Goodbyes Quotes

He came up and kissed me on my forehead, and before he stepped away, I closed my eyes and tried hard to memorize this moment. I wanted to remember him exactly as he was right then, how his arms looked brown against his white shirt, the way his hair was cut a little too short in the front. Even the bruise, there because of me.

Then he was gone.

Just for that moment, the thought that I might never see him again… it felt worse than death. I wanted to
run after him. Tell him anything, everything. Just don't go. Please just never go. Please just always be near me, so I can at least see you.

Because it felt final. I always believed that we would find our way back to each other every time. That no matter what, we would be connected - by our history, by this house. But this time, this last time, it felt final. Like I would never see him again, or that when I did, it would be different, there would be a mountain between us.

I knew it in my bones. That this time was it. I had finally made my choice, and so had he. He let me go. I was relieved, which I expected. What I didn't expect was to feel so much grief.

Bye bye, Birdie. ~ Jenny Han

There's nothing left to say. There's a million things left to say. ~ Rick Yancey

Nothing much bothered you for a while and you kept walking like a silhouette through this town, saying hi's and goodbyes, acting polite at all times. But there is no fire in your heart; you are not very concerned. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Goodbyes hurt most when they're one-sided. ~ Brittainy C. Cherry

Grace studied her hands as they moved across the meat. They looked much like any others the same age - veined, lined, the backs stained with tea-coloured spots. But they'd felt their way through the past seventy years in unique ways. Much of their work had been to the benefit of others, some not. She'd known them as still, listening hands, but also as hands that moved with urgency and madness. For a while they'd been careful nurse's hands. Then hands that cradled three babies and clapped, tickled and taught in turn. She'd bruised, burnt and cut them; some scars suggested badly. They'd dismissed, beckoned, pleaded over the years, and not always successfully. Their goodbyes were too many to recall. ~ Sally Piper

I thought I was over him. When I wrote my letter, when I said my goodbyes, I mean it, I swear I did. It wasn´t even that hard, not really. ~ Jenny Han

Judah knew Noa hadn't said it was good-bye. She'd done it as he would have done it, if he'd had the chance: with just an ordinary moment. Unremarkable moments were the ones you missed the most- the ones you didn't realize were precious at the time, and so later could not remember. The moments you lost, when you lost a sister. ~ Lauren Bird Horowitz

Same people. Same hellos and goodbyes. Same beginnings and endings. Same befores and afters. ~ Sarah Ockler

Maybe life is about learning a better goodbye. Learning to let go of the ones we love with nothing but love ~ JmStorm

Goodbyes are not forever. They are always partnered with see you again. ~ Mathilda Maldita

Tonight was marking the first of many goodbyes yet to come as we all took off in different directions across the map to live out the next chapters of our lives. Would we ever be in the same place like this ever again? Would we remember who we were to each other? Would we grow up and forget to be idiots?
Maturity blows. ~ T. Torrest

Irish people give big hellos and very little goodbyes. Unless they're female, and then they spend five hours talking in the doorway to the person that's leaving their house. ~ Dylan Moran

Dear heart, Stop being strong and accept that you are never happy with goodbyes. ~ Nitya Prakash

-You know how to call me
although such a noise now
would only confuse the air
Neither of us can forget
the steps we danced
the words you stretched
to call me out of dust
Yes I long for you
not just as a leaf for weather
or vase for hands
but with a narrow human longing
that makes a man refuse
any fields but his own
I wait for you at an
unexpected place in your journey
like the rusted key
or the feather you do not pick up.-

-I WILL NEVER FIND THE FACES
FOR ALL GOODBYES I'VE MADE.-


For Anyone Dressed in Marble
The miracle we all are waiting for
is waiting till the Parthenon falls down
and House of Birthdays is a house no more
and fathers are unpoisoned by renown.
The medals and the records of abuse
can't help us on our pilgrimage to lust,
but like whips certain perverts never use,
compel our flesh in paralysing trust.
I see an orphan, lawless and serene,
standing in a corner of the sky,
body something like bodies that have been,
but not the scar of naming in his eye.
Bred close to the ovens, he's burnt inside.
Light, wind, cold, dark -- they use him like a bride.


I Had It for a Moment

I had it for a moment
I knew why I must thank you
I saw powerful governing men in black suits
I saw them undressed
in the arms of young mistresses
the men more nake ~ Leonard Cohen

It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell. ~ William Shakespeare

Goodbyes are not for everlasting bonds.
For those who are connected from beyond, their separation will not last Long. ~ Drishti Bablani

Not so bad this ending because one is getting used to endings: life like Morse, a series of dots and dashes, never forming a paragraph. ~ Graham Greene

Which was just well: goodbyes had never been my strong suit anyway, and lately my life had felt like an unbroken series of them. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. ~ Ransom Riggs

Some goodbyes are not ends but releases. ~ Beau Taplin

He wasn't much cut out for serious conversations. And a goodbye is a serious conversation. ~ Alessandro Baricco

Goodbyes weren't all they were cracked up to be ~ Abbi Glines

High school is a haunted house in April, when seniors act up because the end is near. Even those who hate school sometimes cling to the devil they know. And for the kids who love it, the goodbyes are hard to think about. ~ Nancy Gibbs

None of us mentioned An Evening of Long Goodbyes, whose race had been so catastrophic that, by the end, neither Frank nor I could summon the will to gloat. He had begun badly, getting his head stuck in the gate and having to be extricated by the stewards, and continued with a series of humiliating and distinctly uncanine trips and stumbles, disgracing himself beyond redemption in the third lap, when his muzzle came off and, to the boos of the crowd, he abandoned the race to leap over the hoardings and snatch a hot dog from the hand of a small boy. ~ Paul Murray

With maps and globes decorated around your room as a child and with passport and ticket in hand in the present, it is your world to explore. To travel is to ask for a complex mix of the new and the old, hellos and goodbyes, and sadness and happiness. Leave your shoes behind at home and to walk in the footsteps of others for a while. ~ Forrest Curran

I don't like goodbyes, NBC does. ~ Jay Leno

So long as I remain in Day's life, I will hurt him. Any other alternative is impossible.
Now, he is free. ~ Marie Lu

Also, I suppose I wanted to say goodbye to someone, and have someone say goodbye to me. The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us we're still alive, after all. ~ Stephen King

Well honey, You know that I don't like goodbyes. What I am trying to whisper you right now, it sounds like GOODBYE but it tastes like WELCOME to our rendezvous ~ Camelia C.

The best thing about endings is knowing that just ahead is the daunting task to start over. ~ Jodi Picoult

Goodbyes are sad, no matter what the promise of tomorrow is. ~ Janet Leigh

Only you, Will Traynor, could tell a woman how to wear a bloody dress. ~ Jojo Moyes

A thousand goodbyes come after death - the first six months of bereavement. ~ Allan Gregg

We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last ride in a Checker cab and you had no warning. It was the last time you were going to have Lake Tung Ting shrimp in that kinda shady Chinese restaurant and you had no idea. If you had known, perhaps you would have stepped behind the counter and shaken everyone's hand, pulled out the disposable camera and issued posing instructions. But you had no idea. There are unheralded tipping points, a certain number of times that we will unlock the front door of an apartment. At some point you were closer to the last time than you were to the first time, and you didn't even know it. You didn't know that each time you passed the threshold you were saying goodbye. ~ Colson Whitehead

She could have lived every minute she'd had with him better. She should have always spoken the best words she could to him. ~ Veronica Rossi

I don't know how you say good-bye to whom and what you love. I don't know a painless way to do it, don't know the words to capture a heart so full and a longing so intense. ~ Laura Wiess

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. This ... is goodbye. But not out last hello. ~ Charles Martin

It proved difficult, when it came to it, to part from her mother with a bright goodbye
though, after all, not that difficult, because this was only the beginning, and there were still two or three more goodbyes to come. For the same reason, as she made the walk down to Camberwell and along the Walworth Road, though she tried to gaze at everything in the knowledge that she might soon be taken away from it, she couldn't keep it up, she felt mannered and inauthentic
like an actress, she thought, playing a character to whom the doctor had just delivered the fatal diagnosis. ~ Sarah Waters

No more fucking goodbyes. You leave? I leave. That's how this works Blue."
…
"And I'm done letting other people manipulate our lives to keep us apart. I'm fucking done. You leave, I leave. End of story. ~ Meghan March

I cried in sadness, and I cried with joy. I cried for unwanted goodbyes, and I cried for unexpected hellos. I cried for all the things that could've been, and I cried for the beauty of what actually was. ~ Erin Noelle

I was raised in a fishing village in the middle of the desert. I sold hellos and goodbyes just to get by. ~ Jarod Kintz

For a moment, perhaps an hour, they would wait, wait for something, and when that waiting was over, it was simply dismissed, goodbyes stated, reading materials closed, a momentary pause in the day that did not hold up to whatever came next.
Waiting was often a resented gift, imparted to those who accepted it grudgingly in the hopes that something better would come along when the gift was tossed aside, boxed away for the next recipient. ~ Gina Marinello-Sweeney

There's a great deal of relief in goodbyes and a lot of promise in hellos. ~ Laarni Venus Marie Giango

I hate goodbyes, but hating them is never a justification to stay. ~ Cecelia Ahern

The world was alive, the sky descending; our times were lullabies and sad goodbyes. ~ Nicholaus Patnaude

I take a swig of booze. "I didn't do it. The surgery." "I heard," he says. "Can I ask why not?" I shrug, not because I don't know but because I don't feel like rehashing his role in my decision. "You know when you're hanging out with people and you have to leave early? Everyone tells you to stay, but you have to go, so you do a round of goodbyes and hugs and everything. Then, you're at the door, and you glance back, and you want everyone to still be staring after you, waving. But they've all already gone back to their conversation. You're not missed at all." I gaze out at the ocean, the endless shifting expanse. "That's what makes me feel sad about dying. That after I'm gone and everyone has said goodbye, life just goes on without me." "You're worried about leaving a legacy?" Cooper asks. "What you'll be remembered for?" "More like, I'll just miss life. Life. I'll miss being a part of it. I'll miss weddings and the ocean and music and champagne. I'll miss the drama and the gossip and the news and New York. I'll just miss it. ~ Georgia Clark

She has become someone that I am bound to forget her. ~ J. Limbu

Goodbyes are not easy, but I'm ready to move on. I'm not reluctant, Emma, not holding back. I don't have answers to the questions, but I have some good questions. I have loved life, but I believe that life is to be loved, it is a gift. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

So let's say our bloody goodbyes, and then you can promise to remember me from my good old days.
"I can't do that," Minho said. ~ James Dashner

Relly fired off the opening riff. Butt laid down the beat, old doom and new joy mixed together. "I wait till I, like fire, shall rise," Jerod sang. And then again, louder, wailing sure and true.
I was the last one to join in. I had a bass line all wroked out, of course. I'd been waiting weeks for this momment. My fingers colosed on the strings, pressed them hard to the frets. Butt and Relly were locked in, repeating the four-bar intro. Louder and louder, fierce as a war cry.
"Ok," I whispered into the pounding noise.
I joined in, doubling Relly at first, then splitting off to coil our riffs together. It was great, it was huge, it was endless. The song rose, churning and sucking everything in like a cyclone.
"The will my voice in great goodbyes," Jerod screamed from the speakers. "Join to the chorus of the skies."
Silence was inside me, riding the Ghost Metal tornado. Right at the center, at the heart of the song.
I didn't need a voice. I had a bass. I didn't need to hear myself talk or sing. Jerod could make the words for me.
Or maybe it was Silence herself, pouring out through the PA system. Either way, any way, They were my words. And all the world would hear them. ~ Leander Watts

A blanket could be used to say hello to all the goodbyes I'll never see again. Keep it wrapped tight, because every bye should be covered in darkness. ~ Jarod Kintz

Maybe not all goodbyes are the end - and that's what makes them good. ~ Gwendolyn Heasley

You had me at hello, goodbye and everything in between. ~ Shannon L. Alder

There will always be a pain in 'goodbyes'. No matter how much we seem to understand everything, it breaks our hearts to ever see anything beautiful die. ~ Jocelyn Soriano

I'll be back," she said. "Very soon."
He needed to reply. He needed to say Good, come back; better, Don't go; or better still, I'll join you. He wanted to say, Your neck is beautiful. He wanted to say, I never ever thought my life would hold this, and if your leaving is what I must give for what I was given, then it was worth it.
But the children were all around and Mr Abasi was calling out and motioning for her to come, and anyway, he knew now, if he hadn't known before, that there were limitations to words - words in the air or on a page. ~ Masha Hamilton

If I could slam the door, I would. If I could walk to another room, I would. The best I can do is turn and head for the far corner of my cell. In prison, even goodbyes are beyond my control. ~ T.J. Forrester

I can't pray or weigh my words right; doomsday
is here my friend, but you're immune. We suffer
for you. I'm weaving crowns of sonnets, dreads;
a souvenir so you'll never forget your friends. ~ Jalina Mhyana

Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well - too well not to smite out of my path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it - I would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Wasted tries, The many whys, Is it the soul of Compromise?
Lows and highs, Believing in lies, In life we have to improvise.
Frustration and cries, The last leg of sighs, You are the dreamer in disguise!
To the guilt say goodbyes, Open your eyes, Your soul - I do so recognize. ~ Julieanne O'Connor

When you have only two minutes to say good-bye to the person you love most in the world, and you don't know when you'll see each other again, you can become logjammed with the effort to say and do and settle everything at once. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Sometimes the hardest goodbyes are the ones never said, the ones that always just hang there in the back of the mind like a dark cloud. There's so much to say but no one to say it to because the person you want most to hear it is already gone. That's how he felt. Sorrow, regret, a wound so deep it didn't even bleed. Like a puncture wound, an ache that didn't heal but just hurt. He didn't know if he wanted it to heal. That'd be too much like a final goodbye. ~ Virginia Brown

In a Time
In a time of secret wooing
Today prepares tomorrow's ruin
Left knows not what right is doing
My heart is torn asunder.
In a time of furtive sighs
Sweet hellos and sad goodbyes
Half-truths told and entire lies
My conscience echoes thunder
In a time when kingdoms come
Joy is brief as summer's fun
Happiness, its race has run
Then pain stalks in to plunder. ~ Maya Angelou

It didn't last long. Not many good things in a foster kid's life last long. One day, Maura was gone. Her few things were packed in paper bags and a tearful Miss Louisa carried her out to Miss Hanrahan's black state-owned Ford sedan with the state emblem on the door, and she was gone. The state had found a foster home that would take a little girl but couldn't take the rest of us. There were no long goodbyes. She was just gone. I remember having an enormous sense of helplessness when they took her. Maura didn't know where she were going or long she would be there. She was just gone ~ John William Tuohy

We promised we'd all stay in touch. Even joked about a yearly reunion. These kinds of goodbyes are the scary goodbyes. The goodbyes where you know the chances of seeing each other again are very slim. ~ Estelle Maskame

And then the death will come. The great parting, but the least painful of all the goodbyes we ever knew. For in death, only one shall grieve. And so far we have always, at every parting, grieved together. ~ Ivo Andric

I suppose in the end the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye. ~ Yann Martel

The end of a relationship is not always a failure. Sometimes all the love in the world is not enough to save something. In these cases, it is not a matter of fault from either person. Some things cannot be, it's as simple as that. ~ Ashly Lorenzana

Surfacing

When you go to the water seeking answers
You won't find me there.
Just Remember:
I am in the sun and the clouds
The Trees and the wind.
Your very own shadow.

When you let the tears come down
With the fear of forgetting,
Just Remember:
I am in your laughter and quiet times
The hellos and goodbyes.
Your very own spirit.

When you continue living tomorrow
After years of grieving,
Just remember:
I am in your memories and yesterdays
The good times and closed chapters.
It's time to go on. ~ Lucy Lennox

I wanted to say goodbye to someone, and have someone say goodbye to me. The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us we´re still alive. ~ Stephen King

He cut the connection before she could answer. Long goodbyes weren't anyone's strong suit. ~ James S.A. Corey

Sky,

Hopefully by the time you're reading this (because I know you won't read it right away) I'll be madly in love with a hot Italian boyfriend and not thinking about you at all.

But I know that isn't the case, because I'll be thinking about you all the time.

I'll be thinking about all the nights we stayed up with our ice cream and our movies and our boys. But mostly, I'll be thinking about you, and all the reasons why I love you.

Just to name a few: I love how you suck at goodbyes and feelings and emotions, because I do, too. I love how you always scoop from the strawberry and vanilla side of the ice cream because you know how much I love the chocolate, even though you love it, too. I love how you aren't weird and awkward, despite the fact that you've been severely cut off from socialization to the point where you make the Amish look trendy.

But most of all, I love that you don't judge me. I love that in the past four years, you've never once questioned me about my choices (as poor as they may be) or the guys I've been with or the fact that I don't believe in commitment. I would say that it's simple for you not to judge me, because you're a dirty slut, too. But we both know you're not. So thank you for being a non-judgmental friend. Thank you for never being condescending or treating me like you're better than me (even though we both know you are.) As much as I can laugh about the things people say about us behind our ba ~ Colleen Hoover

Remembering now all those farewells (fake farewells, worked-up farewells), Irena thinks: a person who messes up her goodbyes shouldn't expect much from her re-unions. ~ Milan Kundera

This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next-and I didn't want to forget a single one. ~ Banana Yoshimoto

Bards don't believe in goodbyes - we know that the roads we walk are winding, and we generally tend to come back to people and places we've known and been before, and often at just the right time." I smiled. "We'll meet again. ~ Sean Gibson

I've done goodbyes before, and I can do this one, too. Somehow this one hurts worse than the others; because this one I could prevent if I wanted to, since I'm the one saying it. This goodbye comes with a choice the way none of the others did. ~ Katja Millay

You'll have lots of adventures in the future, and goodbyes will come with lots of them. The ones who love you will take pride in sending you on those adventures...And if one day, you do set off on all those adventures you imagine for yourself, I'll be proud to have raised a daughter who's brave enough to have followed her dreams. I promise ~ Amie Kaufman

I write you a letter that begins
With I love you and ends with I love you and
Somewhere in the middle is one goodbye for
Every hurt ~ Patricia Smith

You're talking like a Stalinist!' I cried. 'People don't get jobs to achieve things and learn values! They do it because they have to, and then they use whatever's left over to buy themselves things that make them feel less bad about having jobs! Can't you see, it's just a terrible vicious circle! ~ Paul Murray

I have never been good at saying goodbyes to people. What else can they offer rather than a reciprocal desolation? ~ Aishah Madadiy

We've shared good (times)
We've shared good fries
We've shared good (beers)
But never goodbyes ...
Till now
Mind how you go, good buddy ~ John Walter Bratton

It seemed so good when it started.
I gave my trust to you.
I came to you open-hearted,
Hoping it was true.
Now I've gotten smart.
Now I've learned some things.
Now I know that what once was a start,
Is just an ending.
The longest good-bye
I ever knew,
The longest good-bye
Was the day
I said hello to you. ~ Heather Lynn Rigaud

Singing rose up from the convent, filling the woods with a peaceful echo that tried to penetrate her heart and smooth her features; but nothing could ease the pain of saying goodbye. ~ Kate Willis

Despite the fact that I have no regrets about how things turned out in my life, I still can't help wanting to understand my intense relationship with Leo, as well as that turbulent time between adolescence and adulthood when everything feels raw and invigorating and scary-and why those feelings are all coming back to me now. ~ Emily Giffin

Simon, tell me what you want. Please just tell me"…
"No more goodbyes," he whispered. ~ Christine Brae

Maybe I am everything I knew that I would never be. I looked back at Jay and smiled. ~ Holly Hood

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers, nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells,
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes,
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall,
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds. ~ Wilfred Owen

On Waterloo Bridge where we said our goodbyes,
the weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I've fallen in love
On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. you're high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?
On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You're a fool. I don't care.
the head does its best but the heart is the boss-
I admit it before I am halfway across ~ Wendy Cope

There are no goodbyes in life. Only see you later. ~ Kate McCarthy

So many faces in and out of my life Some will last Some will be just now and then. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again. Say goodbye to Hollywood Say goodbye my baby Say goodbye to Hollywood Say goodbye my baby. ~ Billy Joel

Emira realized that Briar probably didn't know how to say good-bye because she never had to do it before. But whether she said good-bye or not, Briar was about to become a person who existed without Emira. She'd go to sleepovers with girls she met at school, and she'd have certain words that she'd always forget how to spell. She'd be a person who sometimes said things like, "Seriously?" or "That's so funny" and she'd ask a friend if this was her water or theirs. Briar would say good-bye in yearbook signatures and through heartbroken tears and through emails and over the phone. But she'd never say good-bye to Emira, which made it seem that Emira would never be completely free from her. For the rest of her life and for zero dollars an hour, Emira would always be Briar's sitter. ~ Kiley Reid

All I was afraid of is saying good-bye. ~ Mitch Albom

Look up," the darkness whispered,
"Do you wish to travel time?
For there are centuries of stories
Hidden inside each star's shine.
Yet what you see is just a sentence
In a tale with many more,
For the light reaching us now
Left the home countless years before.
And someday in the future
Long after your last goodbye,
Perhaps somebody else
Will turn their eyes upto the sky.
And where now you just see darkness
They will see a brand new light,
The beginning of a story
That has just left home tonight. ~ Emily Hanson

I dont want to make friends here.
Why?
I don't like goodbyes. ~ James Frey

Perhaps farewells create new territories, or they send us back to the only territory that truly belongs to us, that of solitude. ~ Andres Neuman

Nobody lives forever, nobody stays young long enough. My past seemed like so much excess baggage, my future a series of long goodbyes, my present an empty flask, the last good drink already bitter on my tongue. ~ James Crumley

As long as you loved somebody, each kiss was hope and wonder, but it was also the potential for good-bye. ~ Martina Boone

I sighed. Two goodbyes in one night. It was depressing. And it wasn't as though I had a whole Rolodex full of friends. But no sense being sentimental about it. Sentiment is stupid. ~ Barry Eisler

I'm no good at goodbyes

-50 Ways To Say Goodbye ~ Train

Another time, another place. ~ Richard Bachman

On the 11th of every month my friend elizabeth would say, "well we made it through another month. so do we get her back now?" we always giggled, but we really did expect to get her back. its not human to let go of love, even when it's dead.
we expected one of these monthly anniversaries to be the Final Goodbye. we figured that we'd said all our goodbyes, and given up all the tears we had to give. we'd passed the test and would get back what we'd lost. but instead, every anniversary hurt more, and every anniversary felt like she was further away from coming back. the idea that there wouldn't be a final goodbye- that was a hard goodbye in itself and, at that point, still an impossible goodbye. no private eye has to tell you it's a long goodbye.
... the loss just doesn't go away- it gets bigger the longer you look at it. ~ Rob Sheffield

Look, I hate good-byes, too. But sometimes, we need them just to survive. ~ Rachel Caine