Greif Quotes

“Issac:"I dislike living in a world without Augustus Waters."
Computer: "I don't understand-"
Issac: "Me neither. Pause”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“When you are up against a wall, put down roots like a tree, until clarity comes from deeper sources to see over that wall and grow.”
― C.G. Jung

“Rather often I am asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote. The answer is, No. The wound is no longer raw. But it has not disappeared. That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over.

Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides. So I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it… Every lament is a love-song.”
― Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

“this loss
feels like
an ache
between my ribs

it’s sad
and scary

but soft
and steady

it’s always there
humming loudly
beneath it all

beneath it all

sometimes
it rests
and
just whispers

ssshhhhhhhh

it only takes
one
moment
of missing you
to make it roar”
― Emmy Marucci, Tell Me Another Story: Poems of You and Me

“Sunlight’s warmth on my face awoke me in the morning. I didn’t remember falling asleep or how I came to be in my own bed. But I did recall nightmares. Awful nightmares featuring Gwen.

I turned my head to stare out an open window where the sun shone in full splendor, bleaching a clear sky enough to tell it was going to be a beautiful spring day. The air smelled of rain from overnight showers, mixed with a strong floral scent. A large lilac bush outside was responsible for the perfume. I breathed in the clean and fragrant air.

My eyelids fluttered, blinking at a stunning reflection of daylight off the glass. The blue beyond gave an exquisite glow to my room. All of it was an invitation to bask in a new day—an invitation I declined because none of that mattered to me. The world might as well come to a dark and ugly end. I saw no reason for beauty or life to go on so long as Gwen was lost.

Rolling over in bed, I felt the vice grips wrench at my heart again as I cried myself back to sleep.

from Phantom's Veil”
― Richelle E. Goodrich

“How ridiculous that water ran out of your eyes when your heart hurt. Tragic heroines in books tended to be amazingly beautiful. Not a word about swollen eyes or a red nose. "Crying always gives me a red nose," thought Elinor. "I expect that's why I'll never be in any book.”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkdeath

“I catch a glimpse of how much I've withdrawn from her. I know she doesn't for a minute resent it or blame me, but it must have been hard on her; she's lost me as well as Freddie, in a way. I make a mental note that one day, when I am better, I'll tell her how sometimes, on the dark days, she's been the only light I could see.”
― Josie Silver, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

“They were politely kind to her when they ran into her, but they didn't run into her very often this was largely because of their busy schedules and Alice's now rather empty one. But a not so insignificant reason was because they chose not to. Facing her meant facing her mental frailty and the unavoidable thought that, in the blink of an eye, it could happen to them. Facing her was scary. So for the most part, except for meetings and seminars, they didn't.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“grief moves like the moon”
― Emmy Marucci, Tell Me Another Story: Poems of You and Me

“Grief isn’t something to be gotten through. It has no life of its own like that. It’s just plain and simply there. It’s one of the things which tells us we are humans.”
― Ann Patchett, Truth & Beauty

“When Bill died, I was for the first time faced with the loss of a friend, and what I initially felt when I read the news of his death in the New York Times—he had died suddenly of a heart attack—was numbness and shock. I kept thinking I should have felt more pain or sadness or grief or something. I kept trying to figure out how to grieve properly. While I was trying to sort out my response to Bill’s death, I had a conversation over lunch with my ex-boyfriend Keith, who had remained a good friend after we’d split up. He’d always been a great sounding board and an uncommonly clearheaded source of wisdom and advice.

“I don’t know what to do about all this,” I told him. “I don’t know how to process it.”

“Well,” he said, leaning forward intensely, as he always did when he talked, his right hand chopping the air, his boyish face bobbing up and down, “the thing is, the thing is, when you have someone you know who’s died, you have to grieve, of course, but really, there are different things you have to grieve.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know, you have to grieve the loss of the person, you know, the fact that the actual person won’t be there anymore to talk to, to laugh with, to share memories with, that sort of thing.”

“Right.”

“And then you have to, you have to mourn the loss of who that person held you to be. Because that dies with them. Their vision of you no longer exists. And a whole world of who you are is gone. So you have to mourn that, too.”

I sat there and took that in, an electric current of recognition coursing through my body.

“That…makes sense,” I said.

Keith nodded vigorously. “Yeah, it does. It does.”

I shook my head. “How do you know all this stuff?” It was a question I often asked Keith; he and I were the same age, but his insight into profound human matters often outshined my own.

He laughed a high-pitched giggle. “I don’t know.” That was always his answer.”
― Anthony Rapp, Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss and the Musical 'Rent'

“We cannot but obey the powers above us.
Could I rage and roar as doth the sea
She lies in, yet the end must be as ’tis.”
― William Shakespeare, Pericles

“The pain hits me in thick black waves. I scream loud enough to wake the dead... only it doesn't.”
― Wendy Mass, A Mango-Shaped Space

“Sometimes, you have to let people be sad. At least until they’re ready to come out of that sadness.”
― Nalini Singh, Storm Echo

“When something's let go of, it circles; and though we are rarely the center of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous curve.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose

“With no other choice, Tory approached Ash slowly. Warily. Could he even tell if it was her? By the way he was acting, she didn't think so. "Baby?"

He looked up at her with blood red eyes that held no semblance of understanding. They were feral and cold. The eyes of a predator.

With a speed she couldn't even see with her naked eye, Ash was off the floor. He grabbed her by the throat, threw her down on the ground and sank his fangs deep into her neck.

Ash's head buzzed and his shoulder ached as he finally slaked some of the hunger that had been tearing at him for days. The blood was so good. So warm and satisfying. He licked and sucked, drinking it in until he was normal again.

But as he returned to himself, his anger mounted that she'd let him go so long without nourishment. Even though he hadn't been able to speak, he remembered her watching him through the door.

You'll eat when you please me..." She knew what those words did to him and he was tired of her abuse.

"Artemis, you..." His words trailed off as he pulled away from her throat and realized it wasn't Artemis he was holding.

It was Tory and she was extremely pale from the blood loss.

Horror filled him. Her neck was savagely torn from his teeth, her brown eyes half-hooded as she struggled to breathe. No! His soul screamed out. How could he have hurt her?

How could he be so far gone that he hadn't even realized it was Tory he tasted?

Because Artemis had kept him without food for too long. And then she'd thrown a human in with him, knowing a human couldn't survive his feeding.

"Oh gods," he breathed, choking. "Stay with me, baby. I'll get you help."

She coughed as she reached up to touch his lips that were covered in her blood from his feeding. He saw the fear in her eyes and the pain that he'd caused her. The guilt was more than he could bear.

"Soteria?" he whispered her name like a prayer. "Akribos?"

She expelled one last breath before her eyes glazed over and her hand fell limply to the ground where it landed palm up.

Unimaginable grief tore through him as he realized he'd just killed her. Throwing his head back, Ash bellowed from the weight of guilt and pain that assaulted him.

He would never have hurt her. Never!”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, Acheron

“Grief and love doesn't go away. "They become a part of you. "Because you don't get one without the other.”
― James Hilton ( Cowboy)

“Memory, come tell a fairy tale
About my girl who's lost and gone.
Tell, tell about the golden grail
And bid the swallow, bring her back to me.
Fly close to her and ask her soft and low
If she thinks of me sometimes with love,
If she is well? Ask too before you go
If I am still her dearest, precious dove.
And hurry back, don't lose your way,
So I can think of other things.
But you were too lovely, perhaps, to stay.
I loved you once. Good-bye, my love.”
― Celeste Raspanti, I Never Saw Another Butterfly: A Play

“I'm a magnet to hearts looking for healing
And yet I might never be their right place,
Because dusk and darkness needs light to be healed,
And I am just a perennial night hoping to cease.”
― Priyanka Singh, Death before Cremation

“One card read simply, “ God Bless Your Family,” in the painstaking and shaky handwriting of a very elderly person, and I marveled at the enormous and possibly painful effort a stranger across the country had made—to get the card and the stamp, to write the note, to mail it—just so I would not feel so alone. These were people with an emotional bandwidth, a depth and breadth of understanding, that had come from pain in their own lives.”
― Sue Klebold

“In tears there's truth.”
― Michele Gustafson, Show Up Confident: The New Way To Get Ready For Your Day And Your Life

“...and then I scream loud enough to wake the dead... but it doesn't.”
― Wendy Mass, A Mango-Shaped Space

“Glad you're here.”
― Josie Silver

“when i spell grief, i can never remember if the i or e comes first,
so i spend each day autocorrecting my greif,
my grief, greif, grief, greif,
until i can finally figure out what the fuck it is i’m trying to say.”
― Ollie Schminkey, Dead Dad Jokes

“My Daughter

Your smile like the sunshine
your laughter in the rain
I would give all of me
to have you back again.

The Lord took you home that day
now, the missing part of me
at times feels so empty
there’s days I can’t believe.

I dream of your precious love
How it’s missing day to day
my angel went to heaven
while I knell down to pray.

Praying for strength dear Lord
and her laughter in the rain
keeps me strong enough each day
until I see her once again.

Poem dedication”
― Ron Baratono

“The funeral director never smiled, even though I smiled at him several times. I couldn’t help it. My preacher’s daughter background has conditioned me to be cordial even when my world is dark, and that practice has become a habit. I wondered if the guy had been taught at some seminar or other to keep a solemn expression on his face no matter what, or if experience had taught him that any sign of happiness could be taken as an insult.”
― Beth Ann Blackwood, Moving Forward, Looking Back: How Long Does It Take To Move Forward From The Loss Of the Love of Your Life

“In the middle of tragedy, it’s strange the things that become engrained into your memories.”
― Aly Martinez, From the Embers

“Our longing could only resolve in Jesus. His death, resurrection, and return are the only true anchor for aching hearts.”
― Clint Watkins, Just Be Honest: How to Worship through Tears and Pray without Pretending

“You think it will be that way forever- but here's the thing- life keeps on going. People are forgotten and details get fuzzy. You have to work really hard to both let go and hold on.”
― Jennifer Jabaley

“My brother died five years ago, for instance. I sometimes dream of him; he takes part in my affairs, we are very much interested, and yet all through my dream I quite know and remember that my brother is dead and buried. How is it that I am not surprised that, though he is dead, he is here beside me and working with me? Why is it that my reason fully accepts it?”
― Dostoevsky, The Short Novels of Dostoevsky