Loss Quotes

The maid found a handkerchief of hers, under the bed in which she had died. A ring that had been missing turned up in his own writing desk. A tradesman arrived with fabric she had ordered three weeks ago. Each day, some further evidence of a task half finished, a scheme incomplete. He found a novel, with her place marked.And this is it.

~ Hilary Mantel

To lose the only creature in all his world who ever had manifested love and affection for him was the greatest tragedy he had ever known.

~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

Because it isn’t a loss; just a little piece of their haven had broken off. People can patch things; it still may hurt, but that’s life.

~ Mandi Lynn

At one point, she said after a while, at one point we thought we might raise silkworms in one of the empty rooms. But then we never did. Oh, for the countless things one fails to do!

~ W.g. Sebald

Look up, greet sparks of fire with salted eyes,For he’s a burning atmospheric sigh:One blaze of liquid flame on midnight sky,Soft orbital decay, and last goodbye.

~ Alan James Roll

Though his death would not fill me with any sense of sadness, I would probably feel the loss. Even enemies are part of one.

~ Jasper Fforde

I have no definable history before I was abandoned and taken in by the orphanage in Hong Kong. I truly am a blank sheet. I have been disconnected from my ancestors. I don't know who they are, where they came from or whether any of their line still exists. The ancestral umbilical cord that would have connected me to my past and linked me to my future, was permanently severed. It cannot be reattached

~ Lucy Chau Lai-Tuen

I loved and lost and survived.

~ Rae Carson

Death never pierces the heart so much as when it takes someone we love, cleaving the heart they held with their passing.

~ Brandon M. Herbert

Compromise, communicate, and never go to bed angry - the three pieces of advice gifted and regifted to all newlyweds.

~ Gillian Flynn

Sometimes when I wake up, I forget that she's gone and then I remember and my heart drops like it does when you miss a step or trip over a kerb.

~ Annabel Pitcher

Shine in any season of your life!Head on with confidence in your life’s pilgrim!In deep faith, countless hope and unconditional love blessed by the Almighty.Newness of each rising day, bringing forth colourful sunsets.Enkindle your soul once more with courage, joy and love,flowing in a river of awakening & sharing:with a heart who once knew that hurt, pain, loss…means to SHINE!

~ Angelica Hopes

Grief is a good thing. It's the way we get through the transitions of life.

~ Rick Warren

I am, after all, an adult, a grown man, a useful human being, even though I lost the career that made me all these things. I won't make that mistake again.

~ Gillian Flynn

People talk of sorrow as if it is soft, a thing of water and tears. But true sorrow is not soft. True sorrow is a thing of fire, and rock. It burns your heart, crushes your soul under the weight of mountains. It destroys, and even if you keep breathing, keep going, you die. The person you were moments ago dies... Gone. Everything solid, everything real, is gone. It doesn't come back. The world is forever fractured, so that you walk on the crust of an earth where you can always feel the heat under you, the press of lava, that is so hot it can burn flesh, melt bone, and the very air is poisonous. To survive, you swallow the heat. To keep from falling through and dying for real, you swallow all that hate. You push it down inside you, into that fresh grave that is all that is left of what you thought the world would be.

~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Be glad that once you did experience that magic. It's part of who you are now, and you're richer for it.

~ Mary Esselman

Ownership breeds slavery: with every single thing that you acquire, comes a new worry of not losing that thing.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

~ Suzanne Collins

Be careful how close you get to someone... It just ends up hurting more than not having no one to love to begin with.

~ Andrew Galasetti

I don't want to be the person who gasps in fear whenever she hears the sound of a doorbell or a phone. I just want to lose myself in these hills, in the river winding west to the city of bridges.

~ Mira Bartok

Don't mire up in self despair of your losses, learn from them and move on to other good things in life. Don't stop allowing the sunshine in because of the fear that winter will come and engulf the warmth. Hold it close to you to help you through those cold winter days.

~ Belinda Taylor On Loss

in these shitty plastic days ...

~ Gillian Flynn

God doesn’t take things away to be cruel. He takes things away to make room for other things. He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.

~ Pat Summitt

I watch and listen, helpless to help. There is no point in saying ‘This, too, shall pass.’ For a time, we do not even want it to pass. We hold on to grief, fearing that its lifting will be the final betrayal.

~ Ahdaf Soueif

And maybe one winter it will get too cold and I’ll forget about the summers we once shared. My family portrait mightfold in too, producing the same horrific effect as Jeremy’s: that I, all along, had another sibling who eclipsed and became me—a prosperous sibling, an imposturous sibling, who outgrew a sense of time and place in which the three of us were everything to one another. Then only my blood in the sea could unfold and lead me back out of the origami.

~ Nicholaus Patnaude

I could only nod as emotions rolled in like a destructive storm. This was it. It was over. My incredible time with this beautiful talented man was up. I had to clench my teeth and swallow hard to mask the loss that threatened to overcome my calm exterior. I was holding on for dear life then he said two words with pure tranquility.

~ Nicole Castro

It is wonderful, awesome and merrywise to see satan lose the battle to us in fear and panic and shame! Our victory is in Christ Jesus!

~ Israelmore Ayivor

Dare I tell them that since I came here to danceI have been giving pieces of my body awayTo ridiculous diets,To repeated injuries,To Remington?And that maybeI thinkWith each bit of my bodyI lose a little piece of my soul

~ Stasia Ward Kehoe

Ain’t nothing worse to a mama than losing her baby—

~ Andrew Galasetti

I learned long ago that loss is not only probable but inevitable. I know what it means to lose everything, to let go of one life and find another. And now I feel, with a strange, deep certainty, that it must be my lot in life to be taught that lesson over and over again.

~ Christina Baker Kline

She had never understood either of the men she had loved and so she had lost them both. Now, she had a fumbling knowledge that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him.

~ Margaret Mitchell

Being unheard is the ground floor of giving up, and giving up is the ground floor of doing yourself in. It’s not so much, what’s the point? It’s more like, what’s the difference?

~ Mitch Albom

But you don't know what it was like. It was just the two of us that afternoon, and then . . . and then it was just me.

~ Carol Rifka Brunt

She let him go once. Every day demands that she release him over and over again.

~ Julianna Baggott

...our loves ones truly are ever-present. We may bury their bodies or scatter their ashes, but their spirits are boundless and do not accompany them to the grave. The terms 'letting go' and 'closure' are just empty words. They mean nothing to someone who has suffered through the death of a loved one. Instead of insisting on figuratively burying our dead, why not keep them close to us? Love doesn't die when we do.

~ April Slaughter

But she's still afraid that the more she misses him--his face, his skin, the way he looked at her--and the more hope she has that she'll see him again, the more she has to lose.

~ Julianna Baggott

There are no words for so much loss, not right after it happens.

~ Brian Francis Slattery

When you lose a friend or a lover, those who remain in your life gain (more of your attention).

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The pain of your loss will return. Less, but still considerable. I know you've worked hard to release it, but it can still take hold of you. I will help you sing away the fury, but I will not bear it for you.

~ Alex Bledsoe

He wanted it to be just right; he didn’t want to make the mistake of trying to tell her he loved her, and having the words come out confused or ending up saying something completely different. He changed into a fresh suit, checked his hair and took a few deep breaths to calm himself, before returning to Amelia’s chambers…only to find her gone. A sigh of frustration escaped him. It was so typical. He told her there was a surprise for her, she was excited, and he was about to confess that he loved her…of course it was only natural for her to ruin it by running off. It was so typically Amelia.

~ Elaine White