Grieving Quotes

When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,And brought me home, as all are brought, to lieIn that vast house, common to serfs and Thanes,I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,For beauty born of beauty-- that remains.

Madison Cawein, from To a WindFl

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night.

William Shakespeare

There's no use in weeping, Though we are condemned to part:There's such a thing as keepingA remembrance in one's heart...

Charlotte Bronte, Parting

A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential -- there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster.

Mark Twain

If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.

C.S. Lewis