24 Heart-Wrenching Quotes From 'Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close' That Capture The Power Of Grief

24 quotes

Because until you're moving through it, it's impossible to understand it. 

“Why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time, my greatest regret is how much I believed in the future.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Future, Endings, Love, Nostalgia, Grief

“You can't love anything more than something you miss.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Missing Someone, Relationships, Long-Distance, Grief

“It broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of, why can't people say what they mean at the time?”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Loss, Grief, Relationships, Leaving Things Unsaid

“The room was filled with conversations we weren't having.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Conversations, Silence, Love, Relationships

“I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Staying, Leaving, Love, Running Away, Life

“I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: The Past, Life, Change, Moving On, Present Focused

“We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Tragedy, Pain, humanity, Safety

“His words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Sadness, Love, talking, Words, Grief

“She was extending a hand that I didn’t know how to take, so I broke its fingers with my silence.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Communication, Silence, Connection, Disconnection

“It's not that I didn't trust him, because I did. It's that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don't know how I could have tried harder.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Life, Trying, Love

“I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Life, Living, Pain, Struggle

“I can forgive you for leaving but not for coming back.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Leaving, Returning, forgiveness

“"I'm an optimist." "Well that's good because there's no irrefutable evidence. There's nothing that could convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to."”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Optimism, Pessimism, Objectivity, Subjectivity

“The secret was a hole in the middle of me that every happy thing fell into.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Secrets, Sadness, Loss, Pain, Grief

“I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Trust, Relationships

“It probably gets pretty lonely to be anyone.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Lonely, Loneliness, humanity, Life, Loss

“The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Suffering, Pain, Moving On, Loss, Grief

“I'd experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there ever be enough?”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Joy, Happiness, Life, Living

“I hope you never love anything as much as I love you.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Loss, Pain, Missing Someone, Unconditional Love

“Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Time, Love, Loss, Pain, Grief

“I like to sit at the airport. I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the…”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Reuniting, Happiness, Joy, humanity

“Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn’t have to invent a thing.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Imagination, Idealism, Relationships, Home

“Nothing is beautiful and true.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

Tagged: Truth, beauty, Reality, Subjectivity

“That’s all anyone wants from anyone else; not love itself but the knowledge that love is there. Like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, goodreads.com

Tagged: Love, Security, Relationships