Grief Healing Quotes

You complain of 'the hole in your heart' but it isn't a hole in your heart at all. When I left you I took a piece of your heart with me. I filled up the hole with a piece of mine so that we would never ever be separated. ~ Kate McGahan

Turn off your phone, and your computer and your mind. Find your heart center and send it compassion. See the holiness in everyone you meet. Honor it.
Know your worth. Know your worth. Know your worth.
Accept no less. Become familiar with the space where compromise is unkind. Nurture your exquisite loneliness. Let it teach you. Light candles at every opportunity. Always wear perfume, it helps you remember yourself. Touch your inked ribs lightly when you forget who you are. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it -
books, bricks, grief -
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled -
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply? ~ Mary Oliver

An emotionally abusive relationship, in very simplistic terms, is much like standing up in a too hot bath and sinking back in so as not to feel so dizzy. ~ Jackie Haze, Borderless

Remember that grief is a necessary pain. It's your only way to heal. To starve it will destroy you."~The Grimoire ~ S.M. Boyce

We're all broken," she says. "You have to stop treating yourself like a special case. You may be broken in different places, but it's damage all the same. ~ Brian McBride

I know what you are thinking. You can't now fathom ever forgetting to think about me. You're afraid that if you move forward, it will take you further away from me. This is a common misconception shared by many people and it delays their healing... It keeps you stuck in you grief and it's only because you are still clinging to me. You think if you stop grieving that you will lose me. Maybe you even feel if you let go of me that you are abandoning me; maybe you feel that you will hurt my feelings because if it were the other way around you would not ever want me to forget about you. You are afraid that if you love again that you will grow away from me.
I am Here! I am here, waiting to run to you when the time comes. It's unconditional. It's forever. ~ Kate McGahan

When we learn to attribute meaning to the events in our lives, we connect with our Higher Purpose, Higher Wisdom, or Source; we become Master of the Self. A gradual process, this is often tied to loss and to love. ~ Susan Barbara Apollon

The defining loss becomes the defining point of your life. In the light rising from grief, every falling teardrop of your heart turns to a pearl of wisdom. ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

Don't let anyone tell you how long it will take for you to heal - but be aware that time is passing, whether you're healing or not. ~ Maryanne Pope

You Cannot Escape Beauty And You Cannot Stop Being Attracted To It, Because Beauty Allures. Beauty Seduces. Beauty Wants You To Come Closer. ~ Trebbe Johnson

I guess people are right when they say that time helps grief. I don't agree that it heals, but maybe it wraps our losses up deeper and deeper inside so we can get on with being alive. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

In the lowest of lows you can learn the highest of highs, and that often when you get to the point of wanting to die, it's because you already have and are truly aching to live. ~ Jackie Haze

When his wife died, for a while it was the end of the world, because part of him had died with her. As the long, slow recovery proceeded, he had gratefully and guiltily accepted the return of equilibrium. But he had not paid attention to a parallel phenomenon: his reversion to what he had been before his marriage. Though changed by whatever he had learned during their years together, and by whatever healing had taken place, he had fallen back into the old patterns of withdrawal. Nursing the dreadful wound of her absence, he had failed to notice the subtler void opening up within himself. ~ Michael D. O'Brien

If we want to reconcile with our family or with friends who have hurt us, we have to take care of ourselves first. If we're not capable of listening to ourselves, how can we listen to another person? If we don't know how to recognise our own suffering, it won't be possible to bring peace and harmony into our relationships. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Life is a gift of moments that is not ours to keep….cause it was designed by God above…..for they pass…and pass they must…while we live and relive through their beauty….and when the time comes…..we give the beauty back to God…knowing it was never ours in the first place….Such is the truth of life....

…..Jayita Bhattacharjee ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

I thought about how the past can become so small. An entire day, 24 separate, heavy hours, becomes the size of a tiny brown leaf falling from a tree. Before you know it, a whole year is just a pile of dead leaves on the ground. The year or so I'd spent in love with Chad was starting to feel so long ago, swept away by the wind. I knew that this year would soon feel far away too. ~ Kimberly Novosel

Grief is a process to go through, not a destination in which to wallow. In a process, you keep putting one foot in front of the other, and each little step is part of your healing. ~ Phil McGraw

We are turning our grief into winnable actions. ~ Mark Ruffalo

Healing is not about moving on or "getting over it," it's about learning to make peace with our pain and finding purpose in our lives again. ~ Shirley Kamisky

The Language of Sand has something for everyone: myths, mystery, community, humor, grief, and ultimately healing. I found myself not only rooting for Abigail but for the whole community of Chapel Isle. Block manages to hold sass and heartfelt emotion in perfect equilibrium. ~ Brunonia Barry

And I wonder what the sound of a heart breaking might be. And I think it might be quiet, unperceptively so, and not dramatic at all. Like the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth. ~ Sarah Winman

We bear the pain that is cutting inside. We touch the grief, we nurture it, we embrace it, until it shows us a way, a different way. This is how love is born, in an injured soul.

……...Jayita Bhattacharjee ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

In those moments of unnaming when we have lost ourselves, we must remember to return to our past redemptions to find God's mark of glory on our abandonment, betrayal, and shame. We wrongly believe that we will be happy if we can escape the past. But without our past we are hollow and plastic beings who have only common names and conventional stories. When we enter into our story at the point we lost our name, we are most likely to hear the whisper of our new name. ~ Dan B. Allender

I wondered what those mountains behind them might tell me, what advice they would give, if they could talk. What they would tell me about love, and about loss, and about how this wild place could heal as naturally as it could kill. ~ Shannon Huffman Polson

She had not had the relief of amnesia. She had suffered longer, and she had suffered more. Each second was agony in the first weeks. She was like an amputee in the days before anesthesia, half crazed with pain, astounded that the human body could feel so much and not die of it. But slowly, cell by painful cell, she began to mend. There came a time when it was no longer her whole body that burned with pain but only her heart. And then there came a time when even her heart was able, for a time at least, to feel other emotions besides grief. ~ Diane Setterfield

It's my own deep-rooted feeling that our souls never truly die and that life continues in some way. I know I need to have patience as my beliefs continue to evolve with my personal growth. As I've looked around at the things I do have in my life, I've gradually started to trust in life again, little by little. I think, How could all of these other amazing things come into my life if there was not something larger than me? ~ Elizabeth Berrien

Your memories are embedded in the Seashells of Yesterdays... ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

Take heart now in one true thing: You will gain traction. You will grow upwards even when you think you've been slammed back down into that same dark hole. It will start looking like a different hole, one that might still have you
curled up and crying, but that crying will be more transformative than only desperate screams of despair. Your pain can be turned to good account. You're not alone. You've got
this handbook. Keep us with you. ~ Deborah Pardes

I felt like I was being carried over the threshold of a sisterhood of loss. I knew I was not walking alone, and that eventually I would bob back up to the surface of the deep, because the women around me showed me what healing looks like. ~ Anna White

Imagine the feeling of relief that would flood our whole being if we knew that when we were in the grip of sorrow or illness, our village would respond to our need. This would not be out of pity, but out of a realization that every one of us will take our turn at being ill, and we will need one another. The indigenous thought is when one of us is ill, all of us are ill. Taking this thought a little further, we see that healing is a matter, in great part, of having our, connections to the community and the cosmos restored. This truth has been acknowledged in many studies. Our immune response is strengthened when we feel our connection with community. By regularly renewing the bonds of belonging, we support our ability to remain healthy and whole. ~ Francis Weller

Healing Follows Forgiveness ~ Pat Bluth

At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

The Broken Beauty
I see compassion in your eyes,
And I wonder,
What agony has taught you such tenderness?
I see kindness in your soul,
And I wonder,
What grief has taught you such gentleness?

I see light in your eyes,
And I wonder,
What suffering has broken into light?
I see wholeness rising in your heart,
And I wonder,
What brokenness has taught you such healing in life?

I see smiles blooming in your face,
And I wonder,
What bruise has brought you such beauty?
I smell fragrance of your soul.
And I wonder,
What murk has taught you to unfold?

I see kindness in your face,
And I wonder,
What severity has taught you such softness?
I see gratitude lighting your cheeks,
And I wonder,
What loss has taught you such humbleness?

I sense peace in your soul,
And I wonder,
What struggles have taught you to surrender?
I see shimmer in your eyes,
And I wonder,
What darkness has brought you to such light?

I sense peace in your heart,
And I wonder,
What defeat has taught you such a submission?
I see humility in your face,
And I wonder,
What trials have taught you such a gratitude?

I sense freedom in your breath,
And I wonder,
What restraint has brought such a release?
I see soaring of your wings,
And I wonder,
~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

LOVE IS LIKE A DESIGNER FASHION, ENJOY IT WHEN YOU HAVE IT. LET IT GO WHEN IT IS GONE BECAUSE A NEW ONE WILL COME. ~ Linda Alfiori

Listen with your heart, not your brain. the heart only knows TRUTH! ~ Sherri Bridges Fox

May you know always that you are never alone, that life and love are eternal, and that you are extraordinary. ~ Susan Barbara Apollon

How about when you feel as if you are at a treacherous crossing, facing an area of life that hasn't even been on the map until recently. Suddenly there it is, right in front of you.
And so the time and space in between while you first get over the shock of it, and you have to figure out WHAT must be done feels excruciating. It's a nightmare you can't awaken from.
You might remember this time as a kind of personal D-day, as in damage, devastation, destruction, damnation, desolation – maybe a difficult divorce, or even diagnosis of some formidable disease. These are the days of our lives that whole, beautiful chapters of life go up in flames. And all you can do is watch them burn. Until you feel as though you are left only with the ashes of it all. It is at this moment you long for the rescue and relief that only time can provide.
It is in this place, you must remember that in just 365 days – you're at least partially healed self will be vastly changed, likely for the better. Perhaps not too unlike a caterpillar's unimaginable metamorphosis.
Better. Stronger. Wiser. Tougher. Kinder. More fragile, more firm, all at the same time as more free. You will have gotten through the worst of it – somehow. And then it will all be different. Life will be different. You will be different. It might or might not ever make sense, but it will be more bearable than it seems when you are first thrown, with no warning, into the kilns of life with the heat stoked up – or when ~ Connie Kerbs

If we enter our story in heartache, we will hear the whisper of the name that will one day be ours. ~ Dan B. Allender

Looking through the eyes of grief, listening to the voices that rise from the grave, you bloom to a bud who sees the light breaking through the night. ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

It is true that the grief journey is very lonely, but it is also up to you to decide just how lonely you will make it. ~ Elizabeth Berrien

If you did not live lovingly and love deeply, you would not feel the pain of separation. But neither would you feel the joy, passion, and happiness that living fully and loving deeply bring. ~ Susan Barbara Apollon

Remember to view yourself and your humanness with a kind heart. ~ Elizabeth Berrien

Leaving the memories behind, I am nobody.
Carrying them with me, I am somebody.
In honor of the forgotten past,
I pen the verses of my heart.
I arise with the sound of my soul.
I arise to write my history on every page.
I arise to pay off my debt.
I arise to open my arms to this breaking dawn. ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

The cold, like the darkness, can become a deceptive comfort you never want to leave. ~ Cecelia Ahern

We all need hope. As souls, we journey in physical bodies, traversing a life that is dually lived. We experience safety through attachment to the physical world, but we also are comforted and cared for by a trust in the non-physical, spiritual part of our reality. Two different roads, available for us and from which we choose, moment by moment. ~ Susan Barbara Apollon

Contrary to what a lot of people believe (or hope), comfort doesn't take the pain away. Comfort slides in beside the pain, pulling up a chair so that we have something more than sorrow in our hearts. Comfort gently expands our spirits so that we can breathe again. Comfort opens our eyes so that we can see possibility again.
And on those days, whether it is the next day or five years removed, on that day when grief rears its dark head again, comfort helps us remember that pain is not all there is ~ Peggy Haymes

There is an old phrase, 'hiding in plain sight.' This is where we find the loved one we miss so much. All we need to do is open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts. ~ Susan Barbara Apollon

Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors, even for patients who have not lost loved ones to death. We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them through, they go from haunting us to becoming simply part of our history. (243) ~ Norman Doidge

Nothing big ever happens, good or bad, unless the floor falls out first.

Let your longing wind you down through that spiral. And know that falling can be the most wickedly awesome and totally safe thing you've ever done. Down, down, down, because when you hit that solid ground you'll know.

You might touch down softly, or you might land in an ungraceful thud. But land you will and when you're ready, you can stretch your shaky legs, dust yourself off tossing your head back to the heavens and proclaim 'Here I am! All that I am, and all that I will be."

And your heart will still love what it loves. And you will remember that was good in you, and in her. And these memories will comfort and will serve you as you move through life, open to love – wherever and whenever it finds you. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

Guilt added to Rachael's grief. Swirled amongst it like a river of shame. ~ Ellen Read

And if you're referring to your anguish, it's just a thing. The shape of a trailor, a wheel, or a knife. Leave the details of your life and find another one. ~ Alice Notley

I certainly have a lot to lament, as do we all, everybody has their griefs. But the griefs we can fix, shouldn't we go around fixing them? ~ Elizabeth Edwards

Understanding why we are afraid to grieve is a prelude to transforming our lives. Getting in touch with our deepest fears and airing them in a safe space can be incredibly liberating. ~ Christopher Dines

Solace of Silence
surreal synapses
of a melancholy drone
a dream per chance
she dared not be alone ... ~ Muse

With time you learn to love life again, which calls you to dream, to create. to pick up all the broken pieces of yesterday. ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

We never truly say Goodbye to the ones
we walked with, in the yesteryears of our lives. ~ Jayita Bhattacharjee

Because in our pain we must find each other – mirror to mirror the grace of our shared humanity, the stunningly broken beauty of our shared grief.

And you can let your grief see my grief and let our tears mingle into some kind of healing alchemy, and you'll know what i know.

That we are never alone.

I promise. You and me? We are never, ever alone. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

Going with the flow of life is like catching a train at the station. You need to be at the right station at the right time and board the right train to get you where you need to be. If you go earlier than you're supposed to, you can catch the wrong train. You don't want to do that because it will just take you further away from me than you feel you already are. You need to go through the growing pains of grief so that you and I can fulfill our destiny and be in the right place at the right time to be reunited again. ~ Kate McGahan

Simply touching a difficult memory with some slight willingness to heal begins to soften the holding and tension around it. (74) ~ Stephen Levine

In this week I see such a picture of life, hard and joyful pressed up together and sleeping in the same bed. They come knit together. The lines of pain run through the joy and remind us to go all in, because life is short. The joy edges the pain and gives us a reason to rise. ~ Anna White

In life, you either choose to be a powerleess victim or one of the choosen ones, who now has the power to understand the pain of others. ~ Linda Alfiori

Grief feels a lot like fear. We're afraid of it taking us over. But we owe it to ourselves, to those we have lost, to let grief in. Only then can we start to remember them with a cheer in our heart, a cheer for them and all that they were. ~ Jennifer Ryan

I started crying. "When will it stop hurting?"
"I don't know. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could take the pain away. But it will get better and easier for you over time. ~ Olga Trujillo

Sorrow can be a bully. ~ Amy Waldman

When we understand the illusory nature of life and the profound power of eternal love, which enables us to create miracles and experience the presence of our deceased loved ones, we find ourselves living with joy, hope and peace. ~ Susan Barbara Apollon

Great memories really can help overwhelm grief. ~ Cathy Burnham Martin

I believe I gather strength from the generations of women who came before me - that together we all hold the suffering of the world. ~ Elizabeth Berrien

MOTHER – By Ted Kooser

Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass and the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring clouds
went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.

The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.

They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts,
burning in circles like birthday candles,
for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.

There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.

You asked me if I would be sad when it happened
and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of the ~ Ted Kooser

I don't know if I ever told you, my therapist said. But I'm a birder. I love birds. and when they hit a window like that, or get hurt in any significant way, they have this ritual. They shake off the pain. They shake off the trauma. And they walk in circles to reconnect their brain and body and soul. When your bird was walking and shaking, it was remembering and relearning how to be a bird. Oh, wow. I couldn't say much after that intense revelation, but my therapist continued. We humans often lose touch with our bodies, she said. We forget that we can also shake away our pain and trauma.
Pg 453 ~ Sherman Alexie

For many emotionally wounded addicts, the idea of grieving is a daunting prospect. To regularly grieve does require courage and a desire to heal - but rest assured; the resulting gains from these efforts are profound. ~ Christopher Dines

Dealing with the impossible, fantasy can show us what may be really possible. If there is grief, there is the possibility of consolation; if hurt, the possibility of healing; and above all, the curative power of hope. If fantasy speaks to us as we are, it also speaks to us as we might be ~ Lloyd Alexander

Like most people who decide to get sober, I was brought to Alcoholics Anonymous. While AA certainly works for others, its core propositions felt irreconcilable with my own experiences. I couldn't, for example, rectify the assertion that "alcoholism is a disease" with the facts of my own life.
The idea that by simply attending an AA meeting, without any consultation, one is expected to take on a blanket diagnosis of "diseased addict" was to me, at best, patronizing. At worst, irresponsible. Irresponsible because it doesn't encourage people to turn toward and heal the actual underlying causes of their abuse of substances.
I drank for thirteen years for REALLY good reasons. Among them were unprocessed grief, parental abandonment, isolation, violent trauma, anxiety and panic, social oppression, a general lack of safety, deep existential discord, and a tremendous diet and lifestyle imbalance. None of which constitute a disease, and all of which manifest as profound internal, mental, emotional and physical discomfort, which I sought to escape by taking external substances.
It is only through one's own efforts to turn toward life on its own terms and to develop a wiser relationship to what's there through mindfulness and compassion that make freedom from addictive patterns possible. My sobriety has been sustained by facing life, processing grief, healing family relationships, accepting radically the fact of social oppression, working with my abandonment conditioning, ~ Noah Levine

Reasons never matter, once Death comes cold and bold and takes the living by the hand. You count up your dead, every one.. ~ Janet Morris

Hello, this is I, and these are my arms and legs, which are useful, and this inconvenient hump is my sorrow, which is less than useful, but I've learned how to hump it around, so pay it no mind. ~ Gregory Maguire

Behind the cloud the sun is still shining. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I knew it was loads easier to crumble under the weight of grief than it was to stand up with it on your back, but every day you carry it forward you get stronger and stronger, and eventually it doesn't feel as heavy as it once did. ~ R.S. Grey

But don't ever forget: adultery is also biblical grounds for forgiveness, healing, and restoration. ~ Craig Groeschel

On some level, with its carrousels and castle and cowboys, its mysterious jungle and its animated characters, Disneyland is a highly idealized elaboration of our childhoods. It can be seen as a portal through which we revisit (maybe even heal) our youth. ~ Leslie Le Mon

Be strong then, and enter into your own body; there you have a solid place for your feet. ~ Kabir

From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations ~ Hippocrates

A woman who had fallen out of love with her life ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

I stood staring to heaven and nothing came from there, no mercy or redemption. Whatever had come had come already and it was not sent by God. I stood, arms outstretched and empty, like a man praying but I was not praying, I was crying, because it had come to this and I had come to this place, and they were not with me... they were gone for ever. ~ James Robertson

We are to be agents of His great upside down Kindgom, where the outcasts are listened to, the broken are given dignity, and those suffering under the weight of sexual exploitation are rescued and healed. ~ Mary E. DeMuth

Grief is the best opener of some hearts, ~ Louisa May Alcott

Her philosophy is very empowering - that everything we want or need in life we can have, and we can get for ourselves. (She also believes that you should say nice things to your water if you want to encourage its healing properties, but every sage has a few eccentricities.) I ~ Megyn Kelly

Give to a wounded heart seclusion; consolation nor reason ever effected anything in such a case. ~ Honore De Balzac

He wept bitter tears over the death of his enemy. It was his enemy, after all, who knew him best and kept him up at night. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

Twas a still, calm night and the moon's pale light
Shone over hill and dale
When friends mute with grief stood around the deathbed
Of their loved, lost Lily Lyle.
Heart as pure as forest lily
Never knowing guile,
Had its home within the bosom
Of sweet Lily Lyle. ~ Flora Thompson

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells. ~ Seamus Heaney

Ethel and Frances found a means for consolation together: travel. ~ Nancy Carpentier Brown

Under the stars we are as one. Theirs is the power of countless years. They see our grief and know our pain, yet still they shine and their light gives us hope. From acorn to oak, but even the mightiest of oaks shall fall. Thus do we recognize the great wheel of life and death and life once more. We surrender our departed souls under the stars and may the Green gather them to him. ~ Robin Jarvis

Remember that drumming opens portals to the spirit world, draws spirit in, and opens you up to receive it. ~ Michael Drake

hiraeth (n): a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home that maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for lost places in your past ~ Jenny Colgan

I think we're all wounded, but some of us, when we experience the healing of those wounds, that they scar and scab over. ~ LeCrae

Jacque leaned over and whispered in Sally's ear, "I give it two days before he lays one on her."
"You're being generous. I say less than twenty four hours."
"Is that a bet?" Jacque asked, eyebrows raised.
"Better believe it," Sally answered. Her lips eased into a crooked smile.
Jen leaned around Sally and glared at her two best friends. "What are you two betting on?"
"Good grief. What, does she have eagle ears or something?"
"No, you dork. Your whisper is just you talking in normal volume but making your voice raspy. Really, you sound more like a chick who's been smoking for thirty years."
Jen shrugged. "I'm just throwing that out there. You can take it and apply it at your leisure."
Fane was chuckling at Jen's words when Jacque elbowed him, causing him to cough."You don't get to laugh, wolf-man."
Jacque turned back to Jen. "Thank you for that observation, Sherlock."
"Always glad to help a friend in need, Watson." Jen grinned at Jacque's irritated look. ~ Quinn Loftis

Grief, like death, is banal and unique. So, a banal comparison. When you change your make of car, you suddenly notice how many other cars of the same sort there are on the road. They register in a way they never did before. When you are widowed, you suddenly notice all the widows and widowers coming towards you. Before, they had been more or less invisible, and they continue to remain so to the other drivers, to the unwidowed. ~ Julian Barnes

Begin to nurture yourself…Some grew up expecting their romantic partners to give them the nurturing they hungered for, only to be disappointed. But our partners are not our parents, no matter how much we try to make them into parents. No one can make up for the deprivation you experienced, and no one should be expected to. ~ Beverly Engel

Is being burnt a requisite for the making of art? Personally, I don't think it is. But art is poultice for a burn. It is a privilege to have, somewhere within you, a capacity for making something speak from your own seared experience. ~ Molly Peacock

Such terrifying powers we possess, but what a sorry lot of gods some men are. And the worst of it is not the cruelty but the arrogance, the sheer hubris of those who bring only violence and fear into the animal world, as if it needed any more of either. Their lives entail enough frights and tribulations without the modern fire-makers, now armed with perfected, inescapable weapons, traipsing along for more fun and thrills at their expense even as so many of them die away. It is our fellow creatures' lot in the universe, the place assigned them in creation, to be completely at our mercy, the fiercest wolf or tiger defenseless against the most cowardly man. And to me it has always seemed not only ungenerous and shabby but a kind of supreme snobbery to deal cavalierly with them, as if their little share of the earth's happiness and grief were inconsequential, meaningless, beneath a man's attention, trumped by any and all designs he might have on them, however base, irrational, or wicked. ~ Matthew Scully