passed on by, like a cloud that moves by the face of the moon. When he found those dead without the red, he took the life before them born first, and the mourning emptied itself till the morning.

Death brings with it a duty and devotion that cannot be explained to those who don't know it.

Death abides by no one's rules...it takes what pleases it without consciousness to its decisions. It destroys what it will. It took the pieces of perfection I once knew and shattered them. Now what remains are shards of a dream, drawing blood with every step.

Death never pierces the heart so much as when it takes someone we love; cleaving the heart they held with their passing.

Do you have any idea why you might be feeling better?” “No, not really,” I said curtly. Better wasn’t even the word for how I felt. There wasn’t a word for it. It was more that things too small to mention—laughter in the hall at school, a live gecko scurrying in a tank in the science lab—made me feel happy one moment and the next like crying. Sometimes, in the evenings, a damp, gritty wind blew in the windows from Park Avenue, just as the rush hour traffic was thinning and the city was emptying for the night; it was rainy, trees leafing out, spring deepening into summer; and the forlorn cry of horns on the street, the dank smell of the wet pavement had an electricity about it, a sense of crowds and static, lonely secretaries and fat guys with bags of carry-out, everywhere the ungainly sadness of creatures pushing and struggling to live. For weeks, I’d been frozen, sealed-off; now, in the shower, I would turn up the water as hard as it would go and howl, silently. Everything was raw and painful and confusing and wrong and yet it was as if I’d been dragged from freezing water through a break in the ice, into sun and blazing cold.

Don't cry for the dead, for the dead is deaf, dumb, blind, lame, unemotional and dead.

Don’t you believe that Jacob can be healed?” some persisted, pressuring Elizabeth to believe—just believe—and Jacob would be healed. The underlying message was that Elizabeth’s faith was not strong enough to save her son. I remembered then the same kind of statements David and I had heard when he was undergoing cancer treatment, when several well-intentioned people informed David that all he had to do to rid his body of cancer was to believe he was healed. I’d resented the implications then, and I resented them for my daughter now. People die. Good people like David die too young, and innocent little children die, and the strongest faith in the world cannot keep anyone on this earth forever. If only the same Christians professing their faith in healing could clearly see the flip side of that faith, that earth was not where we ultimately belonged. If Jacob died, he would be going Home.

Do your things on earth as your heart commands! When there comes to you that day of mourning, The Weary-hearted hears not their mourning, Wailing saves no man from the pit!

Do you know what I remember? When [my father] read to me. Stupid things, dragons and heroes. He wouldn’t turn a page until I reached over and took his hand. That big man made every step of the story my choice. I loved that. He died of the wasting, in a Denerim ward. Those last weeks I read to him. I had to take his hand to turn the pages. And I couldn’t tell if he was too weak, or if it was the old game…No one tells you how to mourn. And when someone says, “move on”, you take their hand and say “my choice.

During the prayers of the day, there was one less “amen”.

Elle n'aimait pas parler d'elle, encore moins qu'on en dise du bien. Je vais en profiter, maintenant qu'elle est partie.

Each death frames previous deaths in a different light, and even deaths to come. During the time my mother was sick, I found myself crying uncontrollably over the deaths of people I barely knew.

Each death laid a dreadful charge of complicity on the living; each death was incongenerous, its guilt irreducible, its sadness immortal; a bracelet of bright hair about the bone. I did not pray for her, because prayer has no efficacy; I did not cry for her, because only extroverts cry twice; I sat in the silence of that night, that infinite hostility to man, to permanence, to love, remembering her, remembering her.

Even the most blatant assholes seemed to function in a state of grace when confronted with the brutal loss of a loved one. They moved through the world differently than other people. When they looked at you, you had the feeling that they were really seeing you. Their entire universe was just this one thing, this one event, this one loss. They seemed, for a few weeks, to have things in perspective. Then the inconsequential shit of their lives would start to seep back in.

Even now, I feel your arms around me My breath is your breath and yours mine Even now, I hear you laughing like bells ... You sing to me and I sing to you Dear child of my womb, my love, Time has left us, left us forever together.

Everybody here is infirm. Everybody here is infirm.

Everything was a broken line for me in those days. I was slipped into the empty spaces between words.

Everyone is “extremely nice”—and yet I feel entirely alone. (“Abandonitis”).

Everything pains me. The merest trifle rouses a sense of abandonment. I'm impatient with other people, their will to live, their universe. Attracted by a decision to withdraw from everyone [no longer bearing the world of Y].

exactly half the phenomenal world is gone

Falling out of love is a lot harder than falling in love. When you fall in love, everything is beautiful—flowers bloom, music plays, and every star in the sky is winking at you. But falling out of love is like finding yourself in a pitch-black tunnel. At first you think in time you’ll get through it, and then you realize how terribly long the tunnel is. I’m starting to see pinpricks of light ahead, so I might be coming to the end, but I’m not there yet.

Feelings are great, and they have a purpose, but it’s certainly not to guide your life. Whoever said, “Follow your heart” was a fool. Your “heart” is your emotional center. Emotions have a great purpose - to allow us to enjoy life, to mourn loss, to have a tangible way to experience love - but feelings are fickle, and they are not meant to be the guiding force in our life.

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy

For as much as I hate the cemetery, I’ve been grateful it’s here, too. I miss my wife. It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.

For all her culture's attention to the physical, it seemingly has little to salve the creatural anguish of losing someone else's body, their touch, their heat, their oceanic heart...she doesn't want another body, she wants the body she loved, the forceps scar across his cheek that she traced with her hand, his penis, its elegant sweep to the side, the preternaturally soft skin. One wants what one has loved, not the idea of love.