When Your Brother Died Quotes & Sayings

Kids don't have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don't have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that. That's why I sing these songs. That's why I tell these stories, dammit. No root, no fruit! — Utah Phillips

Everything Tolstoy wrote is precious, but I found this final statement of the truth about life as he had come to understand it particularly beautiful and moving. 'That is what I have wanted to say to you, my brothers. Before I died.' So he concludes, giving one a vivid sense of the old man, pen in hand and bent over the paper, his forehead wrinkled into a look of puzzlement very characteristic of him, as though he were perpetually wondering how others could fail to see what was to him so clear - that the law of love explained all mysteries and invalidated all other laws. — Malcolm Muggeridge

Since my brother died in 1982, my parents and I had formed a shaky tripod of a family; now that I'd lost my father too, it was too easy for me to glimpse a future point where I alone was the keeper of not just my own childhood memories, but of my family lore. — Ann Hood

Jillian," I whispered, "I know you don't know who I am. But I love your brother, and I know you do too. So ... do you think you could wake up? Do you think you could at least try?"
For far too long she gave me no response. I'd just about given up - hung my head and prepared myself for the inevitable, impossible job of comforting Joshua - when Jillian whispered back.
"I guess. Since you asked so nicely."
In spite of everything, a quiet laugh escaped my lips.
"Thank God. Because I have a feeling you'd be a huge pain in the ass if you died. — Tara Hudson

Your brother?" St. Clair points above my bed to the only picture I've hung up. Seany is grinning at the camera and pointing at one of my mother's research turtles,which is lifting its neck and threatening to take away his finger. Mom is doing a study on the lifetime reproductive habits of snapping turtles and visits her brood in the Chattahoochie River several times a month. My brother loves to go with her, while I prefer the safety of our home. Snapping turtles are mean.
"Yep.That's Sean."
"That's a little Irish for a family with tartan bedspreads."
I smile. "It's kind of a sore spot. My mom loved the name,but Granddad-my father's father-practically died when he heard it.He was rooting for Malcolm or Ewan or Dougal instead."
St. Clair laughs. "How old is he?"
"Seven.He's in the second grade."
"That's a big age difference."
"Well,he was either an accident or a last-ditch effort to save a failing marriage.I've never had the nerve to ask which. — Stephanie Perkins

Three days after my brother died, my father was in the hospital. He just did not want to live anymore. Before, he was fighting and loving life. — Marc Forster

One day, a shadow will come to my door. He will push his head back and scuff the dirt with one heel, and he will tell me to go to the market common should I want to say farewell ere the hangman does his work. Or that my brother died well in some anonymous way, calling down the only kind of justice the likes of us have recourse to.
Then I will have naught left to lose. — J. Anderson Coats

Blackmailers are never satisfied." His laughter faded into bitterness.
"Aren't they? How do you know?"
His words were empty, hollow. "When you're the brother of a duke and your wife died in mysterious circumstances, sharks come out of the woodwork."
"That's a mixed metaphor."
"Bugger metaphors. They're human sharks and they come out of the shadows when you least expect them. — Jennifer Ashley

That was the big joke, wasn't it? The answer to the riddle: There was no one up there in Heaven, making sure the accounts came out right. I'd solved it, hadn't I? Cracked the code? It was all just a joke. The god inside my brother's head was just his disease. My mother had knelt every night and prayed to her own steepled hands. Your baby died because of ... because of no particular reason at all. Your wife left you because you sucked all the oxygen out of the room, so you pretended she was the one in bed with you while you screwed your girlfriend and her boyfriend hid in the closet, watching. — Wally Lamb

It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack's mother, and Aliena's brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that her father had died in a dungeon, and she was legally married to Jack's stepbrother, and Ellen was an outlaw, and
She shook her head. It was no use pretending this was a normal family. — Ken Follett

I'm a good girl. I'm a nice girl. I'm a straight-A, strait-laced, good daughter, good career girl, and I never stole anybody's boyfriend and I never ran out on a girlfriend, and I put up with my parents' shit and brother's shit and I'm not a girl anyhow, I'm over forty fucking years old, and I'm good at my job and I'm great with kids and I held my mother's hand when she died,after four years of holding her hand while she was dying, and I speak to my father ever day on the telephone
every day, mind you, and what kind of weather do you have on your side of the river, because here it's pretty gray and a big muggy too? It was supposed to say "Great Artist" on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say "Such a good teacher/daughter/friend" instead; and what I really want to shout, and want in big letters on that grave, too, is FUCK YOU ALL. — Claire Messud

i dreamt that i died. for an instant, all the voices in my head stood calm, and for a moment, my heart stopped panicking, and for once in my whole life, my cheeks dried from all the tears that were falling every night ... i thought to my self: how nice it is to be finally dead, i wish i did it sooner.
my brother once told me that people who commit suicide are mostly doing it for attention. that's so wrong. i'm not asking for attention, nor sympathy. when i put that blade on my shaking skin alone in my room at 3 am, you should be sure that i'm not thinking of anyone and i'm not asking for anyone's attention. all i'm doing is pushing my self to stop the pain. you see, i don't want to die too, all i want is for the pain to stop and for me to smile like everyone else.


yasuko amaya - the day i decided to be God - — Unknown Author 1

In John's Gospel chapter 11, after Lazarus has died, he comes to be with Martha and Mary, the sisters. Martha says, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died," and Jesus rebukes her. Then Mary comes up and says, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died," and Jesus just weeps with her. Same words - by no means the same response. Why? Because Jesus always gives you what you need, and he knows better than you what that is. He's the Wonderful Counselor. — Timothy Keller

He's my brother. He's the one we're going to find.' 'Right.' 'We had a cousin who was disabled. He was always getting bullied and Paul was always sticking up for him.' 'He sounds like a nice guy, your brother,' said Marco kindly. 'He sounds like a dick,' Felix murmured under his breath. Marco tried not to laugh. Luckily Olivia hadn't heard him. 'He's brilliant,' said Olivia. 'When my mum and dad died he looked after me.' 'We'll find him,' said Marco. 'The dick,' Felix added, slightly too loudly, and Marco snorted. — Charlie Higson

When I was eight years old, I was always starving. My brother and sister died from starvation. — Chen Guangbiao

Excellent,' said one of the Sanzas. "Soon he'll be fat, and we can butcher him like all the others for a Penance Day roast."
"What my brother means to say," said the other twin, "is that all the others died of purely natural causes, and you have nothing to fear from us. Now have some more bread. — Scott Lynch

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus always seems to be pairing God's forgiveness of us with our forgiveness of others. But why? Growing up, I thought it was a way of guilting us into forgiving others, like Jesus was saying, Hey, I died for you and you can't even be nice to your little brother? As though God can get us to do the right thing if God can just make us feel bad about how much we owe God. But that is not the God I see in Jesus Christ. That is a manipulative mother. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

My other brother-in-law died. He was a karate expert, then joined the army. The first time he saluted, he killed himself. — Henny Youngman