Grief Relief Quotes

When someone is mourning, there is absolutely nothing you could say to alleviate their pain. Just sit with them, hold their hands, and be present and compassionate. ~ Anoir Ou-Chad

On grief. We know where we've been. We know where we want to be. ~ Wylie R. Weeks

Inspiration for survival, Motivation for revival! ~ Sandra Toscano Huerta

It seemed to her the window was a great eye looking out over the city and the harbour and a strip of the gulf under ice. The new silence and emptiness was not entirely a loss; it was something of a relief. Aunt Gerda felt like a balloon, untied, soaring off its own way. But, she thought, it's a balloon that's bouncing against the ceiling and can't get free.
She understood that this was no way to live; human beings are not built to float. She needed an earthly anchor of meaning and care so she didn't get lost in the confusion. ~ Tove Jansson

Those peculiar social sensibilities nourished by our own peculiar political principles, while they enhance the true dignity of a prosperous American, do but minister to the added wretchedness of the unfortunate; first, by prohibiting their acceptance of what little random relief charity may offer; and, second, by furnishing them with the keenest appreciation of the smarting distinction between their ideal of universal equality and their grind-stone experience of the practical misery and infamy of poverty. ~ Herman Melville

Throw off your grief,' doubters imply, 'and we can all go back to pretending death doesn't exist, or at least is comfortably far away. ~ Julian Barnes

I do hope that when the day comes, whether in 1, 10, or 100 years, I don't want you to think of me and feel sad. ~ Esther Earl

What Karen wants to do - needs to do - is cry, but she can't. Here, alone, when she could howl, beat the sofa cushions, scream; now, somehow, she is unable. It's for fear that if she gives in to it, she'll lose all sense of who she is. She is afraid that if she falls apart in private, then she'll fall apart completely. That if she crumbles, like a house in an earthquake, she will disappear down some deep, dark crevasse, and never be able to pull herself out and put herself back together again. ~ Sarah Rayner

At first I thought I would never recover from Cicero's death. But time wipes out everything, even grief. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that grief is almost entirely a question of perspective. For the first few years I used to sigh and think, 'Well, he would still be in his sixties now,' and then a decade later, with surprise, 'My goodness, he would be seventy-five,' but nowadays I think, 'Well, he would be long since dead in any case, so what does it matter how he died in comparison with how he lived? ~ Robert Harris

In the chain of events, it is arbitrary to be sentimental about the passing of any one link. ~ Johnny Rich

All my life I'd been a believing Christian ... But that instant in the ER
the instant Annette [his wife] died
I seemed to feel my religious faith die, too.
As I thought more about it in the bleak days and weeks that followed, I decided the Bible had gotten it exactly backward. Maybe God hadn't created us in His image; maybe we'd created god in our image. ~ William M. Bass

For a strange second, none of them spoke.
Finally, Ronan said, "Jesus God, Sargent. Do you have stitches on your face? Bad. Ass. Put it here, you asshole."
With some relief, Blue lifted her fist and bumped it against his. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

His [Ben Okri's] work poses very serious questions for the twenty-first century. Among them: To what extent will we allow the indefinable dynamics of something called "destiny" to maintain grief and horror in the world? How hard are human beings willing to fight to achieve and sustain justice, equanimity, or joy? And should progress be called such when it devours what is best within the human spirit? ~ Aberjhani

Whatever's there to feel, feel it – the riddance, the relief, the fright and freedom, the fear of forgetting, the dull ache of your own mortality. Get with someone you can trust with tears, with anger, and wonderment and utter silence. Get that part done – the sooner the better. The only way around these things is through them. ~ Thomas Lynch

I wake up in that state of grief when you can tell you've been mourning even in your sleep. ~ Carolyn Parkhurst

She could always walk somewhere without him. Of course this somewhere had to be somewhere "safe." She could walk to her office. But she didn't want to go to her office. She felt bored, ignored, and alienated in her office. She felt ridiculous there. She didn't belong there anymore. In all the expansive grandeur that was Harvard, there wasn't room there for a cognitive psychology professor with a broken cognitive psyche. ~ Lisa Genova

I sang in church, but growing up in the neighborhood, music was more of an expression of relief or entertainment. ~ Q-Tip

I'm so tired.
Once, I wanted to watch the floods coming into a canyon, to stand on the edge and see it happen, on ground that was safe but shaking. I'd like to hear the trees snapy away and see the water come higher, I thought, but only from a place where it couldn't reach me.
Now I think it might be a terrifying, bright relief to stand on the canyon floor and see the wall of water coming down, and to know this is it, I am finished, and before you could even complete the thought, you would be swallowed, and whole. ~ Ally Condie

And I don't want to die anymore. I am up to the challenge of bearing the guilt and the grief, up to facing the difficulties that life has put in my path. Some days are harder than others, but I am ready to live each one of them. I can't sacrifice myself, this time. ~ Veronica Roth

I won't lie to you. This changes things. It may even change you. I know it will change me."
"I guess it's a reminder of the uncertainty in life and the foolishness of merely existing when the world is pleading with you to live. If you take anything from this, please take that. We take life for granted. We have to stop that. We have to start living. ~ Samantha Young

I'd say the majority of my friends are Australians, although I have some good American friends, but I think with Aussies, we just get it. We don't take each other too seriously, which is a relief. ~ Bella Heathcote

It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed. If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it. ~ Lemony Snicket

for only philosophy or honourable occupation can divert from its anguish a heart whose grief springs from love. ~ Seneca.

At some point in your adult life, you've probably walked into a party and felt a frisson of relief upon discovering at least one woman there who was fatter, uglier, and/or dressed more inappropriately than you. We sure have. But if you want to have any hope of making peace with your own body, you need to knock that shit off.

We're not even telling you to stop just because it's nasty, petty, and beneath you to judge other women so harshly; it is, but because you're not a saint, and neither are we. We're telling you to stop because it's actually in your own self-interest to stop being such a bitch. 'Cause you know what happens when you quit saying that crap about other women? You magically stop saying it about yourself so much, too.

Judging other women negatively creates a constant stream of nasty thoughts in your head. It is inevitable that you will end up applying those same standards to yourself. We think we're building ourselves up when we do this but, really, we're just tearing other people down to our level. And we hate to go all Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on you, but tearing other people down isn't really productive. It leaves you in the same place you started, which is full of loathing for your own body. ~ Marianne Kirby

Sleep, Silence's child, sweet father of soft rest, Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings Indifferent host to shepherds and kings Sole comforter to minds with grief oppressed. ~ William Drummond

If you let the grief in, it might consume you. ~ Christina Henry

He was quiet, cooperative. He'd made his decision. He knew his soul would have to deal with the consequences, but for now, God had lost. It was a relief to him. It always is, to find the edge of yourself. To know the exact limit of your strength. It's a relief because not knowing it is an exhausting full-time job. ~ Glen Duncan

If with love thy heart has burned;
If thy love is unreturned;
Hide thy grief within thy breast,
Though it tear thee unexpressed. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I read sad stories to inoculate myself against grief. I watch action movies to identify with the quick-witted heroes. Both the same fantasy: I'll escape the worst of it. ~ Sarah Manguso

Nothing chills the heart like symmetry, for symmetry is ennui and ennui is at the heart of grief. ~ Victor Hugo

...human beings need someone friendly to listen to them when they're grieving. So feel free to talk to me. I will be friendly. You have nice shoes."
"Is that the only thing you notice about people?"
"I've always wanted shoes. They're the sole piece of clothing that makes any sense, assuming ideal environmental conditions. They don't play into your strange and nonsensical taboos about not letting anyone see your - "
"Is this really the only thing you can think of to comfort someone who is grieving?"
"It was number one on my list." Great.
"The list has seven million entries. Do you want to hear number two?"
"Is it silence?"
"That didn't even make the list."
"Move it to number two."
"All right, I . . . Oh. ~ Brandon Sanderson

For you who came so far; for you who held out, wearing a black scarf to signify grief; for you who believe true love can find you amidst this atlas of tears linking one town to its own memory of mortar, when it was still a dream to be built and people moved there, believing, and someone with sky and birds in his heart said this would be a good place for a park. ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Yet now, having held in grief and resentment, and evaded thinking too much about the episode that changed my life with the finality of an axe, here I am exalted by having made use of it, by having spilled my guts in public. We are strange creatures, and writers are stranger creatures than most. ~ Wallace Stegner

To live is to grieve. ~ Leigh Bardugo