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Grief Quotes

Words for the weight of loss and the slow work of healing.

Several lines resist the idea of grief as something to conquer once, describing it instead as a shifting, day-to-day experience. Read more in our Healing quotes.

I haven't written adult fiction, but I do not sugarcoat grief - or what I expect grief to be.

Quotes by Adam Silvera

Abortion, more than not, leaves women with an aftermath of grief, guilt, and emotional overload. In a lot of cases, this can last a lifetime.

Quotes by Abby Johnson

Grief is a very complicated monster. There's no real exorcising of it. It has a different form every day.

Quotes by Yance Ford

Grief, for me, is a moment-to-moment experience.

Quotes by Yance Ford

Depth Quotes

Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.

Quotes by Xenophon

A few weeks before the jubilee began in 2002, Queen Elizabeth died, and the public outpouring of grief and affection, with hundreds of thousands of people queuing for hours to pass by her coffin, showed how widely and deeply loved...

Quotes by William Shawcross

Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we repent at leisure.

Quotes by William Congreve

Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past.

Quotes by Walker Percy

Grief, no matter where it comes from, can only be resolved by connecting to other people.

Quotes by Thomas Horn

Emotion Quotes

It's a dynamic of grief within any family, and I found, after we lost Steve, his dad just began distancing himself. And I think it's a coping mechanism. I found it very confusing.

Quotes by Terri Irwin

To touch a sore is to renew one's grief.

Quotes by Terence

More often writing soliloquies of suffering and consolation than collective songs like the dirge, elegists have discovered that lyric sequences can provide a powerful means of addressing the tensions between grief's inchoate emotion and social rituals of mourning.

Quotes by Susan Stewart

The power of elegy, even in the face of an unbounded grief, to provide a containing form is vividly embodied by Anne Carson's 'Nox,' a nocturne with carefully controlled visual and tactile properties.

Quotes by Susan Stewart

Long before I ever got incarcerated, I should've been able to access services that help me deal with the grief and the loss of my son, that help me deal with the trauma, the abuse that I experienced as a...

Quotes by Susan Burton

Healing Quotes

I was struck after 9/11 by what seemed the assumption that everyone bereaved by that event was suffering the same thing. I wanted to explore how individual grief is, how complicated, how colored by the complexity of the mourner's relationship...

Quotes by Sue Miller

The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size. It is not the size of you. It is its own size. And grief comes to you.

Quotes by Stephen Colbert

Generally, the younger the victim, the greater the grief. Yet even when the elderly or infirm have been afforded merciful relief, their loved ones are rarely ready to let go.

Quotes by Russell M. Nelson

Grief is a very strange thing. It can affect you in all kinds of ways. I lost a year. I’ve done a lot of therapy and it’s great to be back on the horse.

Quotes by Roland Orzabal

Sadness, irritability, fatigue, and distractedness are among the most common side effects of grief while parenting.

Quotes by Rachel Simmons

Hope Quotes

Grief is the price we pay for love.

Quotes by Queen Elizabeth II

Frequently Asked Questions

What is this Grief collection about?
It's a set of honest, unsentimental reflections on loss — one voice describing grief as a moment-to-moment experience, another calling it a complicated monster with no real exorcising, taking a different form every day.
Do these quotes offer comfort or just description?
Mostly description rather than reassurance. The opening line even argues that grieving only aggravates loss, urging against grieving for what is already past — a more clear-eyed than consoling take.
Is there a quote warning against excessive grief?
Yes — one line calls excess of grief for the dead a kind of madness, framing it as an injury to the living rather than a tribute to the dead, which gives this collection a sharper edge than a typical hope or comfort page.
How does grief connect to healing in this collection?
The quotes don't promise quick healing — grief is treated as something that changes shape daily rather than resolves on a schedule, which readers processing real loss often find more honest than platitudes.
Are there related pages for spiritual support with grief?
Yes, alongside these quotes you can find grief prayers for readers looking for something more devotional than reflective.

Others caution against letting sorrow tip into something that harms the living as much as it honors the dead. Explore Emotion quotes for more on processing loss.