Quotes & Sayings About Family Love And Death

Every time I have seen families embrace and accept their homosexual family members, nothing bad had happened! The association has always been positive and loving, caring "family" experience has only grown and flourished. They are available to each other for that family support that is so valued in our culture. Families are strengthened not weakened. When families have rejected their homosexual family members it has not turned out well, even when that rejection was done 'lovingly.' You know, love the sinner...hate the sin? I've known homosexuals rejected by their families who looked for acceptance in all the wrong places. Bright, promising lives lost to drugs, disease, and death. I've seen families who reject those they should love, depriving themselves of that valuable relationship. (120) — Carol Lynn Pearson

The place of horror turns out to be no more than a green scoop, sometimes shadowed, sometimes shining with the bilberries and grass within it, as if a mouth had opened from which streamed a beam of light. So my uncle Robert's death, which had looked from a distance to be an all-consuming tragedy was, close-up, the story of a man finding release from his pain and how his brother had showed such defiant love. The past was a grave, a trap - and yet, also neither of these. Just light, coming and going.
At the wolf pit you imagine you will stare into a hole littered with bones, but what draws you to that place is not what you take from it. The wolf pit seems a delicate illusion. You walk towards it; there is nothing, just a curve of the moor; then it is a soft green light, and then it is nothing again. — Will Cohu

You'll forget your inner peace, forget that it comes from impermanence. From knowing that everything will break. And only reason can right you. — E.J. Koh

It's different when the person you love dies. There's an awful finality to death. But it is final. The end. And there's the funeral, family gatherings, grieving, all of those necessary rituals. And they help, believe me. When the object of your love just disappears, there's no way to deal with the grief and pain. — Barbara Taylor Bradford

I think that there is only one way to science - or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it and to live with it happily, till death do ye part - unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting, though perhaps difficult, problem children, for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days. — Karl Popper

To all the ships at sea, and all the ports of call. To my family and to all friends and strangers. This is a message, and a prayer. The message is that my travels taught me a great truth. I already had what everyone is searching for and few ever find. The one person in the world who I was born to love forever. A person, like me, of the outer banks and the blue Atlantic mystery. A person rich in simple treasures. Self-made. Self-taught. A harbor where I am forever home. And no wind, or trouble or even a little death can knock down this house. The prayer is that everyone in the world can know this kind of love and be healed by it. If my prayer is heard, there will be an erasing of all guilt and all regret and an end to all anger. Please, God. Amen. — Nicholas Sparks

I've come to believe the baggage I'll tote to my death will determine its quality. I've learned the importance of doing simple things---telling my family and friends I love them; expressing gratitude for even the smallest kindnesses shown to me; being accepting of the unskillful words and actions of others; and asking for forgiveness when I screw up. — Stan Goldberg

The greatest happiness is a quiet kind. It's the tender understanding that we're living in a very strange place full of strange creatures. And there's quite a bit of wonder in that. — F.K. Preston

Most people who die in fires don't burn to death; they die from smoke inhalation that kills the respiratory system. that's why the fire service is going on and on about smoke detectors. These little ten-dollar gadgets are one of the truly wonderful inventions of man. The wake you up from a deep slumber so that you and your family and your dog or cat or whatever can get out of the house in time to live and call the fire department. If this sounds like a public service announcement, it is. If you don't have one, buy one today. They make great Christmas gifts. Plus they're cheap. Give a gift of love to a loved one you love. End of announcement. — Larry Brown

No more light answers. Let our officers
Have note what we purpose. I shall break
The cause of our expedience to the Queen
And get her leave to part. For not alone
The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
Do strongly speak to us, but the letters too
Of many our contriving friends in Rome
Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Caesar and commands
The empire of the sea. Our slippery people,
Whose love is never linked to the deserver
Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
Pompey the Great and all his dignities
Upon his son, who - high in name and power,
Higher than both in blood and life - stands up
For the main soldier; whose quality, going on,
The sides o' th' world may danger. Much is breeding
Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life
And not a serpent's poison. — William Shakespeare

Abel was also the first of the human family to experience physical death- and it was through murder! He suffered death because of another's sin, the transgression of his elder brother Cain, who, in a fit of rage, killed him in cold blood. At the same time, thanks to faith in the sin-offering, he overcame death. The first man to descend into the Valley of the Shadow of Death was the first one to triumphantly march straight through it into the Paradise of Glory. He stepped from the excruciating pain of mortal manslaughter's hate into the exquisite land of eternal delights prepared by the Father's love! He led the way, like a pioneer, for all subsequent generations of men and women of faith throughout human history. — Robert L. Sumner

The more you experience love, the more full of it you should be. But the opposite sometimes happens, because you fear the loss of life. You fear the vulnerability that can take the goodness of it away. This might have happened because when i was just a kid, i had the sense that your whole life can change with a death in the family. It's like they say - at least i say - It's the loss of money that leads to the love of it. You know, the people who care about money are never the people who made a lot. They're the people who have lost a lot. And I think that might be true in relationships, when if you've lost somebody important to you early on, you live in fear of that the rest of your life. I suppose that's one of the things that I would fear, and that might explain the rage you referred to earlier, which is real in me, at some point, it really is. An odd thing to own up to, but I do know it's true. — Michka Assayas

A sea of red lights, and I slow down. My job now is to gather everyone together and tell them we have to let her go. I won't tell anyone over the phone, because I didn't like hearing the news from the doctor that way. I have maybe a week to handle the arrangements, as the doctor said, but the arrangements are overwhelming. How do I learn how to run a family? How do I say goodbye to someone I love so much that I've forgotten just how much I love her? — Kaui Hart Hemmings

I wanted to give you something that would last forever. Something that would surpass the world, that would still be alive and bright even after you passed away. Something beautiful. For your eyes and smile only. But I never found it. All I could give you is words. Words which were as fleeting as the heartbeats that shook my soul whenever you looked my way. — F.K. Preston

Men's bodies litter my family history. The pain of the women they left behind pulls them from the beyond, makes them appear as ghosts. In death, they transcend he circumstances of this place that I love and hate all at once and become supernatural. — Jesmyn Ward

His brain had been a glass ball. Nothing in it but echoes. His mother's scent. Father's voice. How Anireh's gaze had held him from across the room, and her eyes said, Survive. They said, Love, and I'm sorry. They said, Little brother.
And then silence. It became silent in Arin's head as he stood on the road. He stopped hearing voices. He thought about how it had seemed strange that Risha would plot the emperor's death, yet refuse to kill him herself. Arin understood now. He knew how it was to have no family: like living in a house with no roof. Even if Kestrel were here, and begged him - Let your sword fall, do it, please, now - Arin wasn't sure that he could make her an orphan. — Marie Rutkoski

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I'm too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She's waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I'm eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I'm so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met? — F.K. Preston

Henceforth we find woman no longer a slave of man and tool of lust, but the pride and joy of her husband, the fond mother training her children to virtue and godliness, the ornament and treasure of the family, the faithful sister, the zealous servant of the congregation in every work of Christian charity, the sister of mercy, the martyr with superhuman courage, the guardian angel of peace, the example of purity, humility, gentleness, patience, love, and fidelity unto death. Such women were unknown before. The heathen Libanius, the enthusiastic eulogist of old Grecian culture, pronounced an involuntary eulogy on Christianity when he exclaimed, as he looked at the mother of Chrysostom: "What women the Christians have! — Philip Schaff

As far as my divorce goes, I love my family and I love my wife to death and I just don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. — Hulk Hogan

Life is a big fat gigantic stinking mess, that's the beauty of it, too. — Gayle Forman

They address the questions that are proper to us, not as this or that kind of specialist, this or that kind of professional, but as individuals as such - the very questions we are apt to ask when we look up from our work and think about our lives. Questions of love, death, family, morality, time, truth, God, and everything else within the wide, starred universe of human experience. — William Deresiewicz

I did nothing to deserve God's love; in fact, I was living as an orphan, without hope. Yet God chose to pursue a relationship with me, and through the death of his son Jesus, I was adopted into God's family. — Steven Curtis Chapman

Every hardship is like being in prison. People feel imprisoned by ill-health, marital discord, financial insecurity, family disputes and other problems. To anyone who feels imprisoned by life's problems I would say: be content with what you already have and never lose hope of things getting better. Be happy with your share because this is a quality of someone who truly loves Allah. When the Companion Muadh ibn Jabal (ra) was undergoing the pangs and agonies of death, he cried out, O Allah! Bear witness that I love You, so do with me whatsoever You wish! — Babar Ahmad

Dominion is a spy novel, a love story, and also I hope gives some sense of the difficulties faced by dissidents under any totalitarian regime: the threat of imprisonment, torture and death; the threat to one's family, the terror of being alone in a hostile world. — C.J. Sansom

The Death Eaters can't all be pure-blood, there aren't enough pure-blood wizards left," said Hermione stubbornly. "I expect most of them are half-bloods pretending to be pure. It's only Muggle-borns they hate, they'd be quite happy to let you and Ron join up"
"There is no way they'd let me be a Death Eater!" said Ron indignantly ... "My whole family are blood traitors! That's as bad as Muggle-borns to Death Eaters!"
"And they'd love to have me," said Harry sarcastically. "We'd be best pals if they didn't keep trying to do me in. — J.K. Rowling

She was few inches taller than him and when for the first time her promising eyes met with his, he knew it would be more than friendship. He was too young to name that feeling then. But love...above all relationships knows no age. — Viraj J. Mahajan

The history of mankind, the history of salvation, passes by way of the family ... The family is placed at the center of the great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and all that is opposed to love. — Pope John Paul II

The truth is there isn't anything to me at all. All I know is that I can't sleep well, I can't dream well and I'm quite in love with you. That's all there is to me. My greatest feature is my admiration for you. I know it's not healthy. Like my insomnia. Like my dreamless nights. You make living alright. My nightmares come when I think of a night without Valeria. That's when I realise you're dead. That's when I remember you've been gone for years. That's when I remember I'm awake. And I wait for this dream called Life to leave me to my peace once and for all and forever. — F.K. Preston

When you are about to die a montage of your family and friends fast forwards until your mind flashes quickly to the person you love and what you last said to them. If it was loving, you die in peace. Life was and always will be about love. — Maria Dorfner

A nationalist will blindly follow his country to his death out of love for it. A patriot will stand up for and even against his country to his death out of love for it. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is not found only at the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arched across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, and neighbors! Love, like faith, is a gift of God. It is also the most enduring and most powerful virtue. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Have I mentioned that I expect death around every turn, that every blue sky has a safe sailing out of it, that every bus runs me over, that every low, mean syllable uttered in my direction seems to intimate the violence of murder, that every family seems like an opportunity for ruin and every marriage a ceremony into which calamity will fall and hearts will be broken and lives destroyed and people branded by the mortifications of love? — Rick Moody

Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank You for this place in which we dwell, for the love accorded us this day, for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors; if it may not, give us strength to endure that which is to come that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another. We beseech of you this help and mercy for Christ's sake. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I wish I could run into the world's arms. Linger within the spaces between nothing. I wish I could filter out of existence. To live quietly without dying. I wish I could be cherished by life itself. To speak and sing volumes without lying to myself. — F.K. Preston

In the beginning we start with roses. The king's flower right? Only they wilt in less than a day, especially when exposed to the elements. But Carnations? Oh, what a beautiful flower. They come in every color. True, some are painted, but that doesn't mean they are less beautiful, and they never wilt. — Ruth McLeod-Kearns

Answers seemed to float through the space around him. It was about love. It was about getting handed at conception a gift that sets you apart from everyone and you spend your whole life drifting through the margins of time, not understanding hours like everyone else seems to: glancing at wristwatches, checking timetables - you hardly know what it is people are trying to accomplish when they go through their days: morning, noon, evening, night. Wake up and sleep and wake up. This was about family, how blood superseded death; it was about trying your hardest, it was about snow. — Anthony Doerr

Wasn't there only one respectable memento of a man worth keeping, the kind that draws Valentines and learns to spell Mississippi? — Lionel Shriver

I keep dying and hoping you notice me. But you're too busy living. — F.K. Preston

Memories is all that you have, which help you survive the storms and struggles of your daily life after you lose someone! — Nikita Dudani

Do what is right and what is good.
Bryeison to Alasdair before going to his death on the battlefield. — Michelle Franklin

I recall my life every day. I recall my sins and my acts of purity. I remind myself I was never a religious man. I remind myself that I have been dead for half of forever. I remind myself of nothing. I move along to the next minute. Next day. Next year. The earth doesn't change so much anymore. It doesn't change so quickly. With humans, the earth had to keep changing. But you can only replace a dying thing so many times before someone notices. There haven't been humans for years. Maybe a decade. Maybe more. I find myself loving their absence. The absence of humanity is the absence of violence. I love this peace. But then I remember my bones. My mind and my memories. I remember I'm human. I am the thing I detest. The creature that haunts my steps. It's my shadow I see watching me. It's my reflection in the water. I keep remembering. I live in fear. But still, I walk on. — F.K. Preston

To lose someone you love is the very worst thing in the world. It creates an invisible hole that you feel you are falling down and will never end. People you love make the world real and solid and when they suddenly go away forever, nothing feels solid any more. — Matt Haig

All that is required of you is an open mind and a little patience. — F.K. Preston

Drake's my little brother; I love him to death, and he's family-oriented. — Birdman

People say love is weak, but they're wrong: love is strong. In nearly everyone it trumps all other things - patriotism and ambition, religion and upbringing. And every kind of love - the epic and the small, the noble and the base - the one that a parent has for their child is the greatest of them all. That was the lesson I learned that day, and I'll be forever grateful I did. Some years later, deep in the ruins called Theatre of Death, it salvaged everything. — Terry Hayes

The lessons I learned from my mother and her friends have guided me through death, birth, loss, love, failure, and achievement, on to a Fulbright scholarship and Harvard Business School. They taught me to believe that anything was possible. They have proven to be the strongest family values I could ever have imagined. — Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

My mother's death supervened, and this was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her ... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul. — Salvador Dali

You can deny him, he thought, watching his father across the table. You can hate him, love him, pity him, never speak to or look at him in the eye again, never deign even to be in his crabbed and bitter presence, but you're still stuck with the son of a bitch. One way or another he'll always be your daddy, not even all-powerful death was going to change that. — Ben Fountain

1. Someday there will be a woman-one who takes your breath away. You won't be afraid of commitment, you'll be afraid of living without her. That's when you'll know. She'll be your reason to exist. You'll want to move heaven and earth to make her happy and see her smiling face. God help you then. He's the only one who can. — Liv Morris

---Sleeps through the washes of the morning's colors and the warm brilliance of sunrise. She sleeps in a world where she remembers, perfectly, every detail about her husband, this day, that sentence, another touch. She will remember it all in the deepest sleep, and lose it again the moment her eyes open and she wonders how late it must be for the sun to already be so high and then remembers, in the next instant, what happened the day before. — Ashley Hay

It's a messy business
being alive. But I'd rather have this short time with those I love than have an easy time. We forget about the things we saw that morning,and we choose to build a bigger sandcastle. — Emm Cole

The ice cold fear I'd felt, not knowing if Wyatt was alive, pressed into the wall with other girls and surrounded by guys who were unspeakably brave, hit my body again in a wave. This was trauma - the gift that keeps on giving. — Laura Anderson Kurk

I was with a friend of mine recently who was dying and while he was lying there with his family around his bed, I just knew that was it, that was the best you can hope for in life - to have your family and the people who love you around you at the end. — Ewan McGregor

Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. In 12 years of education the most important lesson I have learned is that what we see as "normal" living is truly a travesty of our potential. In a society so governed by superficiality, appearances, and petty economics, dreams are more real than anything anything in the "real world". Refuse normalcy. Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence. Embrace it. I love all of you, all my friends, family, and community. I am ceaselessly grateful from the bottom of my heart for everyone. The only thing I can ask of you is to stay free of materialism. Remember that every day contains a universe of potential; exhaust it. Live and love so immensely that when death comes there is nothing left for him to take. Wealth is love, music, sports, learning, family and freedom. Above all, stay gold. — Dominic Owen Mallary

His mother's death, nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible. Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable. Such things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows. All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and his sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms down and still sinking. — George Orwell

WAR CHILD is the true story of Magdalena (Leni) Janic whose name appears on The Welcome Wall at Sydney's Darling Harbour. The story spans 100 years starting in pre WWII Nazi Germany and ends in the suburbs of Adelaide. It's a window into what life was like for a young illegitimate German girl growing up in poverty, coping with ostracism, bullying, abuse and dispossession as society was falling down around her and she becomes a refugee. But it's also a story of a woman's unconditional love for her family, the sacrifices she made and secrets she kept to protect them. Her ultimate secret was only revealed in a bizarre twist after her death and much to her daughter's (and author) surprise involved her. A memorable tear-jerker! A sad cruel story told with so much love. — Annette Janic

Don't spend too much time grieving for me, Elena. I know you're probably a little sad as you're reading this, since that means I'm dead and you're having to learn how to go on in a new way. I would be sad if you didn't miss me, so I won't tell you not to, but I will tell you to keep on living. The world is full of beautiful music, flowers, places, and experiences. Enjoy it all as much as you can. Just remember it's the people in your life that make it worthwhile...People and memories, not things are what's important in the end. Nothing else matters as much as that. — M. Reed McCall

I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God. — Johnny Cash

They were together, and that was all that mattered. The food, the house, the cars, the money, the power, all inconsequential. She would tear it all down herself with her bare hands if she had to, because her family was alive, well, and surrounding her in love. It was how it should have been that night, and it was the last thing Abigail thought or saw in her minds eye as she faded off into the oblivion and unknown of death. — Stephen Vaughn

My sister lived in the moment. She said she would love the summer only when it came and warmed her. But I lived and still live in the future. Where it's warm when it's cold. Where dreams are not yet reality. Where the sad people are happy. The only problem with living in the future is that everyone has died, including yourself. So your plans are fiction and your predictions are fantasy. Living in the future is pure fantasy. I think that's why I love it so dearly. — F.K. Preston

This is George, my beloved George. D'you think I want to go to my grave knowing that at the moment of his trial he looked around and saw no one lift a finger for him? If it is the death of me, I shall go to him."
"Go then," he said. "Kiss our baby good-bye before you go, and Henry. I shall tell Catherine that you left your blessing for her. And kiss me farewell. For if you go into that courtroom you will never come out alive. — Philippa Gregory

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can't help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn't four years anymore. It's a number I wouldn't even be able to say. It feels like four years. It's trapped in my tender memory as four years. It's been an age. Multiple ages. It's been lifetimes; every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It's been so long. Why am I alone? — F.K. Preston

The histories and tragedies of Shakespeare that Lincoln loved most dealt with themes that would resonate to a president in the midst of civil war: political intrigue, the burdens of power, the nature of ambition, the relationship of leaders to those they governed. The plays illuminated with stark beauty the dire consequences of civil strife, the evils wrought by jealousy and disloyalty, the emotions evoked by the death of a child, the sundering of family ties or love of country. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Four years ago the clocks started turning back. I open my eyes and see nothing. I feel nothing below or above me. I feel the absence of things. The absence of my flesh, my bones, my body, my mind. All that is left is awareness. I see nothing but the absence of colour. It's not a black darkness. It's simply nothing. The interior of a black hole. I recall news of a black hole lingering along the edges of our solar system. All that time ago. Four years ago. When the clocks started turning back. I hear nothing. Until there is a something. A small thing. A voice. I listen. There are more voices. The sounds are human. How long has it been since I've heard a human? The sounds scratch along my now present attention. They carve into my hearing. They are horrid, wretched things. Voices screaming. Growing loud and desperate. How many voices? Billions. This is the birth of our species. We are born screaming. It's all we know to do. We have screamed for eternity. Within this empty space. — F.K. Preston

When a family is broken by death, there is no clear way forward out of despair. It is easy to mistake grief for proof of love, and so refuse to relinquish it. For the first year or longer, there is a constant, grinding question that hands over you: Stay or go? You fixate on the fantasy of willing time to roll backward. You find the precise moment before they were taken, and plant your flag there. Death becomes the territory where our love lives, a dangerous place for the living to stay for very long. — Galadrielle Allman

Death can surprise us. It can scare us. It can keep us up at night. But we've also learned the things that death cannot do. It cannot crush our hopes. It cannot take away the love and support of our friends and family. — John Corey Whaley

It's really hard to deny a kid who's father has passed away. We all just wanted you to be happy so we messed that up. Your career wasn't about the money. Not at first. It gave you both something big to do so you could stay busy and forget how much you missed your dad." His heart twisted, and he whispered, "When I think of him ... I don't remember his face, but I do remember how much it hurt to have him simply there one day and gone the next ... just gone." Nan nodded. "Imagine how your mom felt. Your dad was the love of her life. — Anne Eliot

A man's heart does not love like a woman's, Lorelei. Logren would lay down and die if he thought his death would save your life because you are his sister, but his tongue is not so easily guided by his brother's heart. — Jennifer Melzer

I love cheetahs. Every moment of every day is spent in fear of dying a terrible death yet they always carry themselves elegantly, remain loyal to their family, and never complain about anything. — Gregor Collins

The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.
But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning - birth - and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be?
Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.
Morrie Schwartz — Mitch Albom

When you're dying, the unicorn up in heaven gets a note from an angel telling her there's a person who's going to need a ride up soon. The unicorn finds out what the person likes. Favorite foods and books, colors and activities, pets and games. She gets a room ready for him, or her, near people who she knows they'll enjoy being with, maybe other friends and family who have died before.
When the unicorn is done, she jumps off of heaven's perch, flies through the blue sky, around the clouds, over any rainbows, and down to the person. She's invisible to everyone. She patiently waits. When the person dies, she gathers them up on her back, using her hooves and horn. All of a sudden, they sit up straight and smile, they laugh, because they're on top of a unicorn and alive again. They hold on tight to her golden reins and the unicorn takes them to their new home, where they're happy. — Cathy Lamb

They looked to each other for support, for strength, and at times, motivation, to remember why and for whom they lived. — Sage Steadman

He is my brother," I said. "I cannot desert him."
"You can go to your own death," William said. "Or you can survive this, bring up your children, and guard Anne's little girl who will be shamed and bastardized and motherless by the end of this week. You can wait out this reign and see what comes next. See what the future holds for the Princess Elizabeth, defend our son Henry against those who will want to set him up as the king's heir or even worse-flaunt him as a pretender. You owe it to your children to protect them. — Philippa Gregory

Interested in a small, close circle around her - in the neighbors, in the family, in who is cheating on his wife, whose wife has fallen in love with the chauffeur. Her interest is local and human. She is not worried about reincarnation; neither is she concerned about life after death. The feminine concerns are more pragmatic, more concerned with the present, with the here and now. A man is never here and now, — Osho

I had hoped to make her strong and healthy, and now she may be too weak herself after this slow death, like my father's slow long death, to come to me. and I am here, futile, cut off from the ritual of family love and neighborhood and from giving strength and love to my dear brave grandmother's dying whom I loved above thought. and my mother will go, and there is the terror of having no parents, no older seasoned beings, to advise and love me in this world. — Sylvia Plath

All of it pointed to a force stronger than the anxious formulas of religion: a radically inclusive love that accompanied people in the most ordinary of actions - eating, drinking, walking - and stayed with them, through fear, even past death. That love meant giving yourself away, embracing outsiders as family, emptying yourself to feed and live for others. The stories illuminated the holiness located in mortal human bodies, and the promise that people could see God by cherishing all those different bodies the way God did. They spoke of a communion so much vaster than any church could contain: one I had sensed all my life could be expressed in the sharing of food, particularly with strangers. — Sara Miles

We've learned from this that death can hurt us. It can surprise us. It can scare us. It can keep us up a night. But we've also learned the things that death cannot do. It cannot crush our hopes. It cannot take away the love and support of our family and friends. It cannot make us lose our unending faith in world and in God. It has saddened us, but it will not prevail. — John Corey Whaley

What I failed to see was that, by ending my life, I would cause interminable pain to my family and friends. I could not understand the heartbreak it would cause those around me. Nor did I consider that my brother, Joseph, might live the rest of his life in continual rage, or that my sister, Libby, might shut herself off from the world and fall into perpetual depression, silence, and sadness mistakenly blaming themselves for my death as many family members do when they lose someone they love to suicide. I certainly held no understanding of the enormous pain my mother and father would suffer because they lost their oldest son in such a terrifying and devastating way. They would not have a chance to watch me mature, marry, and perhaps have children. Instead, all of their hopes, aspirations, and dreams for me would be destroyed with my decision to end my life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. — Kevin Hines

As these remarks indicate, the Social Security program involves a transfer from the young to the old. To some extent such a transfer has occurred throughout history - the young supporting their parents, or other relatives, in old age. Indeed, in many poor countries with high infant death rates, like India, the desire to assure oneself of progeny who can provide support in old age is a major reason for high birth rates and large families. The difference between Social Security and earlier arrangements is that Social Security is compulsory and impersonal - earlier arrangements were voluntary and personal. Moral responsibility is an individual matter, not a social matter. Children helped their parents out of love or duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else's parents out of compulsion and fear. The earlier transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken them. — Milton Friedman

In the museums we used to visit on family vacations when I was a kid, I used to love those rooms which displayed collections of minerals in a kind of closet or chamber which would, at the push of a button, darken. Then ultraviolet lights would begin to glow and the minerals would seem to come alive, new colors, new possibilities, and architectures revealed. Plain stones became fantastic, "futuristic ... " Of course there wasn't any black light in the center of the earth, in the caves where they were quarried; how strange that these stones should have to be brought here, bathed with this unnatural light in order for their transcendent characters to emerge. Irradiation revealed a secret aspect of the world.
Imagine illness as this light; demanding, torturous, punitive, it nonetheless reveals more of what things are. A certain glow of being appears. I think this is what is meant when we speculate that death is what makes love possible. — Mark Doty

It's like I'd been walking a tightrope with a big safety net underneath me, but I never really thought about the net until someone took it away. And then every single step scared me to death. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

I guess we'll never know exactly what ... the reasons behind the losses we experience in this life. But being angry doesn't make them any less devastating. It only robs us of the happiness and love we can experience. Only forgiveness can set us free. — Christene Houston

The roots of our grief coil so deeply into loss that death has come
to live with us like a family member who makes you happy by avoiding
you, but who is still one of the family. Our anger is a rage that
Westerners cannot understand. Our sadness can make the stones
weep. And the way we love is no exception — Susan Abulhawa

The noise increased and came from all directions. There was no amount of reason to negotiate the void between sound and movement. — E.J. Koh

I think actors who know their job know that's how you do it. You don't show up and make people miserable. That poor grip who's standing there, he just wants to feed his family. He doesn't need to hear about your psychosis on life and love and death. — Charlize Theron

I replayed the moment I first saw him at the picnic throughout our years together. As corny as it may sound, from the first glance we shared near the cake stand at the picnic, the two of us remained connected like the icing on one of those made from scratch cakes... — Kat Kaelin

I hope to have told you all this myself," Bail Organa's voice said. "I hope we have enjoyed many more happy years as a family, that we have seen the Empire fall, and that we have gone forth together to find General Kenobi and your brother. If so, this recording can serve only one purpose. You must be listening after my death, so let this be my chance to say once again how much I love you. No other daughter could ever have brought me more joy." Tears welled in Leia's eyes, but she fought them back. If she began to sob, she wouldn't be able to hear her father's voice any longer. He concluded, "Please know that my love for you, and your mother's love, endures long past our deaths. We are forever with you, Leia. In your brightest triumphs and your darkest troubles, always know that we are by your side." She — Claudia Gray

But I can't control my dreams. I can't even remember them. For all I know I'm having the time of my life when I sleep, but I just can't remember. So I'm forced to live in a life I have no control over. A life where I'm either numb to everything or terrified of every thought that crosses my mind. If this is all just a dream, then it sure is a disappointing one.

But I still have time to try and control my dreams. I have time to try and make my dreams a reality in this waking life as well. The one bloody thing I have is time. I've got to remember that. I still have time. And despite everything, there is something reassuring about that. — F.K. Preston

If the whole world seems like it's against you, it helps to know that you've still got home. A safe place. It just takes one person - a teacher, a friend, a parent. If I didn't have you and Dad, if you hadn't made it so clear you loved me as much as you did, or if you'd said, 'yeah, why don't you do it, and put yourself out of our misery, just shut up,' I would have killed myself. I really would have. I spent most of those days wishing I were dead anyway, and what always stopped me was the fact that doing so would destroy the lives of the only people who ever cared about me. — Nenia Campbell

She had dispersed. She was the garden at Prem Nivas (soon to be entered into the annual Flower Show), she was Veena's love of music, Pran's asthma, Maan's generosity, the survival of some refugees four years ago, the neem leaves that would preserve quilts stored in the great zinc trunks of Prem Nivas, the moulting feather of some pond-heron, a small unrung brass bell, the memory of decency in an indecent time, the temperament of Bhaskar's great-grandchildren. Indeed, for all the Minsisster of Revenue's impatience with her, she was his regret.
And it was right that she should continue to be so, for he should have treated her better while she lived, the poor, ignorant, grieving fool. — Vikram Seth

Sonnet III: Black Coffin opened wide for all to See

Black Coffin opened wide for all to See,
The lifeless form of one I loved so dear.
O, listen! mournful knells that soon shall be
All night long tolling for the folk to hear.
The lanterns overlight the old churchyard
To watch the coffin lowered into the ground;
Soon Frost shall grasp the turf already hard,
Decay ye have to face without a sound.
But years have pass'd herein do I relate
My dear sweet mother's form within my mind.
Still happiness fills all my heart and state,
As I see my small family so kind.
Love cannot be withheld by death or grave,
It stays alive within the heart so brave. — Timothy Salter

The Death Eaters were waiting for us," Harry told her. "We were surrounded the moment we took off - they knew it was tonight - I don't know what happened to anyone else, four of them chased us, it was all we could do to get away, and then Voldemort caught up with us - "
He could hear the self-justifying note in his voice, the plea for her to understand why he did not know what had happened to her sons, but
"Thank goodness you're all right," she said, pulling him into a hug he did not feel he deserved.
"Haven't go' any brandy, have yeh, Molly?" asked Hagrid a little shakily. "Fer medicinal purposes?"
She could have summoned it by magic, but as she hurried back toward the crooked house, Harry knew that she wanted to hide her face. — J.K. Rowling