“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” 

“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them." ~ Leo Tolstoy

There is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. ~ Winnie the Pooh

“When your fear touches someone’s pain, it becomes pity, when your love touches someone’s pain, it become compassion.”
― Stephen Levine

“If I can see pain in your eyes then share with me your tears. If I can see joy in your eyes then share with me your smile.”
― Santosh Kalwar

“And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief.”
― William Cullen Bryant

“There is an hour, a minute - you will remember it forever - when you know instinctively on the basis of the most inconsequential evidence, that something is wrong. You don't know - can't know - that it is the first of a series of "wrongful" events that will culminate in the utter devastation of your life as you have known it.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, A Widow's Story 

“When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, "My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.”
― David McCullough

“A feeling of pleasure or solace can be so hard to find when you are in the depths of your grief. Sometimes it's the little things that help get you through the day. You may think your comforts sound ridiculous to others, but there is nothing ridiculous about finding one little thing to help you feel good in the midst of pain and sorrow!”
― Elizabeth Berrien, Creative Grieving: A Hip Chick's Path from Loss to Hope 

Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”
― Fred Rogers

“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love 

"The reality is that we don't forget, move on, and have closure, but rather we honor, we remember, and incorporate our deceased children and siblings into our lives in a new way. In fact, keeping memories of your loved one alive in your mind and heart is an important part of your healing journey." ~ Harriet Schiff, author of The Bereaved Parent

We can endure much more than we think we can; all human experience testifies to that. All we need to do is learn not to be afraid of pain. Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don't deny it, don't be overwhelmed by it. It will not last forever. One day, the pain will be gone and you will still be there. - Harold Kushner When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough 

What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. - Helen Keller

When a person is born we rejoice, and when they're married we jubilate, but when they die we try to pretend nothing has happened.- Margaret Mead 

No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.- C.S. Lewis

She was no longer wresting with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. - George Eliot

Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve. - Earl Grollman

One cannot get through life without pain...What we can do is choose how to use the pain life presents to us. - Bernie S. Siegel

Honest listening is one of the best medicines we can offer the dying and the bereaved. - Jean Cameron (dying of cancer)

For some moments in life there are no words. - David Seltzer, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.- Patti Smith

There is no grief like the grief that does not speak. -Henry Wordsworth

We can endure much more than we think we can; all human experience testifies to that. All we need to do is learn not to be afraid of pain. Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don't deny it, don't be overwhelmed by it. It will not last forever. One day, the pain will be gone and you will still be there. -  Harold Kushner  When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough 

A child can live with anything as long as he or she is told the truth and is allowed to share with loved ones the natural feelings people have when they are suffering.- Eda LeShan

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.   -Henri Nouwen 

Nothing that grieves us can be called little; by the external laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.  Mark Twain, Which was the Dream? (1897) 

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion to death.- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"Deposits of unfinished grief reside in more American hearts that I ever imagined. Until these pockets are opened and their contents aired openly, they block unimagined amounts of human growth and potential. They can give rise to bizarre and unexplained behavior which causes untold internal stress."  - Robert Kavanaugh

"Grieving is a journey that teaches us how to love in a new way now that our loved one is no longer with us. Consciously remembering those who have died is the key that opens the hearts, that allows us to love them in new ways." - Tom Attig, The Heart of Grief

 “Ah. I smiled. I'm not really here to keep you from freaking out. I'm here to be with you while you freak out, or grieve or laugh or suffer or sing. It is a ministry of presence. It is showing up with a loving heart.”
― Kate Braestrup, Here If You Need Me: A True Story

You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces - my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.
~ Elizabeth Edwards

"He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself.”
― Lois Lowry 

At some of the darkest moments in my life, some people I thought of as friends deserted me-some because they cared about me and it hurt them to see me in pain; others because I reminded them of their own vulnerability, and that was more than they could handle. But real friends overcame their discomfort and came to sit with me. If they had not words to make me feel better, they sat in silence (much better than saying, "You'll get over it," or "It's not so bad; others have it worse") and I loved them for it. - Harold Kushner, Living a Life that Matters

"It is very easy to see the allure of alcohol to dull the pain and the temptation to punish myself for something that is not my fault. But he sobering truth is that if I step onto the path of self-destruction, I know I will never come back. " Bill Jenkins, What to Do When the Police Leave: A Guide to the First Days of Traumatic Loss

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. ~ Samuel Johnson

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. ~ William Shakespeare

Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists. ~ Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

Even hundredfold grief is divisible by love. ~ Terri Guillemets

Sorrow makes us all children again - destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~ From the television show The Wonder Years

If you're going through hell, keep going. ~ Winston Churchill

We acquire the strength we have overcome. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time is a physician that heals every grief. ~ Diphilus

The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out. ~ Lou Reed, "Magic and Loss"

Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow. ~ Dan Rather

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present. ~ Jan Glidewell

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal. ~ Author Unknown

There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go. ~ Author Unknown

If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble. ~ Moliere

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight. ~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. ~ Robert Ingersoll

Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. ~ Jacques Prévert

The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep. ~ Henry Maudsley

Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway. ~ Mary C. Crowley

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. ~ George Eliot

While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. ~ John Taylor

As long as I can I will look at this world for both of us. As long as I can I will laugh with the birds, I will sing with the flowers, I will pray to the stars, for both of us. ~ Sascha,

“I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes - I wonder if it weighs like mine - or has an easier size.”
- Emily Dickinson

"Courage can be just as infectious as fear."
- Alice Miller, For Your Own Good

 “My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.”
― Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

“So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly 

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

 "We can endure much more than we think we can; all human experience testifies to that. All we need to do is learn not to be afraid of pain. Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don't deny it, don't be overwhelmed by it. It will not last forever.  One day, the pain will be gone and you will still be there.

- Harold Kushner  When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough