Quotes & Sayings About Grief And Loneliness

There's grief and then there's the loneliness of grief. The way it's just yours and yours alone. — Deb Caletti

Friends are the real superheroes. They battle our worst enemies - loneliness, grief, anxiety, depression, fear, and doubt - every time they come around. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Loneliness

It's Hell for us to draw the fetters
Of life in alienation, stiff.
All people prefer to share gladness,
And nobody - to share grief.

As a king of air, I'm lone here,
The pain lives in my heart, so grim,
And I can see that, to the fear
Of fate, years pass me by like dreams;

And comes again with, touched by gold,
The same dream, gloomy one and old.
I see a coffin, black and sole,
It waits: why to detain the world?

There will be not a sad reflection,
There will be (I am betting on)
Much more gaily celebration
When I am dead, than - born. — Mikhail Lermontov

So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don't act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present - present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness. — Eckhart Tolle

Jesus never tried to hide his loneliness and dependence on other people. He chose his disciples not as servants but as friends. He shared moments of joy and grief with them, and asked for them in times of need. They became his family, his substitute mother and brothers and sisters. They gave up everything for him, as he had given up everything for them. He loved them, plain and simple. — Philip Yancey

God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering. — Sylvia Plath

I'm Phoenix. The mythical bird that rises from the ashes. I've risen from fear and grief, from scandal and suffering, and from the crushing loneliness of walking with a purpose that is outside myself, but not within me. I know what's within me now, and I'm ready to fly again. — Heidi Joy Tretheway

Alvin didn't cry, didn't curse, didn't holler ... He was too far gone to roar on that day or even to crack. Only I did ... Only I cracked, alone, later in the one place in our house where I knew I could go to be apart from the living and all that they cannot not do. — Philip Roth

There is nothing more painful than the untimely death of someone young and dear to the heart. The harrowing grief surges from a bottomless well of sorrow, drowning the mourner in a torrent of agonizing pain; an exquisite pain that continues to afflict the mourner with heartache and loneliness long after the deceased is buried and gone. — Jocelyn Murray

In truth, nothing was the same. She forgot about the stars ... and taking notice of the sea. She was no longer filled with all the curiosities of the world and didn't take much notice of anything ... other than how heavy ... and awkward the bottle had become. — Oliver Jeffers

Hidden away amongst Aschenbach's writing was a passage directly asserting that nearly all the great things that exist owe their existence to a defiant despite: it is despite grief and anguish, despite poverty, loneliness, bodily weakness, vice and passion and a thousand inhibitions, that they have come into being at all. But this was more than an observation, it was an experience, it was positively the formula of his life and his fame, the key to his work. — Thomas Mann

The train blows through town
delivering reality,
slapping my face and screaming,
"You are alone"
Rose colored memories drown,
taking their last breath. — Kellie Elmore

and after she went, Dalton didn't last long. His death certificate listed heart failure as the cause, but Owen Gray knew it had been loneliness and grief. After — James Thayer

Grief causes you to leave yourself. You step outside your narrow little pelt. And you can't feel grief unless you've had love before it - grief is the final outcome of love, because it's love lost. [ ... ] It's the cycle of love completed: to love, to lose, to feel grief, to leave, and then to love again. Grief is the awareness that you will have to be alone, and there is nothing beyond that because being alone is the ultimate final destiny of each individual living creature. That's what death is, the great loneliness. — Philip K. Dick

I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. I am terrified and I don't even know of what, because I have lost everything already. — Veronica Roth

The house is eerily quiet. All this time I thought silence would be a welcome reprieve, but it's less comforting than I imagined. The house feels so much bigger and colder than it ever has. — Hannah Harrington

Some losses never heal you just learn to carry the burden and shed a tear every now and then — Tina Gayle

They went to the tree. Daemon dismounted and leaned against the tree, staring in the direction of the house. The stallion jiggled the bit, reminding him he wasn't alone. "I wanted to say good-bye," Daemon said quietly. For the first time, he truly saw the intelligence - and loneliness - in the horse's eyes. After that, he couldn't keep his voice from breaking as he tried to explain why Jaenelle was never going to come to the tree again, why there would be no more rides, no more caresses, no more talks. For a moment, something rippled in his mind. He had the odd sensation he was the one being talked to, explained to, and his words, echoing back, lacerated his heart. To be alone again. To never again see those arms held out in welcome. To never hear that voice say his name. To ... Daemon gasped as Dark Dancer jerked the reins free and raced down the path toward the field. Tears of grief pricked Daemon's eyes. The horse might have a simpler mind, but the heart was just as big. — Anne Bishop

That squid is a villain," said Flora out loud. "He needs to be vanquished. He's eating a boat. And he's going to eat all of the people on the boat."
"Yes, well, loneliness makes us do terrible things," said Dr. Meescham. "And that is why the picture is there, to remind me of this. Also, because the other Dr. Meescham painted it when he was young and joyful."
Good grief, thought Flora. What did he paint when he was old and depressed? — Kate DiCamillo

( ... ) nearly all the great things that exist owe their existence to a defiant despite: it is despite grief and anguish, despite poverty, loneliness, bodily weakness, vice and passion and a thousand inhibitions, that they have come into being at all. — Thomas Mann

She was overstrained with grief and loneliness: almost any shoulder would have done as well. — F Scott Fitzgerald

People are more likely to fall intensely in love when they are anxious and their self-esteem is lowest.... Feeling inadequate, unhappy, and empty are virtual prerequisites for falling and staying desperately in love; at least temporarily, the ecstasy of desire seems to cure everything that ails you. There is a connection between aversive states of mind -- loneliness, shame, even grief and horror -- and a propensity to feel overwhelming passion; this is one reason why romances blossom in times of war or natural disasters, as well as during the private disasters of our everyday lives. — Jeanne Safer

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.
At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me. — C.S. Lewis

Like the long gone captains of the Confederacy, he stood watch at the edge of Dauphin Island, his old life just out of sight across the water. What he felt in those moments, pelicans skimming the chop, tankers lugging cargo to ports unknown, was not loneliness or loss, as you might expect, nor the weight of tragedy but its opposite, pure lightness, the hole left inside him by Suzette's death as big and hollow as a zeppelin and just as buoyant, as if the shape of her absence might lift him up and carrying him away. — Michael Knight

It's all right", he said, wondering at the same time why there were no better words, why there never are any better words to answer fear and grief and loneliness. "It's all right, believe me. — Robert Bloch

Gail Godwin has written a book about the heaviest matters of loss, grief, and loneliness with a touch so light that I was as often deeply amused by it as I was deeply moved. — Frederick Buechner

In the country, I stopped being a person who, in the words of Sylvia Boorstein, startles easily. I grew calmer, but beneath that calm was a deep well of loneliness I hadn't known was there ... Anxiety was my fuel. When I stopped, it was all waiting for me: fear, anger, grief, despair, and that terrible, terrible loneliness. What was it about? I was hardly alone. I loved my husband and son. I had great friends, colleagues, students. In the quiet, in the extra hours, I was forced to ask the question, and to listen carefully to the answer: I was lonely for myself. [p. 123] — Dani Shapiro

[A]s though mindful of the wife of Lot, who looked back from behind him, thou deliveredst me first to the sacred garments and monastic profession before thou gavest thyself to God. And for that in this one thing thou shouldst have had little trust in me I vehemently grieved and was ashamed. For I (God [knows]) would without hesitation precede or follow thee to the Vulcanian fires according to thy word. For not with me was my heart, but with thee. But now, more than ever, if it be not with thee, it is nowhere. For without thee it cannot anywhere exist. — Heloise D'Argenteuil

No, it really isn't, but trust me, getting divorced and having to start over is the least in life that isn't fair. I had to watch the parents of a way too young girl realize that their daughter died for no other reason than people can't figure out how to be nice to each other. It isn't that hard, just be nice and people might not have to suffer needlessly, but that isn't the world we live in, so young girls die. That isn't fair, Mom. People falling out of love is vicious and it sucks, but there are far worse things you could be going through. I know that sounds harsh but it's very true. — Jay Crownover

But the more people we love and the more deeply we love them, the more vulnerable we are to loss and grief and loneliness. — Dean Koontz

On Love and Happiness:When someone embarks on his research, if he ever makes it, (there is, in addition, a contingency that he/she will never embark on it), then he sails on a journey, a course that incubates various events.
It's like opening a precious gift that hides myriads of secrets.
Nobody acknowledges its content unless he attempts to inspect it.
Happiness is not always dominated by heavenly chances, blue and green seashores of euphoria and pink clouds of serenity.
Happiness does not dwell in luxurious mansions and expensive cars neither in glamorous appearances.
Many times Unhappiness and loneliness lurk behind the ledges of luxury and surface brightness.
There are so many examples around us, in newspapers, magazines, television and radio of people who are plunged in uncertainty, grief and insecurity.
I wonder why this is. — Katerina Kostaki

Though I knew in my mind that others had felt such loss, this loss was mine, and I felt that no one would ever understand it, and to try to explain the lonliness and pain I felt would be futile. — Linda Hawley

He saw her red eyes filled with tears of anger.
"Tell me why this rage?" He asked holding her in his arms. "Why do you fence for yourself so much?
She sighed and muttered, "Because all I really want is nothing but to be proved wrong. — Sanhita Baruah

A thousand recollected lives were passing through her, a thousand stories - of love and work, of parents and children, of duty and joy and grief. Beds slept in and meals eaten, and the bliss and pain of the body, and a view of summer leaves from a window on a morning it had rained; the nights of loneliness and the nights of love, the soul in it's body keeping always longing to be known. — Justin Cronin

He stroked her back and kept a fierce grip on her like she'd fade away into one of the thousands of ghosts in this cemetery. — Katherine McIntyre

The terrible truth about depression, and the part of its nature that terrifies me the most, is that it appears to operate beyond reason; feelings happen to you for no apparent cause. Or rather, there is usually an initial cause, a 'trigger'as they say in therapeutic circles, but in severe depression the feelings of sadness, grief, loneliness and despair continue long after the situation has resolved itself. It is as if depression has a life of its own, which is perhaps why so many sufferers refer to it as a living thing, as some sort of demon or beast. — Sally Brampton

Wracking sobs rip from the innermost chamber of my heart, and I give into them, allowing them to fully take over. Pain lances me on all sides, and I bury my head in my knees, giving in to the heartache.
I cry for my parents.
For my lost life.
For the threat that Addison poses, scaring me in ways it shouldn't.
For a boy I can't have and shouldn't want.
For the never-ending gut-wrenching hollow ache in my chest and the soul-crushing loneliness I feel. — Siobhan Davis

I can't recall the sound of your voice
Still, I bring flowers and meet the sky
ask it to hold me, too. — Drew Myron

It ... whatever 'it' is, has swallowed me and I lie here in the pit of its cold dark stomach being eaten alive by its bile and I ... I don't even know if I want to be saved. — Kellie Elmore

My aloneness had never bothered me; I hadn't even been aware of it. But now it overwhelmed me. The awareness washed over me with painful sharpness and deep grief. Now that I had company. — Linda Olsson

We are not alone in our loneliness, others have been here and known griefs we thought our special own ... — Patrick Kavanagh

There are no words big enough to describe grief. It's an incredibly lonely, empty place, a large hole that swallows your soul and threatens to destroy it. It's a dark place with no light that blinds you, deafens you, and crushes your spirit. It's a place full of memories you're afraid to lose.
I was in that place. No amount of tears washed away the loneliness. No amount of screams chased it away. There were simply memories, an avalanche of memories that I desperately needed to hold onto.
There was so much that death didn't prepare me for. It didn't prepare me for the storm that would break my will. ~Hawthorn — R.K. Ryals

It would be impossible to estimate how much time and energy we invest in trying to fix, change and deny our emotions - especially the ones that shake us at our very core, like hurt, jealousy, loneliness, shame, rage and grief. — Debbie Ford

Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness. Sorrows you thought long forgotten mingle with still-fresh wounds. — Erin Morgenstern

There are thousands of lonely people who carry heavy and difficult burdens of grief, anxiety, pain, and disappointment; but the loneliest of all is one whose life is steeped in sin. — Billy Graham

Rage keeps the person who feels it company. It moves into the hollows left by grief and loss, and turns inside you like a dark furred animal that grows and fills you; it kills off loneliness and takes its place. — Paula Sharp

After she disappeared inside the hotel, Pasquale entertained the unwieldy thought that he'd somehow summoned her, that after years of living in this place, after months of grief and loneliness and waiting for Americans, he'd created this woman from old bits of cinema and books, from the lost artifacts and ruins of his dreams, from his epic, enduring solitude. He glanced over at Orenzio, who was carrying someone's bags, and the whole world suddenly seemed so unlikely, our time in it so brief and dreamlike. He'd never felt such a detached, existential sensation, such terrifying freedom - it was as if he were hovering above the village, above his own body - and it thrilled him in a way that he could never have explained. — Jess Walter

There is a gentrification that is happening to cities, and there is a gentrification that is happening to the emotions too, with a similarly homogenising, whitening, deadening effect. Amidst the glossiness, of late capitalism, we are fed the notion that all difficult feeling - depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage - are simply a consequence of unsettled chemistry, a problem to be fixed, rather than a response to structural injustice or, on the other hand, to the native texture of embodiment, of doing time, as David Wojnarowicz memorably put it, in a rented body, with all the attendant grief and frustration that entails. — Olivia Laing

To multiply the years and divide by the desire to live is a kind of false accounting. — Peter Heller

Man cries, his tears dry up and run out. So he becomes a devil, reduced to a monster. — Kohta Hirano

It may be a cat, a bird, a ferret, or a guinea pig, but the chances are high that when someone close to you dies, a pet will be there to pick up the slack. Pets devour the loneliness. They give us purpose, responsibility, a reason for getting up in the morning, and a reason to look to the future. They ground us, help us escape the grief, make us laugh, and take full advantage of our weakness by exploiting our furniture, our beds, and our refrigerator. We wouldn't have it any other way. Pets are our seat belts on the emotional roller coaster of life
they can be trusted, they keep us safe, and they sure do smooth out the ride. — Nick Trout

A relationship is like a holiday from loneliness, beginning and ending in the same airport. The most awful thing about the end is that it reminds you so clearly of the beginning with the joy with which you set off. Everything is the same, yet everything has been inverted by grief. — Louis Buss