Literary Grief Quotes

They would chase the image rising from death, expect it, but then enter an empty room with a shrine of deadened memorabilia that made them lose their minds. ~ Laura Gentile

Aren't songs of grief lullabies to the lost? ~ Gauri Walecha

Journey through the Power of the Rainbow represents a condensed compendium of literary efforts from a life dedicated to transforming the themes of injustice, grief, and despair that we all encounter during some unavoidable point of our existence into a sustainable life-affirming poetics of passionate creativity, empowered spiritual vision, and inspired commitment. ~ Aberjhani

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially "escapist," nor "fugitive." In its fairy-tale--or otherworld--setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the "turn" comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality ... In such stories when the sudden "turn" comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

grief saw nothing but itself, grief saw every speck of pain in the world; grief spread its wings large like an eagle, grief huddled small like a porcupine; grief needed company, grief craved solitude; grief wanted to remember, wanted to forget; grief raged, grief whimpered; grief made time compress and contract; grief tasted like hunger, felt like numbness, sounded like silence ~ Kamila Shamsie

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

Maybe there is no one way to deal with grief, but knowing that we're not totally alone is the best we can do. ~ Ann Benjamin

I will always wear this scar. It's called love. ~ Wylie R. Weeks

Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists. ~ Antonio Porchia

Until now I had been able only to grieve, not mourn. Grief was passive. Grief happened. Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention. ~ Joan Didion

Grief helps us to relinquish the illusion that the past could be different from what it was. ~ Sharon Salzberg

Apparently, faith in life is one thing and faith in literature is another. ~ Gerald Weaver

Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Grief doesn't fade. Grief scabs over like my scars and pulls into new, painful configurations as it knits. It hurts in new ways. We are never free from grief. ~ Jesmyn Ward

I'm not club-able, you see. I don't like literary parties and literary gatherings and literary identities. I'd hate to join anything, however loosely. ~ Jeanette Winterson

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

For those struggling with grief, there's no timetable. It can last months, years, or longer. There is no rush. Give yourself permission to take however long it may be to fully heal from your loss. ~ Dana Arcuri

The grief of children was unconditional, fueled by the implicit belief that it would last forever; for a child, grief was not grief unless it was eternal. ~ Andrew Taylor

The closet bond that we share with our brethren is that of grief. Every community knows sorrow. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Grief best is pleased with grief's society ... ~ William Shakespeare

Sometimes, hope is even harder to bear than grief. ~ Claudia Gray

When the critic has said everything in his power about a literary text, he has still said nothing; for the very existence of literature implies that it cannot be replaced by non-literature ~ Tzvetan Todorov

Grief is messy. It's traumatic. Devastating. Confusing. Exhausting. Grief is a natural process of our human experience. May you find comfort in these unexpected places along your journey. ~ Dana Arcuri

Grief is like the ocean. The waves ebb and flow. Sometimes the water is calm. Other times it's turbulent. In order to survive, I had to learn to swim. In moments when I struggled with massive waves of grief, I rode it out. ~ Dana Arcuri

Grief comes with many losses. Whatever its cause, grief will come to all of us. ~ Billy Graham

Sorrowers tend to avoid what they are most fond of and try to give vent to their grief. ~ Seneca.

I think the worst kind of grief is unacknowledged grief. ~ Gerry Adams

There is no timetable for grief," said Bronwen Morgan. "Grief isn't a train which you catch at the station. Grief has its own time, and grief's time is beyond time, and time itself ... isn't very important. ~ Susan Howatch

Nobel Prize in Literature [10w]
Only fools and Swedes equate literary prizes with literary merit. ~ Beryl Dov

I don't have traceable literary models because I haven't had great literary influences in my life. ~ Manuel Puig

The sorrow which has no vent in tears
may make other organs weep. ~ Henry Maudsley

Each person's grief has its own life span; it needs to follow its own path. ~ Rick Riordan

Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you. ~ John Green

I'm nothing if not a literary hedonist. ~ Michael Dirda

Our relationship had been doomed form the start, because it was based on grief, and unlike love, grief eventually passed. ~ Ilona Andrews

I stopped thinking about extreme grief as the sole vehicle for great art when the grief started to take people with it. ~ Hanif Abdurraqib

We all suffer our share of grief but we are stronger than our grief. ~ Marty Rubin

Grief is the price we pay for being close to one another. If we want to avoid our grief, we simply avoid each other. ~ Thomas Lynch

It will get better but grief will always accompany us, in one way or another...but it is important that we embrace the grief as you would a close friend, because another aspect of our grief is love. ~ Louise Suzanne Boyd

It's okay to cry. Giving in to the tears is terrifying,
like freefalling to earth without a parachute. But it's vital to our wellbeing as we process the deep anguish. ~ Lynda Cheldelin Fell

Acknowledgment of grief - well, it makes feeling the grief easier, not harder. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

Grief shared was grief lessened. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Sorrows cannot all be explained away in a life truly lived, grief and loss accumulate like possessions. ~ Stefan Kanfer

What was needed was a literary theory which, while preserving the formalist bent of New Criticism, its dogged attention to literature as aesthetic object rather than social practice, would make something a good deal more systematic and 'scientific' out of all this. The answer arrived in 1957, in the shape of the Canadian Northrop Fryes mighty 'totalization' of all literary genres, Anatomy of Criticism . ~ Terry Eagleton

Loss eventually arrives when something departs. Grief is working through both. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

From a spiritual perspective, what is it that we must learn from loss? When we think deeply we realize that loss is an opening through which we can question our superficial existence and move towards something better. ~ Pulkit Sharma

Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. ~ Joan Didion

I believe in moderation. But I wouldn't overdo it. ~ Joseph Ferguson

I don't think you can dial 911 for a literary emergency. ~ John Connolly

Grief's only ever as deep as the love it's replaced. ~ Pat Barker

Literary theories will not make a writer write. ~ Allen Wier

Grief keeps coming back with the same things in its hands - you know this. You know that the hands of grief are memory. Again and again, grief holds the same few things. ~ Lindsay Hill

Grief ennobles the commonest people because it has its own essential grandeur. To shine with the luster of grief, a person need only be sincere. ~ Honore De Balzac

The dealing with grief cannot be bypassed. It is a road you must walk, a race you must finish and no one else can do it for you. If you try to sneak through it without it seeing you, it will seep into your life when you least expect it. Grief will not let you go until you satisfy what it came to teach you. ~ Kate McGahan

Everyone's pain is relative. We've learned how to deal with grief, because we've had to. But Bree hasn't. And our grief was shared, because we all felt it at the same time. She had to deal with hers alone. ~ Kate Lattey

A brave action is often followed by grief. Do not let my resistance to grief stop the brave action. ~ Alanis Morissette

I do not come out of a literary tradition. ~ Richard Flanagan

Grief
You plunge one in many emotions
Betrayal, Despair, Depression, Fear, Anger
Grief
You are more difficult to face than Death
Grief
Please let my faith stay stronger than you
Grief
I so wish you eventually lose out to love
(Page 58) ~ Neena Verma

Grief takes many forms, including the absence of grief. ~ Alison Bechdel

I can't bear literary snobbery. ~ Sara Sheridan

When we grant ourselves permission to grieve, we make the experience of grief something we recognize, something we welcome into our lives. We allow it to show up the way it wants to through feelings, identities, and actions. We write our own expectations and stories. Our grief becomes ours again and we become more ourselves again because we actively choose to experience grief. ~ Shelby Forsythia

Attempts to connect men's circumstances too closely with their literary productions are usually, I believe, unsuccessful. ~ C.S. Lewis

Unfortunately, these days, 'literary' writing seems to have become synonymous with 'showy' writing, writing that is beautiful but doesn't tell a story. This is a misguided trend. If today's 'literary' writers would look back only one or two hundred years at real literary writers like Dostoyevsky, Poe, Conrad, Melville, they would find momentous stories
not just pretty writing
at the core of almost all of their great works. ~ Noah Lukeman

And can it be that in a world so full and busy the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up! ~ Charles Dickens

We collected in a group in front of their door, and we experienced within ourselves a grief that was new for us, the ancient grief of the people that has no land, the grief without hope of the exodus which is renewed in every century. ~ Primo Levi

I'm not that well-versed in literary theory - I don't know what it is. ~ Jim Crace

The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything. ~ Aldous Huxley

Hell take curtains! Go with some show of inconvenience; sit openly - to the weather as to grief. Or do you think you can shut your grief in? ~ William Carlos Williams

There is no aristocracy of grief. Grief is a great leveler. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver. ~ Sophocles

As with life, so with words. ~ Sid Gustafson

Stop your weeping. Grief is for the dead. ~ Brom

CUSTOMER (to her friend): What's this literary criticism section? Is it for books that complain about other books? ~ Jen Campbell

To understand a literary style, consider what it omits. ~ Mason Cooley

Literary genres and techniques tend to take form in one's mind somewhat the way computer templates provide form for different computer tasks. ~ Aberjhani

Never let the salt of your tears be tasteless in grief. ~ Munia Khan

grief makes one hour ten. ~ William Shakespeare

Grief turns us inward, but compassion turns us outward, and that's what we need when grief threatens to crush us. The Bible says, "Carry each other's burdens" [Galatians 6:2 NIV]. ~ Billy Graham

You mourn, for it is proper to mourn. But your grief serves you; you do not become a slave to grief. You bid the dead farewell, and you continue. ~ Neil Gaiman

Should could no longer feel grief. She was now like a Geiger counter that had been subjected to too much radiation, no longer capable of giving any reaction, noiselessly displaying a reading of zero. ~ Liu Cixin

What impropriety or limit can there be in our grief for a man so beloved?. ~ Horace

What is the difference between grief and mourning? Mourning has company. ~ Roger Rosenblatt

Grief, no matter how you try to cater to its wail, has a way of fading away. ~ V.C. Andrews

Dostoevsky was my literary idol for a long time. ~ Janet Fitch

All my big heroes are literary, writers. ~ Henry Rollins

As an outsider I was free to pick my own literary traditions, to build my own system of literary values. ~ Dubravka Ugresic

There is far too much talk of love and grief benumbing the faculties, turning the hair gray, and destroying a man's interest in his work. Grief has made many a man look younger. ~ William McFee

When a bookworm finally decides to leave the house, perhaps to explore some literary destination in one of her novels, she will be surprised to know that there is a volatile, often antagonistic force in the real world known as the weather. ~ Joyce Rachelle

There is a drunkenness to grief, which is good. ~ Mike Mills

One of the reasons I like Barthes more than other writers of that ilk is because he had a literary quality. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

The instinctive posture of grief is a shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration; and pride feels the need of striking a worthier attitude in face of such a foe. ~ Edith Wharton

Why is the integrity of the literary canon everywhere articulated in terms of its imagined integration to a nation-state as well as a racialized civilization? What would it mean to seek justification for literary studies on the basis of aesthetic value rather than the contestable presumption that literary canons function as the preeminent repositories of national cultures and/or racialized civilizations? ~ David Lloyd

Gratitude is both a vaccine and an antidote for grief. Grief may be an inevitable fact of life, but gratitude has the power to transform the experience of grief from agonizing suffering to profound joy. ~ Darren Main

Permission is the key that unlocks the door that's been holding us trapped, muzzled, and stifled in our grief. Permission is the opposite of rejection. Permission is the opposite of abandonment. Permission lifts the weight, eases the pressure, and loosens the reins. ~ Shelby Forsythia

It is good to divert our sorrow for other things to the root of all, which is sin. Let our grief run most in that channel, that as sin bred grief, so grief may consume sin. ~ Richard Sibbes

There are all kinds of under-represented groups in the literary establishment. ~ Janette Turner Hospital

There can be no literary equivalent to truth. ~ Laura Riding

'Cerebus' is my attempt at a literary work. ~ Dave Sim

Medora Manson, in her prosperous days, inaugurated a "literary salon"; but it had soon died out owing to the reluctance of the literary to frequent it. ~ Edith Wharton

Think of literary fiction as a meal with intricate scents, flavors, and textures that you can't recognize unless you chew with your eyes closed. ~ Jessica Bell