quotations about grief
You cannot die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking. Grief dims with time. It is the way of things. There comes a day when you smile again, and you feel like a traitor. How dare I feel happy. How dare I be glad in a world where my father is no more. And then you cry fresh tears, because you do not miss him as much as you once did, and giving up your grief is another kind of death.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
A Stroke of Midnight
What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideas of pleasure; for he who has but a moment of pleasure is not a happy man, in like manner that a moment of grief constitutes not a miserable one.
VOLTAIRE
A Philosophical Dictionary
Grief is like a physical pain which must be allowed to subside somewhat on its own before medical treatment is applied.
PLUTARCH
"Consolatio Ad Uxorem"
Always denial. Grief in the morning, washed away
in coffee, crumbled to a dozen errands between
busy fingers.
DENISE LEVERTOV
"A Lamentation"
And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn't have to anymore.
ANNE LAMOTT
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
So life discloses--
Howe'er the pathway curve or turn--
New hopes that rise, new stars that burn
In changing splendor night or day;
New joys that drive old griefs away.
ANDREW DOWNING
"Among the Roses"
Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead,
And the apparel of the grave.
LORD BYRON
The Two Foscari
My years of grief are o'er, I see the shore
Where war shall waste, and want shall howl no more.
JOHN STRUTHERS
The Peasant's Death
My tears fall inward on my heart,
And, dew-like, keep its memories green:
Sad strains, unheard by other ears,
Break forth for me from lips unseen.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Veiled Grief"
There is this difference between the grief of youth and that of old age: youth's burden is lightened by as much of it as another shares; old age may give and give, but the sorrow remains the same.
O. HENRY
"The Count and the Wedding Guest"
The only cure for grief is action.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
The Spanish Drama