“You never knew the last time you were seeing someone. You didn't know when the last argument happened, or the last time you had sex, or the last time you looked into their eyes and thanked God they were in your life. After they were gone? That was all you thought about.”— J.R. Ward, amazon.com
“I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.”— Jandy Nelson, amazon.com
“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 ar…”— John Irving, amazon.com
“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having…”— Anne Lamott, amazon.com
“Do we leave the dead behind or do we take them with us? I think we take them with us. They accompany us. They remain with us, if in another form.”— Jan-Philipp Sendker, amazon.com
“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.”— John Scalzi, amazon.com
“What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?”— Jess Walter, amazon.com
“I cannot say, and I will not say That he is dead. He is just away. With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand, He has wandered into an unknown land And left us dreaming how very fair It needs must be, since he lingers there. And you—oh you, who the wildest yearn For an old-time step, and the glad r…”— James Whitcomb Riley, amazon.com
“The family exists for many reasons, but its most basic function may be to draw together after a member dies.”— Stephen King, books.google.com
“Here is one of the worst things about having someone you love die: It happens again every single morning.”— Anna Quindlen, amazon.com
“If you wear black, then kindly, irritating strangers will touch your arm consolingly and inform you that the world keeps on turning. They're right. It does. However much you beg it to stop.”— Alan Moore, amazon.com
“It’s odd, isn’t it? People die every day and the world goes on like nothing happened. But when it’s a person you love, you think everyone should stop and take notice. That they ought to cry and light candles and tell you that you’re not alone.”— Kristina McMorris, amazon.com
“Loss alone is but the wounding of a heart; it is memory that makes it our ruin.”— Brian Ruckley, amazon.com
“Losing people you love affects you. It is buried inside of you and becomes this big, deep hole of ache. It doesn't magically go away, even when you stop officially mourning.”— Carrie Jones, amazon.com
“When you lose someone, you get used to living day to day without them. But you’ll never get used to the ‘10 second heartbreak.’ That’s the time it takes to wake to full consciousness each day and remember.”— Nina Guilbeau, amazon.com
“Everyone keeps telling me that time heals all wounds, but no one can tell me what I’m supposed to do right now. Right now I can’t sleep. It’s right now that I can’t eat. Right now I still hear his voice and sense his presence even though I know he’s not here. Right now all I seem to do is cry. I kno…”— Nina Guilbeau, amazon.com
“When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it. The more your identity was wrapped up with the deceased, the more difficult the loss.”— Meghan O'Rourke, amazon.com
“Grief is a house where no one can protect you where the younger sister will grow older than the older one where the doors no longer let you in or out.”— Jandy Nelson, amazon.com
“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.”— Jodi Picoult, amazon.com
“Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just... something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day,…”— Sarah Dessen, amazon.com