River Of Tears Quotes & Sayings

And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing.
Aaron's Noise roars up in red and black.
The current takes us on.
"I'm sorry!" I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can't barely breathe. "I'm sorry, Manchee!"
"Todd?" he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. "Todd?"
"Manchee!" I scream.
Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog.
"MANCHEE!"
"Todd?"
And Aaron wrenches his arms and there's a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.
And the pain is too much it's too much it's too much and my hands are on my head and I'm rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that's inside of me. — Patrick Ness

I saw Tory's face as I took my beating. I saw myself pulled up by Pastor from the Pearl River, wet and shaking and miserable in the Lord, Missy Cook on the bank and crying tears meant for nothing but effect, and I knew then I was no better than my grandmother, knew no matter how hard you prayed, no matter how shiny the stones in your pocket, no matter how far behind you you thought your old lives were, they were never gone. They were never more than an inch from the surface, battling every moment you breathed, each and every moment of every day fighting to rise up and take you over. And I'd lost, let those old lives win just now. — Bret Lott

THE BLUE DRESS

Her blue dress is a silk train is a river
is water seeps into the cobblestone steps of my sleep, is still raining
is monsoon brocade, is winter stars stitched into puddles
is goodbye in a flooded, antique room, is goodbye in a room of crystal bowls
and crystal cups, is the ring-ting-ring of water dripping from the mouths
of crystal bowls and crystal cups, is the Mississippi river is a hallway, is leaks
like tears from windowsills of a drowned house, is windows open to waterfalls
is a bed is a small boat is a ship, is a currant come to carry me in its arms
through the streets, is me floating in her dress through the streets
is the moon sees me floating through the streets, is me in a blue dress
out to sea, is my mother is a moon out to sea. — Saeed Jones

She touched her fingertip to his wet face and brought away a tear. Amazed, he did the same. He tasted this river his own eyes had rained.
"It tastes of salt!" he exclaimed. "It tastes like the sea!"
"Mine too!" she laughed through her own tears, and he touched and tasted hers as well. "It's as if humans kept a sign of the mother sea in ourselves, a secret token of grief or gladness. — Robin Morgan

O world, world when I was younger I thought there was some order governing you and your deeds. But now you seem to be a labyrinth of errors, a frightful desert, a den of wild beasts, a game in which men move in circles ... a stony field, a meadow full of serpents, a flowering but barren orchard, a spring of cares, a river of tears, a sea of suffering, a vain hope. — Fernando De Rojas

You do not see the river of tears because it lack one tear of your own. — Antonio Porchia

Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope? — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Standing beside the river, realizing that the water of earth is recycled forever, she deeply understood this: that there are two "presents." One is of the moment. The other is of a longer moment - the "moment" that includes the history and knowledge one knows. So that, she mused, if the tears shed by the mother of Isis are now part of this river then I am somehow connected to her in this longer "present" that I am able to envision and that contains both of us. — Alice Walker

up and walked slowly to the mirror, and then she stood there with a broad smile, and a narrow river of tears gleaming on her face. He stood behind her, at a good distance. He wanted to leave her alone. This was her moment. "Oh God, Peter, it's beautiful." He laughed softly. "Not 'it's' beautiful, silly girl. You're beautiful. It is you, — Danielle Steel

Now, hearing Tansi speak, Afua resumed her crying, but it was as though no one heard. These tears were a matter of routine. They came for all of the women. They dropped until the clay below them turned to mud. At night, Esi dreamed that if they all cried in unison, the mud would turn to river and they could be washed away into the Atlantic. — Yaa Gyasi

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Misery is a river of tears that whispers my name in a constant hiss. — Richelle E. Goodrich

What did the onion juice do? It did what the world and the sorrows of the world could not do: it brought forth a round, human tear. It made them cry. At last they could cry again. To cry properly, without restraint, to cry like mad. The tears flowed and washed everything away. The rain came. The dew. Oskar has a vision of floodgates opening. Of dams bursting in the spring floods. What is the name of that river that overflows every spring and the government does nothing to stop it? — Gunter Grass

I love my country, by which I mean I am indebted joyfully to all the people throughout its history, who have fought the government to make right. Where so many cunning sons and daughters, our foremothers and forefathers came singing through slaughter, came through hell and high water so that we could stand here, and behold breathlessly the sight; how a raging river of tears cut a grand canyon of light. Why can't all decent men and women call themselves feminists, out of respect for those that fought for this? — Ani DiFranco

You got shot? Where? How? By who?" He zipped up in the air, darting left to right, right to left. "Did you cry? I would've cried. A lot. Like a river of motherfucking tears. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Tears are not just for children. My mother once told me that a soul is a river and that the spirits give us teardrops when we have converged with another life. We overflow with them because our spirits become wider and deeper than before. Those who lack love or compassion will not be given the gift of tears. — Dannika Dark

Sometimes in the evening I sit, looking out on the big Missouri. The sun sets, and dusk steals over the water. In the shadows I seem again to see our Indian village, with smoke curling upward from the earth lodges, and in the river's roar I hear the yells of warriors, and the laughter of little children as of old. It is but an old woman's dream. Then I see but shadows and hear only the roar of the river, and tears come into my eyes. Our Indian life, I know, is gone forever.(Hidatsa, 1839-1932) — Waheenee

My grief reminds me what is dear to my heart by what is no longer to be. Loss is a part of the movement of change, and the grief that accompanies loss is necessary in order to let the movement of change flow through. Tears are like a river releasing to open waters. — Sharon Weil

She cried so hard her tears formed a river, and tears of grief always run into the river Styx. — Janette Rallison

I'm sorry," I choke out.
He's quiet. Tears drip off my chin. He lets out a slow, shaky breath.
"Don't cry," he says. "That's not fair."
I laugh and sob at the same time.
"It's okay," he whispers. His fingers brush at the tears on my cheeks. "Don't cry."
Then he puts his arms around me, wings and all. I curl my arms around his neck and bury my face in his chest and breathe in the smell of the river on him. Somewhere in the woods a crow caws. A blackbird answers. And then we're kissing and everything goes away but Tucker. — Cynthia Hand

Aware that a man has no more chance with a woman, armed with the offensive and defensive weapons of tongue, tears, nails, and bamboo, than in a river with an alligator, I, for the first time in my life, acted prudently, and fled the fight. — Edward John Trelawny

Oh blessed tears, by which interior stains are washed away, and the flames of sin are quenched! Happy are those who weep thus, for they shall rejoice hereafter. By these tears, oh soul, discover your Bridegroom! Embrace him (whom) you desire; be inebriated with the river of delight; draw milk and honey from the breasts of his consolation. These tears and sighs are wondrous, precious gifts and consolations given you by your Spouse. Let these tears furnish drink for you; they are bread for you by day and by night, bread that surely strengthens the heart of man and is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. — Francisco De Osuna

I report the assault on nature evidenced in coal mining that tears the tops off mountains and dumps them into rivers, sacrificing the health and lives of those in the river valleys to short-term profit, and I see a link between that process and the stock-market frenzy which scorns long-term investments-genuine savings-in favor of quick turnovers and speculative bubbles whose inevitable bursting leaves insiders with stuffed pockets and millions of small stockholders, pensioners, and employees out of work, out of luck, and out of hope. — Bill Moyers

Do not cast your boat on a river of tears, cried the tearing wind. Small hands are still, be still. She knelt then lay on her side, clutching a key, accepting kindness of endless sleep. — Patti Smith

Dear Angel Juan,
You used to guard my sleep like a panther biting back my pain with the edge of your teeth. You carried me into the dark dream jungle, loping past the hungry vines, crossing the shiny fish-scale river. We left my tears behind in a chiming silver pool. We left my sorrow in the muddy hollows. When I woke up you were next to me, damp and matted, your eyes hazy, trying to remember the way I clung to you, how far down we went.
Was the journey too far, Angel Juan? Did we go too far? — Francesca Lia Block

There were so many other amazing things in this world. They opened up inside of me like a river. Like I didn't know I could take a breath and then I breathed. I laughed with the joy of it, and the next moment I was crying my first tears on the PCT. I cried and I cried and I cried. I wasn't crying because I was happy. I wasn't crying because I was sad. I wasn't crying because of my mother or my father or Paul. I was crying because I was full. Of those fifty-some hard days on the trail and of the 9,760 days that had come before them too. — Cheryl Strayed

Time is the thing I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that tears me apart, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges. — Jorge Luis Borges

Then Nuvoletta reflected for the last time in her little long life and she made up all her myriads of drifting minds in one. She cancelled all her engauzements. She climbed over the bannistars; she gave a childy cloudy cry: Nuee! Nuee! A lightdress fluttered. She was gone. And into the river that had been a stream ... there fell a tear, a singult tear, the loveliest of all tears ... for it was a leaptear. But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh! I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay! — James Joyce

I cried a river of tears but he was too heavy to float on them. So I dragged him with me these years across an ocean. — August Wilson

I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from terror. All this I dreamt, and more. — George R R Martin

I also know this,' he went on: 'One cup poured into another makes different water; tears shed by one eye would blind if wept into another's eye. The breast we strike in joy is not the breast we strike in pain; any man's smile would be consternation on another's mouth. Rear up eternal river, here comes grief! Man has no foothold that is not also a bargain. So be it! Laughing I came into Pacific Street, and laughing I'm going out of it; laughter is the pauper's money. — Djuna Barnes

Strike, with hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. But know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh - the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. O rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Tears are another river that takes us home. We become alive with tears. There isn't a chance to return to sleep when we are weeping. — David Paul Kirkpatrick

I have been waiting for you for so long."
I pointed to the car. "We are searching for Trachimbrod."
"Oh," she said and she released a river of tears. "You are here. I am it. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. — W.B.Yeats

He was looking into that strange place, the middle distance, the most mysterious, human, and rich of all distances. And from his eyes came slowly tears, immaculate human tears, before the world touches them. River, window and eyes. — Sebastian Barry

Even when a river of tears courses through this body, the flame of love cannot be quenched. — Izumi Shikibu

Moments have fallen from your eyes, like tears written in the wind. There, on the river of knowledge, where you live from your memories. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

When it seems like the night will last forever,
And there's nothing left to do but count the years,
When the strings of my harp to sever,
And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears ...
I will walk alone by the black muddy river,
And dream me a dream of my own,
I will walk alone by the black muddy river,
And sing me a song of my own. — Robert Hunter