quotations about grief
grief is a house
where the chairs
have forgotten how to hold us
the mirrors how to reflect us
the walls how to contain us
JANDY NELSON
The Sky Is Everywhere
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
Oh, what grief not to have
grief, and to spend your life
on the colorless grass
of the undecided path!
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
"Crossroads"
Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.
JOAN DIDION
The Year of Magical Thinking
It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.
SUE MONK KIDD
The Secret Life of Bees
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
RUMI
attributed, The Philosophy Book
It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Brothers Karamazov
Grief never mended no broken bones.
CHARLES DICKENS
Sketches by Boz
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
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
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"
Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
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
All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness, while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles,", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wafters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Much Ado About Nothing
Grief--unlike sex, music, and cheating at cards--was not a skill that could be honed by practice.
TIM PRATT
Cup and Table
Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.
SOPHOCLES
Antigone
Love is an engraved invitation to grief.
SUNSHINE O'DONNELL
Open Me
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"
Compare your griefs with other men's, and they will seem less.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust