Greif Quotes

Taylor, listen to me. I could tell you that it's okay. That she wasn't a wonderful person, or I didn't love her. I could tell you that she's happier now, and her life would've been sad and filled with pain and longing to see her love again. I could say that I'm not struggling with her death, as well as the death of the hope that she could once again be part of my life. But instead I'll just say that I'm sad, too, sweetheart. That way I can spare you the struggle of detecting the lie in my words. ~ Embee

The earth will never be the same again
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this greif
As distant stars participate in the pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
A Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
Every life is noted and is cherished,
and nothing loved is ever lost or perished. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

I know you're hurting, Taylor, but grief is clouding your judgement and you need to stay focused. If you attack her now, you won't win. You know she has the advantage, Taylor. I've taught you this. Please, we just need to get out of here. ~ Embee

Build peaks, and former highlands become flatlands--ordinary topography loses its allure. The attempt to make our lives not a waste, by seeking a few most remarkable incidents, will make the rest of our lives a waste. The concept of experience turns us into dwellers in a plateau village who hold on to a myth of the happier race of people who live on the peaks. We climb up occasionally, but only with preparation, for short expeditions. We can't stay there, and everyone is restless and unsatisfied at home. ~ Mark Greif

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

I'll fight when needed, revel when there's an occasion, mourn when there is greif and die if my time comes ... But I will not let anyone use me against my will. ~ Christopher Paolini

Sorrow is the violent smashing of reason, in that reason has no power over it. ~ Nina Sankovitch

Bowed down by greif,
I had resolved
To be moved no more-
But tears, it seems,
Are not like minds. ~ Joseph K. Yamagiwa

When Mother and I learned that Father was dying, Father asked me to sing for him," she said. "Mother insisted that I only sing songs from their youthful days together. She wanted me to take her mind off Father's pain, But when she stepped away, Father asked me to sing songs about pain. About loss. About the world without him. When I played those songs, he would cry. It was the only way he could cry. And now it's the only way I know to cry."

"We need you to lead us in crying, Lesyl, or we'll drown in unshed tears." [King Cal-Raven replied] ~ Jeffrey Overstreet

How should a system convince people that they do not possess their sex properly? Teach them that in their possession it is shapeless and unconditioned. Only once it has been modified, layered with experts, honeycombed with norms, overlaid with pictorial representations, and sold back to them can it fulfill itself as what its possessors "always wanted". ~ Mark Greif

Sometimes words just arent enough.
Sometimes it's easier to magically lose yourself in the memories long past, the ones you so selfishly took for granted.
And sadly sometimes that's the only way to keep those people in your life- recapturing their glorious light before they fade. And inevitably their memory along with them. ~ Kendal Rob

It interests me that there is no end of fictions, and facts made over in the forms of fictions. Because we class them under so many different rubrics, and media, and means of delivery, we don't recognize the sheer proliferation and seamlessness of them. I think at some level of scale or perspective, the police drama in which a criminal is shot, the hospital in which the doctors massage a heart back to life, the news video in which jihadists behead a hostage, and the human-interest story of a child who gets his fondest wish (a tourist trip somewhere) become the same sorts of drama. They are representations of strong experience, which, as they multiply, began to dedifferentiate in our uptake of them, despite our names and categories and distinctions...

I say I watch the news to "know". But I don't really know anything. Certainly I can't do anything. I know that there is a war in Iraq, but I knew that already. I know that there are fires and car accidents in my state and in my country, but that, too, I knew already. With each particular piece of footage, I know nothing more than I did before. I feel something, or I don't feel something. One way I am likely to feel is virtuous and "responsible" for knowing more of these things that I can do nothing about. Surely this feeling is wrong, even contemptible. I am not sure anymore what I feel.

What is it like to watch a human being's beheading? The first showing of the video is bad. The second, fifth, tenth, hundr ~ Mark Greif

Facing and embracing grief allows us to experience the shock, anger, disappointment, and other feelings that need to be processed before we can move through this transition. ~ Michael Thomas Sunnarborg

Like Mom, Zoe thought–like Mom used to. And that's where they differed, for Zoe wrote quiet poetry suffused with twilight and questions. It's not even good poetry, she thought. I don't have talent, it's her. I should be the one ill; she has so much to offer, so much life. "You're a dark one," her mother said sometimes with amused wonder. "You're a mystery. ~ Annette Curtis Klause

If I feel sure of one thing, it is that this kind of "health" imperative is not moral. It is grooming. ~ Mark Greif

Before 'Giant,' I had only ever worked with Michael Greif, Michael John LaChiusa and Kate Baldwin in readings. It's really exciting to be blessed with the opportunity to work with so many I would put in the 'genius' book. ~ Aaron Lazar

Believe in the impossible ~ Sylvia Greif