Site uses cookies to provide basic functionality.

OK
1 2 ▲ ▼
Link Quote Stars Tags Author
5a77e9f Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you. grief loss revelation John Green
9d3936d I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil. grief J.R.R. Tolkien
c35124f Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them. grief inspirational Leo Tolstoy
dc030e4 No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. grief sorrow C.S. Lewis
542150b When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time--the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes--when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever--there comes another day, and another specifically missing part. grief loss John Irving
779cf4f Grief can destroy you --or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life. grief Dean Koontz
c33dc25 To weep is to make less the depth of grief. grief sorrow William Shakespeare
6d1b6a0 Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break. mourning words grief loss sorrow sadness William Shakespeare
7fce05f And I can't be running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight. grief happiness confusion J.D. Salinger
129846d We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination. mourning grief suffering reality personal-experience others experience C.S. Lewis
48a5956 My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today. grief loss Richard Adams
90376fc Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love. grief life love Jonathan Safran Foer
9f4fab9 But what was there to say grief sadness happiness love inspirational emptiness forbidden quietness laws Arundhati Roy
cbc4408 But what was there to say? Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief. Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much. grief sadness happiness love inspirational forbidden quietness laws Arundhati Roy
2fe6d8a No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me. mourning loneliness grief loss fear restlessness C.S. Lewis
703dceb Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don't notice it, but, out of the blue, it'll flare to life. grief death Maria V. Snyder
09b6314 "For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time." grief loss faith stillbirth grieving C.S. Lewis
187c669 I am crying, he thought, opening his eyes to stare through the soapy, stinging water. I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater. But he wasn't crying. Curiously, he felt too depressed to cry. Too hurt. It felt as if she'd taken the part of him that cried. grief feeling-broken John Green
0bb3abe It reminds me that no embrace will ever feel the same again, because no one will ever be like her again, because she's gone. She's gone, and crying feels so useless, so stupid, but it's all I can do. grief loss love tris tobias Veronica Roth
f02ad5c You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live. grief death Neil Gaiman
217f705 Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle. pain grief loss sadness love missing-someone Veronica Roth
e555356 Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing something you've already had. grief life ethical ran jodi-picoult perfect-match moral Jodi Picoult
2fd3f77 I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. I am terrified and I don't even know of what, because I have lost everything already. grief tris tobias Veronica Roth
6de5dd8 See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tide: at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded. grief life Jodi Picoult
f06b065 Grief reunites you with what you've lost. It's a merging; you go with the loved thing or person that's going away. You follow it a far as you can go. But finally,the grief goes away and you phase back into the world. Without him. And you can accept that. What the hell choice is there? You cry, you continue to cry, because you don't ever completely come back from where you went with him -- a fragment broken off your pulsing, pumping heart is there still. A cut that never heals. And if, when it happens to you over and over again in life, too much of your heart does finally go away, then you can't feel grief any more. And then you yourself are ready to die. You'll walk up the inclined ladder and someone else will remain behind grieving for you. grief Philip K. Dick
d8835a2 Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. grief religion god C.S. Lewis
f33e9cb Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance. grief depression proportion Andrew Solomon
2ccf6ad In days that follow, I discover that anger is easier to handle than grief. grief Emily Giffin
91247c4 "Take any emotion--love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. "But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment'." pain grief life love truth detachment emotions vulnerability Mitch Albom
e6e8f37 My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. grief loss faith stillbirth grieving C.S. Lewis
7e4f683 "There is much asked and only so much I think I can or should answer, and so, in this post I would like to give a few thoughts on what seemed to be the overwhelming question: "WHY?" And here is the best answer I can give: Because. Because sometimes, life is damned unfair. Because sometimes, we lose people we love and it hurts deeply. Because sometimes, as the writer, you have to put your characters in harm's way and be willing to go there if it is the right thing for your book, even if it grieves you to do it. Because sometimes there aren't really answers to our questions except for what we discover, the meaning we assign them over time. Because acceptance is yet another of life's "here's a side of hurt" lessons and it is never truly acceptance unless it has cost us something to arrive there. grief reason why Libba Bray
1a1e24c Grief ... gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness. time grief senselessness C.S. Lewis
59fa53e Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy grief depression Joseph Conrad
0473c38 The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on. When you're faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking. grief loss James Patterson
6f1daa4 I waited for dawn, but only because I had forgotten how hard mornings were. For a second I'd be normal. Then came the dim awareness of something off, out of place. Then the truth came crashing down and that was it for the rest of the day. Sunlight was reproof. Shouldn't I feel better than I had in the dead of night. grief loss sorrow sadness sad Francine Prose
563e1fd Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: It was his own grief turned magically to song.. grief song phoenix-lament terrible J.K. Rowling
2e2dc83 I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history. { ] grief bloody religious-violence priests cross jefferson thomas-jefferson John Adams
efb45cc It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness. grief fear-and-loathing sorrow inspirational advice-for-daily-living Marcus Tullius Cicero
642d4f2 When you lose your parents, the sadness doesn't go away. It just changes. It hits you sideways sometimes instead of head-on. Like now. grief parents Jude Watson
d97b208 Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can't avoid. I mean my own body. It had such a different importance while it was the body of H.'s lover. Now it's like an empty house. grief loss faith death stillbirth grieving C.S. Lewis
31a2d32 I was helpless in trying to return people's kindness, but also helpless to resist it. Kindness is a scarier force than cruelty, that's for sure. Cruelty isn't that hard to understand. I had no trouble comprehending why the phone company wanted to screw me over; they just wanted to steal some money, it was nothing personal. That's the way of the world. It made me mad, but it didn't make me feel stupid. If anything, it flattered my intelligence. Accepting all that kindness, though, made me feel stupid. Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind people in an unkind world, to paraphrase Wallace Stevens. How do you pretend you don't know about it, after you see it? How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't. I found myself forced to let go of all sorts of independence I thought I had, independence I had spent years trying to cultivate. That world was all gone, and now I was a supplicant, dependent on the mercy of other people's psychic hearts. grief kindness Rob Sheffield
008888b I confessed to Tobias, soon after that, that I had lost my entire family. And he assured me that he was my family now. -Tris Prior grief loss love Veronica Roth
562c5df I know how much you grieve over those who are under your care: those you try to help and fail, those you cannot help. Have faith in God and remember that He will is His own way and in His own time complete what we so poorly attempt. Often we do not achieve for others the good that we intend but achieve something, something that goes on from our effort. Good is an overflow. Where we generously and sincerely intend it, we are engaged in a work of creation which may be mysterious even to ourselves - and because it is mysterious we may be afraid of it. But this should not make us draw back. God can always show us, if we will, a higher and a better way; and we can only learn to love by loving. Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love. Imperfect love must not be condemned and rejected but made perfect. The way is always forward, never back. grief god love Iris Murdoch
410f585 "There is an hour, a minute - you will remember it forever - when you know instinctively on the basis of the most inconsequential evidence, that something is wrong. You don't know - can't know - that it is the first of a series of "wrongful" events that will culminate in the utter devastation of your life as you have known it." grief loss Joyce Carol Oates
65deae5 Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception. grief Jodi Picoult
f17a79e [S]he believed that the Buddhists were right-that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68) want grief suffering love buddhism desire Anne Lamott
6e650f2 Ten years, she's dead, and I still find myself some mornings reaching for the phone to call her. She could no more be gone than gravity or the moon. grief loss Mary Karr
4d73ae9 When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be -- or so it feels-- welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. grief loss religion god C.S. Lewis
acf53b1 Then one morning she'd begun to feel her sorrow easing, like something jagged that had cut into her so long it had finally dulled its edges, worn itself down. That same day Rachel couldn't remember which side her father had parted his hair on, and she'd realized again what she'd learned at five when her mother left - that what made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting the small things first, the smell of the soap her mother had bathed with, the color of the dress she'd worn to church, then after a while the sound of her mother's voice, the color of her hair. It amazed Rachel how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief that was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree's heartwood. (51) grief sorrow endure forgetting remembering memory Ron Rash
a2de504 As Luke knelt down beside his corpse, Clary couldn't help but remember what he had said about having loved Valentine once, about having been his closest friend. Luke, she thought with a pang. Surely he couldn't be sad -- or even grieved? But then again, perhaps everyone should have someone to grieve for them, and there was no one else to grieve for Valentine. grief death city-of-glass valentine-morgenstern luke-garroway the-mortal-instruments Cassandra Clare
b75d1ee I'd love to know how Dad saw me when I was 6. I'd love to know a hundred things. When a parent dies, a filing cabinet full of all the fascinating stuff also ceases to exist. I never imagined how hungry I'd be one day to look inside it. grief memories parents David Mitchell
a7f0f11 He'd lived long enough to know that everyone handled grief in different ways, and little by little, they all seemed to accept their new lives. grief life Nicholas Sparks
a70ccd9 We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations. mourning grief loss immortality sorrow death life-goes-on memory John Banville
6200f55 ...he prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and would go and could be loved in no other way. When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world, so he prayed as a lament, as a consolation, and as a hope.... mourning grief loss relationships prayer family exit-west mohsin-hamid Mohsin Hamid
8fb24fe Great griefs exhaust. They discourage us with life. The man into whom they enter feels something taken from him. In youth, their visit is sad; later on, it is ominous. grief Victor Hugo
8427b98 Ever since the Christmas of '53, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving--Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home. grief loss John Irving
b9c45c9 It happened in New York, April 10th, nineteen years ago. Even my hand balks at the date. I had to push to write it down, just to keep the pen moving on the paper. It used to be a perfectly ordinary day, but now it sticks up on the calendar like a rusty nail. grief grieving-the-loss-of-a-mother grieving Donna Tartt
a81b34a 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. grief romanticizing-dead-people John Green
a5d5cd4 I found that the only way I could control this sorrow was not to think of [it] at all, which was almost as painful as the loss itself. grief loss sorrow heartbreak Robin McKinley
28a707b "Seems," madam? Nay, it is; I know not "seems." 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe." grief William Shakespeare
767f8b7 The bird is gone, and in what meadow does it now sing? grief spirituality Philip K. Dick
7678a18 Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But they grieve for many years. dogs grief love farseer robin-hobb pets Robin Hobb
9f9d1e5 What I mean to say is, we had been . Had been . Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory. grief loss George Saunders
46f5bce Grief, no matter how you try to cater to its wail, has a way of fading away. death-and-dying pain grief mortality sadness truth grief-and-loss-quotes pain-goes-away death-of-a-loved-one grief-and-loss grieve truth-of-life V.C. Andrews
2791b76 But it was not the room's disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief. grief room punishment soul James Baldwin
cce09cc O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on: and yet, within a month-- Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!-- A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she-- O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules: within a month: Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not nor it cannot come to good: But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue. grief death soliloquy William Shakespeare
8d55568 It takes a year, nephew... a full turn of the calendar, to get over losing someone. grief loss Annie Proulx
1c27673 It was like someone had died- like I had died. Because it had been more than just losing the truest of true loves, as if that were not enough to kill anyone. It was also losing a whole future, a whole family- the whole life that I'd chosen... grief upset hurt Stephenie Meyer
7ece5df Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it. grief wisdom benedick William Shakespeare
7df3fb8 This world's anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back. violence tragedy pain war grief faith fear hope love anguish casualties-of-war child-victims-of-war children-killed-in-war gun-laws peacemaking russia-and-ukraine-conflict spiritual-love gun-violence world-suicide-prevention-day syrian-civil-war unconditional-love agape-love conflict-resolution nonviolent-conflict-resolution police-reform police-shootings peace-movement peace Aberjhani
6ef9a54 I realized that it was not that I didn't want to go on without him. I did. It was just that I didn't know why I wanted to go on grief love Kay Redfield Jamison
a8278c6 I lived my grief; I slept mourning and ate sorrow and drank tears. I ignored all else. mourning grief loss depression sorrow death life hollow pass-by numb mourn empty ignore tears forget Robin Hobb
e367223 From the dear comes grief; From the dear comes fear. If you're freed from the dear You'll have no grief, let alone fear. grief loss fear v-212 buddhist Anonymous
d8f7449 "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." grief Neil Gaiman
28db6dd What this country needs... what this great land of ours needs is something to happen to it. Something ferocious and tragic, like what happened to Jericho or the cities of the plain - something terrible I mean, son, so that when the people have been through hellfire and the crucible, and have suffered agony enough and grief, they'll be people again, human beings, not a bunch of smug contented cows rooting at the trough. grief usa William Styron
a6c371a "You know what the doctor said to me to cheer me up?" Fat said. "There are worse diseases than cancer." "Did he show you slides?" We both laughed. When you are nearly crazy with grief, you laugh at what you can." laughter grief doctors disease Philip K. Dick
a9bab8b I know now what was happening to me, what was overwhelming me, what was about to consume and almost destroy me. Didier had even given me a name for it - assassin grief, he'd once called it: the kind of grief that lies in wait and attacks you from ambush, with no warning and no mercy. I know now that assassin grief can hide for years and then strike suddenly on the happiest day, without discernible reason or exegesis. But on that day, ... almost a year after Khader's death, I couldn't understand the dark and trembling mood that was moving in me, swelling to the sorrow I'd too long denied. I couldn't understand it, so i tried to fight it as a man fights pain or despair. But you can't bite down on assassin grief and will it away. The enemy stalks you, step for step, and knows your every move before you make it. The enemy is your own grieving heart and, when it strikes, it can't miss. grief Gregory David Roberts
ff1b79a They talked on into the early morning, the high, pale cast of light in the windows, and they did not think of leaving. pain grief loss light pale windows morning leaving talk Raymond Carver
80d133f Accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. seasons grief sorrow joy life acceptance serenity Kahlil Gibran
3c12a0a Grief was like a terrible burden, but at least you could lay it down by the side of the road and walk away from it. Antonia had come only a few paces, but already she could turn and look back and not weep. It wasn't anything to do with forgetting. It was just accepting. Nothing was ever so bad once you had accepted it. grief Rosamunde Pilcher
05301a8 "Her free hand was clenched in a fist. I held still, waiting for her to say something, to tell me she should have never left me here, where her friends might look to me for help. Finally she looked at me. Her eyes were hard, but she'd let no tears fall. "This is where we blame those who are responsible, Cooper, she told me, her voice very soft. "The colemongers, and the bought Dogs at Tradesmen's kennel. We'll leave an offering for him with the Black God when all this is done, and we'll occupy ourselves with tearing these colemongers apart. all right? We put grief aside for now." grief bad-news response blame dread justice guilt Tamora Pierce
e484d22 This rose of pearl-coated infinity transforms the diseased slums of a broken heart into a palace made of psalms and gold. grief sorrow compassion faith inspiration inspirational-quotes spirituality hope classic-quotes classic-poems healing-grief inspiration-for-the-soul newtown-connecticut palaces pearls-of-wisdom quotes-for-easter recovery-from-grief savannah-authors-and-poets spiritual-transformation infinity roses pearls rebirth resurrection survival transformation recovery Aberjhani
2ab7051 She released her grievances like handfuls of birdseed: They are there, and they are gone. grief self-obsessed self-obsession stoic unimportant sadistic malicious heartless nothing sadist gone grieving black-heart release evil Gillian Flynn
1d3c16b This was a normal town once, and we were normal people. Most of us worked at the plastics factory on the outskirts of town. Then one day there was an accident... something escaped from the factory, a yellow gas. It floated over the town so fast that we didn't see it, didn't realize... and then it was too late, and Dark Falls wasn't a normal town anymore. grief murder people death dark-falls factory living-dead plastics townsfolk yellow gas creepy pollution small-town zombie normal poison R.L. Stine
e1ba69c If you haven't already, you will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and you never completely get over the loss of a deeply beloved person. But this is also good news. The person lives forever, in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through, and you learn to dance with the banged-up heart. grief loss Anne Lamott
d85bf4a But as the years passed, he missed her more, not less, and his need for her became a cut that would not scar over, would not stop leaking. grief loss sadness love lonesome missing-her mournography no-going-back love-lost heartache missing-someone miss Dennis Lehane
c86d402 We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man. winter perfection shakespeare true grief doubt passion nature joy fear past death dreams music hope life love truth hateful philosophies religion-myths scorn sacred-books brave tender fairy haunted pagan king-lear spring woods fable poetic mountains lake birth smiles deny eternity autumn punishment gods effort tears questions mystery beautiful throne summer thought delight william-shakespeare pleasure Robert G. Ingersoll
6b1ba36 Love is love, and loss is loss. We all love, and we all die, and everyone suffers the pain of grieving. The trick is to enjoy what you have while you have it. grief love Lynsay Sands
ba7eae5 and then I realized there was no one else to call, which was the saddest thing. The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Water's death was Augustus Water. grief friendship love John Green
49242d0 This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so, it is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that ever I have felt. grief life William Shakespeare
3151b40 I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not true laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here. laughter grief joy Bram Stoker
0affeb3 There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief. grief loss love Barbara Kingsolver
7f3f38d My mother always pouted that it was actually her paintings and not her charm, her beauty or her sass that made him fall in love with her. He'd always insisted that it was definitely her sass. I knew the truth. He fell for all those things, and when she died, it was like someone had extinguished the sun, and he had nothing left to orbit. grief family Tammara Webber
90a98d8 "The end of times?" said Nanny. "Look, Tiff, Esme tol' me to say, if you want to see Esmerelda Weatherwax, then just you look around. She is here. Us witches don't mourn for very long. We are satisfied with happy memories - they're there to be cherished." grief granny-weatherwax discworld Terry Pratchett
55c70a4 I have become a sour woman. I take no joy in meat nor mead, and song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me. I am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings. There is an empty place within me where my heart was once. woman grief emptiness catelyn sour empty longing George R.R. Martin
e6c6846 { } heart was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience, sacrifice. His little home amid the roses was austerely simple; he knew the worthlessness of luxury, the joy of few possessions. The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in an empty boast. I was in New York when, in 1926, my dear passed away. In tears I thought, 'Oh, I would gladly walk all the way from here to Santa Rosa for one more glimpse of him!' Locking myself away from secretaries and visitors, I spent the next twenty-four hours in seclusion... name has now passed into the heritage of common speech. Listing 'burbank' as a transitive verb, Webster's New International Dictionary defines it: 'To cross or graft (a plant). Hence, figuratively, to improve (anything, as a process or institution) by selecting good features and rejecting bad, or by adding good features.' 'Beloved ,' I cried after reading the definition, 'your very name is now a synonym for goodness! mourning grief joy goodness death sadness science friendship love burbank luther-burbank brotherhood modesty new-york Paramahansa Yogananda
bc38acf I ultimately decided to hold my tongue and settle instead for the comfort of ignorance. Not knowing the truth, I retained hope, and that hope I held like a smooth warm stone against my heart. grief loss hope Catherine Gilbert Murdock
124b1c3 I'll remember you... I remember everyone I've lost. grief loss love photo-album photograph think noir remember sad memory nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
618fae3 I felt a deep grief that crouched and stayed still as if it was afraid to move. grief stillness Iris Murdoch
d116095 photographs are very interesting, and you can look into them a million times and still find a new meaning in them, something in the past that was caught in the film itself... photography grief loss romance joy meaning past love fujifilm nikon kodak kodachrome super-8 canon photo capture film knowledge nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
de1c914 "You're innocent until proven guilty," Mandy exclaimed, unable to hide her gleeful smile. She missed the way people used to have normal conversations, used to be more caring for each other than themselves, back in the Seventies and Eighties. These days, she realized, neighbors kept to themselves, their kids kept to themselves, nobody talked to each other anymore. They went to work, went shopping and shut themselves up at home in front of glowing computer screens and cellphones... but maybe the nostalgic, better times in her life would stay buried, maybe the world would never be what it was. In the 21st century music was bad, movies were bad, society was failing and there were very few intelligent people left who missed the way things used to be... maybe though, Mandy could change things. Thinking back to the old home movies in her basement, she recalled what Alecto had told her. "We wanted more than anything else in the world to be normal, but we failed." The 1960's and 1970's were very strange times, but Mandy missed it all, she missed the days when Super-8 was the popular film type, when music had lyrics that made you think, when movies had powerful meanings instead of bad comedy and when people would just walk to a friend's house for the afternoon instead of texting in bed all day. She missed soda fountains and department stores and non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags, she wished cellphones, bad pop music and LED lights didn't exist... she hated how everything had a diagnosis or pill now, how people who didn't fit in with modern, lazy society were just prescribed medications without a second thought... she hated how old, reliable cars were replaced with cheap hybrid vehicles... she hated how everything could be done online, so that people could just ignore each other... the world was becoming much more convenient, but at the same time, less human, and her teenage life was considered nostalgic history now. Hanging her head low, avoiding the slightly confused stare of the cab driver through the rear view mirror, she started crying uncontrollably, her tears soaking the collar of her coat as the sun blared through the windows in a warm light." earth grief loss death convenient old-school reporter taxi retro cape-breton nova-scotia stuck moving digital medications leaving-home environment canada cars stop crying gone misery trapped lonely sad crazy insane dying mental-illness nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
d4e431e One feels such love for the little ones, such anticipation that all that is lovely in life will be known by them, such fondness for that set of attributes manifested uniquely in each: mannerisms of bravado, of vulnerability, habits of speech and mispronouncement and so forth; the smell of the hair and head, the feel of the tiny hand in yours--and then the little one is gone! Taken! One is thunderstruck that such a brutal violation has occurred in what had previously seemed a benevolent world. From nothingness, there arose great love; now, its source nullified, that love, searching and sick, converts to the most abysmal suffering imaginable. grief death George Saunders
84ef879 There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp. grief futility depression hope dark-history falling-short haunted-past smoke-in-the-eyes why-the-world-needs-jesus unrest pointlessness bittersweet-memories sins heartache vanity disappointment expectations despair regrets nostalgia Joseph Conrad
6e07d4e I write. My hand is shaking; my eyes sting and fill. I add before pushing the notebook and pen back across the table, wiping a hand across my cheeks. As he reads, my impulse is to reach out, grab the notebook, run outside, dump it in the trash, bury it in the snow, throw it under the wheels of a passing car - something, something, so I can go back fifteen seconds when this part ofme was still shut away and private. Then I look at Ravi's face again, and the normally white white whites of his eyes are pink. This causes major disruption to my ability to control the flow of my own tears. I see myself when I look at him right now: he's reflecting my sadness, my broken heart, back to me. He takes the pe, writes, and slides it over. You'd think it's something epic from the way it levels my heart. It isn't. Four little words. grief sorrow life Sara Zarr
e5d7ff6 People were freaked out, but they showed it in weird ways. Back home, people would have been weeping and doing a lot of very public group hugs. At Wexford people just aggressively pretended nothing had happened. grief Maureen Johnson
9e18943 There is a grotesquerie to grief as well. You lose the sense of your existence being rational, or justifiable. You feel absurd. grief life existential-crisis purpose Julian Barnes
c4ceedd I was deluded, and I knew it. Worse: my love for Pippa was muddied-up below the waterline with my mother, with my mother's death, with losing my mother and not being able to get her back. All that blind, infantile hunger to save and be saved, to repeat the past and make it different, had somehow attached itself, ravenously, to her. There was an instability in it, a sickness. I was seeing things that weren't there. I was only one step away from some trailer park loner stalking a girl he'd spotted in the mall. For the truth of it was: Pippa and I saw each other maybe twice a year; we e-mailed and texted, though with no great regularity; when she was in town we loaned each other books and went to the movies; we were friends; nothing more. My hopes for a relationship with her were wholly unreal, whereas my ongoing misery, and frustration, were an all-too-horrible reality. Was groundless, hopeless, unrequited obsession any way to waste the rest of my life? grief loss relationship reality past hope delusional delusional-love unreal loner delusion save hunger stalking misery hopeless frustration obsession waste unrequited-love sickness Donna Tartt
70f3e46 He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness. grief death George Saunders
116fadf Mark Spitz didn't ask about Harry. You never asked about the characters that disappeared from a Last Night story. You knew the answer. The plague had a knack for narrative closure. grief humour stories Colson Whitehead
6a3ff49 She had not had the relief of amnesia. She had suffered longer, and she had suffered more. Each second was agony in the first weeks. She was like an amputee in the days before anesthesia, half crazed with pain, astounded that the human body could feel so much and not die of it. But slowly, cell by painful cell, she began to mend. There came a time when it was no longer her whole body that burned with pain but only her heart. And then there came a time when even her heart was able, for a time at least, to feel other emotions besides grief. pain grief suffering physical-pain healing Diane Setterfield
cf82ee0 I was sprawled out in my usual position on the couch, half asleep but entirely drunk, torturing myself by tearing memories out of my mind at random like matches from a book, striking them one at a time and drowsily setting myself on fire. grief sadness drink drunkeness fire drunk Jonathan Tropper
7e62be5 I am thirty-five years old, and it seems to me that I have arrived at the age of grief. Others arrive there sooner. Almost no one arrives much later. I don't think it is years themselves, or the disintegration of the body. Most of our bodies are better taken care of and better-looking than ever. What it is, is what we know, now that in spite of ourselves we have stopped to think about it. It is not only that we know that love ends, children are stolen, parents die feeling that their lives have been meaningless. It is not only that, by this time, a lot of acquaintances and friends have died and all the others are getting ready to sooner or later. It is more that the barriers between the circumstances of oneself and of the rest of the world have broken down, after all--after all that schooling, all that care. Lord, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me. But when you are thirty-three, or thirty-five, the cup must come around, cannot pass from you, and it is the same cup of pain that every mortal drinks from. Dana cried over Mrs. Hilton. My eyes filled during the nightly news. Obviously we were grieving for ourselves, but we were also thinking that if they were feeling what we were feeling, how could they stand it? We were grieving for them, too. I understand that later you come to an age of hope, or at least resignation. I suspect it takes a long time to get there. grief growing-older Jane Smiley
91f130e "It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion--joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things." grief joy life love salvation Barbara Kingsolver
5b5515e Sooner or later, all talk among foreigners in Pyongyang turns to one imponderable subject. Do the locals really believe what they are told, and do they truly revere Fat Man and Little Boy? I have been a visiting writer in several authoritarian and totalitarian states, and usually the question answers itself. Someone in a cafe makes an offhand remark. A piece of ironic graffiti is scrawled in the men's room. Some group at the university issues some improvised leaflet. The glacier begins to melt; a joke makes the rounds and the apparently immovable regime suddenly looks vulnerable and absurd. But it's almost impossible to convey the extent to which North Korea just isn't like that. South Koreans who met with long-lost family members after the June rapprochement were thunderstruck at the way their shabby and thin northern relatives extolled Fat Man and Little Boy. Of course, they had been handpicked, but they stuck to their line. There's a possible reason for the existence of this level of denial, which is backed up by an indescribable degree of surveillance and indoctrination. A North Korean citizen who decided that it was all a lie and a waste would have to face the fact that his life had been a lie and a waste also. The scenes of hysterical grief when Fat Man died were not all feigned; there might be a collective nervous breakdown if it was suddenly announced that the Great Leader had been a verbose and arrogant fraud. Picture, if you will, the abrupt deprogramming of more than 20 million Moonies or Jonestowners, who are suddenly informed that it was all a cruel joke and there's no longer anybody to tell them what to do. There wouldn't be enough Kool-Aid to go round. I often wondered how my guides kept straight faces. The streetlights are turned out all over Pyongyang--which is the most favored city in the country--every night. And the most prominent building on the skyline, in a town committed to hysterical architectural excess, is the Ryugyong Hotel. It's 105 floors high, and from a distance looks like a grotesquely enlarged version of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco (or like a vast and cumbersome missile on a launchpad). The crane at its summit hasn't moved in years; it's a grandiose and incomplete ruin in the making. 'Under construction,' say the guides without a trace of irony. I suppose they just keep two sets of mental books and live with the contradiction for now. irony grief death doublethink drinking-the-kool-aid graffiti jonestown koreans moonies ryugyong-hotel jokes indoctrination surveillance dissent totalitarianism tourism-in-north-korea south-korea authoritarianism pyongyang kim-il-sung kim-jong-il north-korea propaganda mind-control university Christopher Hitchens
bc4c204 "Come, my child," I said, trying to lead her away. "Wish good-bye to the poor hare, and come and look for blackberries." "Good-bye, poor hare!" Sylvie obediently repeated, looking over her shoulder at it as we turned away. And then, all in a moment, her self-command gave way. Pulling her hand out of mine, she ran back to where the dead hare was lying, and flung herself down at its side in such an agony of grief as I could hardly have believed possible in so young a child. "Oh, my darling, my darling!" she moaned, over and over again. "And God meant your life to be so beautiful!" grief death god hares children-s-literature rabbits dying Lewis Carroll
e65f7ed You have entered an abnormal, lonely, and unwelcome new world where you are nothing but an island of sadness. loneliness grief loss sadness isolation Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
0b1a936 Sorry. Don't need sorry. Not in this house. Sorry laid the hearth here. Sorry ways and sorry people and heavensent grief and heartache to make you pine for your death. tragedy grief sorry heartache Cormac McCarthy
c0d5972 For darkness terrifies. It swallows you, warps you, nullifies you. Who alive can possibly profess confidence in darkness? In the dark, you can't see. grief loss change darkness Haruki Murakami
b9fc8b3 He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, - 'Wait and hope.' - Your friend, Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo. The eyes of both were fixed on the spot indicated by the sailor, and on the blue-line separating the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, they perceived a large white sail. live grief future happiness hope horizon wait Alexandre Dumas
3f4c9aa 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. grief Leo Tolstoy
4c82a0b It's different when the person you love dies. There's an awful finality to death. But it is final. The end. And there's the funeral, family gatherings, grieving, all of those necessary rituals. And they help, believe me. When the object of your love just disappears, there's no way to deal with the grief and pain. pain grief love finality Barbara Taylor Bradford
54d225d Slowly, painfully, I let go. It was like prying my own fingers off the edge of the cliff. And that hurt too-particularly the falling part, and not being sure what was at the bottom. But I did know. was what was at the bottom. I was already there. grief Robin McKinley
ceefdbd If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you'd think I should like to share those good things; but I should like better to share in your trouble and your labour. grief empathy friendship George Eliot
f8a91e2 She said once that time is nothing to me but a series of bookmarks that I use to jump back and forth through the text of my life, returning again and again to the events that mark me in the eyes of my more astute colleagues, as bearing all the characteristics of the classic melancholic. mourning grief depression family friendship professional the-past melancholy reflection regret remember dead sad lost mental-illness Dennis Lehane
b079738 "Folks write down the name of someone who fills them with frustration, disappointment, and/or resentment, and then I propose that their person is doing the best he or she can. The responses have been wide-ranging...One woman said, "If this was true and my mother was doing the best she can, I would be grief-stricken. I'd rather be angry than sad, so it's easier to believe she's letting me down on purpose than grieve the fact that my mother is never going to be who I need her to be." grief good-intentions resentment expectations frustration Brené Brown
9e282b7 In the daylight we know what's gone is gone, but at night it's different. Nothing gets finished, not dying, not mourning; mourning grief dream dreams nightmares nightmare dying Margaret Atwood
3cd83de "At Abraham's burial, his two most prominent sons, rivals since before they were born, estranged since childhood, scions of rival nations, come together for the first time since they were rent apart nearly three-quarters of a century earlier. The text reports their union nearly without comment. "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre, in the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites." But the meaning of this moment cannot be diminished. Abraham achieves in death what he could never achieve in life: a moment of reconciliation between his two sons, a peaceful, communal, side-by-side flicker of possibility in which they are not rivals, scions, warriors, adversaries, children, Jews, Christians, or Muslims. They are brothers. They are mourners. In a sense they are us, forever weeping for the loss of our common father, shuffling through our bitter memories, reclaiming our childlike expectations, laughing, sobbing, furious and full of dreams, wondering about our orphaned future, and demanding the answers we all crave to hear: What did you want from me, Father? What did you leave me with, Father? And what do I do now?" -- grief faith religion interfaith Bruce Feiler
d2dc9a8 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. mourning grief loss desolation John Fowles
058f4c9 "Harold's Bow and Food Bowl bowl bowl bowl Food food food food The miracle of the heavenly restaurant I mouth this great dark sad evening Suddenly they come for me in a limousine How could I have believed I was vanquished I never lay slain I am the victor this parade is for me Now they have led me to the doors of God Long ago and forever I was in this place on the other side of eating where I am full and the empty grief poetry unleashed Denis Johnson
2609989 And then the queen wept with all her heart. Not for the cruel and greedy man who had warred and killed and savaged everywhere he could. But for the boy who had somehow turned into that man, the boy whose gentle hand had comforted her childhood hurts, the boy whose frightened voice had cried out to her at the end of his life, as if he wondered why he had gotten lost inside himself, as if he realized that it was too, too late to get out again. grief greed death saddest-thing the-princess-and-the-bear lost-innocence the-end too-late growing-up regret lost Orson Scott Card
8af855c At least I rescued your poor hot dog. madness grief funny humor disturbing frightening ghoul gives-me-the-willies savior pyrokinesis sleepaway-camp summer-camp wiener wiener-roast goosebumps spooky hot-dog rescue coming-of-age teenage lord fire ghost scary teen lonely laugh nostalgia R.L. Stine
2d8285b But love, like a mushroom high compared with the buzz from cheap weed, outlasts grief. grief love Miriam Toews
d73aa6d There need not be a purpose to a person's death, other than that they have lived the length of their days on this Earth and now begin the longer part of their existence. grief grieving self-help Brian M. Holmes
1a14c6c Tomorrow and tomorrow come creeping in and always will. We're fools trapped in a mechanism of our own unconscious making. Shadows strutting and fretting for one brief hour upon a stage, then heard no more. I'll weep an ocean in my heart, if the world would give me time. But not now. grief life tomorrow insignificance David Hewson
23baaee Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the heart of men in this double light, has seen nothing, and knows noting of the truth. grief suffering love feeling soul Victor Hugo
a2bd562 Before and after the funeral I never ceased to cry and be miserable, but it makes me ashamed when I think back on that sadness of mine, seeing that always in it was an element of self-love - now a desire to show that I prayed more than any one else, now concern about the impression I was producing on others, now an aimless curiosity which caused me to observe Mimi's cap or the faces of those around me. I despised myself for not experiencing sorrow to the exclusion of everything else, and I tried to conceal all other feelings: this made my grief insincere and unnatural. Moreover, I felt a kind of enjoyment in knowing that I was unhappy and I tried to stimulate my sense of unhappiness, and this interest in myself did more than anything else to stifle real sorrow in me. unhappiness grief youth sorrow death tolstoy self-love funeral childhood Leo Tolstoy
9d30f80 I will not speak falsely and say to you: 'Do not grieve for me when I go.' I have loved my children and tried to be a good mother and it is right that my children grieve for me. But let your grief be gentle and brief. And let resignation creep into it. Know that I shall be happy. I shall see face to face the great saints I have loved all my life. grief death Betty Smith
893be34 "...I'm afraid of what the digital age will do to the world, to the things we think are important... it's almost like people want to believe in some illusion that they're robots and forget altogether that they're real, living people... but everything these days is disposable, even people themselves, and that's why I'm afraid for the world," Mandy confessed, looking depressed and worried. "So am I... but I'll still watch all of it as the world dooms itself, because I want to see how it ends, and whether or not they'll be intelligent enough to forget all of this digital illusion afterwards," Alecto explained. "I'm sure that they'll be able to realize how wrong it all is... even though the idiots outnumber most people these days, there are still enough intelligent people to fight against it." earth grief human next-generation cell-phone environmental nova-scotia robots digital apocalypse canada dystopian gone scary hopeless horror lost technology Rebecca McNutt
416933f The air felt different in my lungs. The world no longer looked the same. You change and then you change again. You become a dog, a bird, a plant that always leans to the left. Only now that my son was gone did I realize how much I'd been living for him. When I woke up in the morning it was because he existed, and when I ordered food in the night it was because he existed, and when I wrote my book it was because he existed to read it. grief loss love-hurts Nicole Krauss
42fd09d "My death..I mean..will it be quick,and with dignity? How will i know when the end is coming?" "When you vomit blood,sir," Tao Chi'en said sadly. grief Isabel Allende
49bef17 "...Do you think there's somewhere else, some other place to go after this one?" Mandy blurted out. "You mean when you die, where will you end up?" Alecto asked her. "...I wouldn't know... back to whatever void there is, I suppose." "I've thought about it... every living thing dies alone, it'll be lonely after death," Mandy sighed sadly. "That freaks me out, does it scare you?" "I don't want to be alone," Alecto replied wearily. "We won't be, though. We'll be dead, so we'll just be darkness, not much else, just memories, nostalgia and darkness." "I don't want to be any of that either though," Mandy exclaimed, bursting into tears and crying, keeping her eyes to the floor, her voice shaky as she spoke to him. "When we die, we'll still be nothing, the world will still be nothing, everything'll just be nothing!" "You're real though, at least that's something," Alecto pointed out, holding his hand out in front of her. Smiling miserably, Mandy took his hand in her own and sat there beside him quietly." time grief heaven depression death imagination sadness truth frightened disturbing grim spooky nirvana funeral purgatory void misery scary kill dead lost dying nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
ed796bb Throw off your grief,' doubters imply, 'and we can all go back to pretending death doesn't exist, or at least is comfortably far away. mourning grief death pretending survival Julian Barnes
301b278 And in it all, the sensation of shaking my fists at the sky, shaking my fists high up to the sky, because that is what we do when someone dies too early, too beautiful, too undervalued by the world, or sometimes just at all -- we shake our fists at the big, beautiful, indifferent sky, and the anger is righteous and strong and helpless and huge. I shook and I shook, and I put all of it into the dress. grief death Aimee Bender
39379b5 Trap. Horrible trap. At one's birth it is sprung. Some last day must arrive. When you will need to get out of this body. Bad enough. Then we bring a baby here. The terms of the trap are compounded. That baby also must depart. All pleasures should be tainted by that knowledge. But hopeful dear us, we forget. Lord, what is this? grief death hope George Saunders
1 2 ▲ ▼