“There were people I wanted so much before I had them that the entire experience of having them was grief for my old hunger.”— Sarah Manguso, amazon.com
“All were in sorrow, or had been, or soon would be. It was the nature of things. Though on the surface it seemed every person was different, this was not true. At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end. We must try to see one anothe…”— George Saunders, amazon.com
“His mind was freshly inclined towards sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglecte…”— George Saunders, amazon.com
“All over now. He is either in joy or nothingness. (So why grieve? The worst of it, for him, is over.) Because I loved him so and am in the habit of loving him and that love must take the form of fussing and worry and doing. Only there is nothing left to do.”— George Saunders, amazon.com
“The thing with grief is, it never completely goes away, no matter how numb you are.”— Nikita Gill, yoursoulisariver.com
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”— J.R.R. Tolkien, amazon.com
“Grief and disappointment can takes one's faith away so easily that you might wake one morning and have none left.”— Susan Fletcher, amazon.com
“The pain, their loss it’s all I have left of them.”— Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Nolan, Dolores Abernathy, Evan Rachel Wood, imdb.com
“My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. 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…”— Jandy Nelson, amazon.com
“know that I knew how much you loved me. when life was sweet and when life was dark. When you told me, and even when you didn't. When it was easy and when it was hard. I knew. Every minute of every day. I knew.”— Mia Hollow, miahollow.tumblr.com
“What are you supposed to do with all the love you have for somebody if that person is no longer there? What happens to all that leftover love? Do you suppress it? Do you ignore it? Are you supposed to give it to someone else?”— Maggie O'Farrell, amazon.com
“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.”— Joan Didion, amazon.com
“You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no lon…”— Joan Didion, amazon.com
“I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History.”— Joan Didion, amazon.com
“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”— Joan Didion, amazon.com
“I closed the box and put it in a closet. There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.”— Joan Didion, amazon.com
“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.”— Joan Didion, amazon.com
“In fearing that happiness won't last forever, we lose it. In fearing that grief will last forever, we create it.”— Brianna Wiest, amazon.com