“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.”— Pema Chodron, amazon.com
“It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.”— Emily Brontë, amazon.com
“The grief. It came crashing in like a tidal wave. The very thought of it still sends a shiver down my spine: makes me wince a little. The weight of it. Those vacant, anguished expressions, and the way we nestled into each other, softly, and the endless cups of too-strong tea that were made by distra…”— Kathy Brown, thoughtcatalog.com
“I drove her to the airport. She kissed me good-bye. She told me that she loved me more than life itself. Then she stepped through security. She never came back.”— Gayle Forman, amazon.com
“Sometimes you can only feel something by its absence. By the empty spaces it leaves behind.”— Gayle Forman, amazon.com
“Losing me will hurt; it will be the kind of pain that won't feel real at first, and when it does, it will take her breath away.”— Gayle Forman, amazon.com
“Love, it never dies. It never goes away, it never fades, so long as you hang on to it. Love can make you immortal.”— Gayle Forman, amazon.com
“If I'd known it was going to be the last time he'd ever hold me, I'd have paid better attention.”— Megan Hart, amazon.com
“I was thinking about the universe wanting to be noticed, and how I had to notice it as best I could. I felt that I owed a debt to the universe that only my attention could repay, and also that I owed a debt to everybody who didn't get to be a person anymore and everyone who hadn't gotten to be a per…”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“I crawled into his unmade bed, wrapping myself in his comforter like a cocoon, surrounding myself with his smell. I took out my cannula so I could smell better, breathing him in and breathing him out, the scent fading even as I lay there, my chest burning until I could't distinguish among the pains.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“I thought of my dad telling me that the universe wants to be noticed. But what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us—not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us, as individuals.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“I told him that he was fearing something universal and inevitable, and how really, the problem is not suffering itself or oblivion itself but the depraved meaningless of these things, the absolutely inhuman nihilism of suffering.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“I knew that time would now pass for me differently than it would for him—that I, like everyone in that room, would go on accumulating loves and losses while he would not.”— John Green, Hazel, amazon.com
“Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't.”— Stephen King, amazon.com
“They say death is hardest on the living. It’s tough to actually say goodbye. Sometimes it’s impossible. You never really stop feeling the loss. It’s what makes things so bitter sweet. We leave little bits of ourselves behind, little reminders. A lifetime of memories, photos, trinkets. Things to reme…”— Stacy McKee, Dr. Meredith Grey, Ellen Pompeo, imdb.com
“Lexie: [voiceover] Grief may be a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone. Mark: It isn’t just death we have to grieve. It’s life. It’s loss. It’s change. Alex: And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, has to hurt so bad. The thing we gotta try to remember is…”— Krista Vernoff, imdb.com
“Grief is like the ocean: it's deep and dark and bigger than all of us. And pain is like a thief in the night. Quiet. Persistent. Unfair. Diminished by time and faith and love.”— Samantha Walker, amazon.com
“When someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.”— Mitch Albom, amazon.com