Loss Quotes

Why love what you will lose?There is nothing else to love.

~ Louise Glück

I heard of a manwho says words so beautifullythat if he only speaks their namewomen give themselves to him.If I am dumb beside your bodywhile silence blossoms like tumors on our lipsit is because I hear a man climb stairsand clear his throat outside our door.

~ Leonard Cohen

I held a jewel in my fingers And went to sleep. The day was warm, and winds were prosy; I said: 'T will keep.I woke and chid my honest fingers,—The gem was gone; And now an amethyst remembrance Is all I own.

~ Emily Dickinson

With you a part of me hath passed away; For in the peopled forest of my mind A tree made leafless by this wintry wind Shall never don again its green array. Chapel and fireside, country road and bay, Have something of their friendliness resigned; Another, if I would, I could not find, And I am grown much older in a day. But yet I treasure in my memory Your gift of charity, and young hearts ease, And the dear honour of your amity; For these once mine, my life is rich with these. And I scarce know which part may greater be,-- What I keep of you, or you rob from me.

~ George Santayana

Surprised by joy- impatient as the WindI turned to share the transport-- Oh! with whomBut thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,That spot which no vicissitude can find?Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind--But how could I forget thee? Through what power,Even for the least division of an hour,Have I been so beguiled as to be blindTo my most grievous loss? -- That thought's returnWas the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;That neither present time, nor years unbornCould to my sight that heavenly face restore.

~ William Wordsworth

We wrote our names in the sandYou crossed mine out: I can't getback to the way I was.

~ Kiera Woodhull

...always-the sharp,plaintive edgeon the rimof the spoonof my giving.(lines 8-13 of the poem 'Confessions')

~ Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno

You become a house where the wind blows straight through, because no one bothers the crack in the window or lock on the door, and you’re the house where people come and go as they please, because you’re simply too unimpressed to care. You let people in who you really shouldn’t let in, and you let them walk around for a while, use your bed and use your books, and await the day when they simply get bored and leave. You’re still not bothered, though you knew they shouldn’t have been let in in the first place, but still you just sit there, apathetic like a beggar in the desert.

~ Charlotte Eriksson

Our CrossOur little circle hides in the mind,It's difficult to miss but hard to find,It goes unspoken but yet it speaks,From backward years to forward weeks,We can't forget but why even try,Two of a kind doesn't know goodbye,It's a silent question that God won't share,A breeze we feel but seems unfair,Distant, rare but only madness can see,It's something deeper than any infinity,Because we walk this parallel path up and down,There is no circle to hold us circus clowns,So let's give it a symbol and label it a loss,We will remember it always as we carry our cross.

~ Shannon L. Alder

the inletour friend looks as he didwhen we first knew him,and until I wake I believeI will die of grief, for I knowthat this boy grew into a manwho was a faithful friendwho died.

~ Wendell Berry

Gifts of grace come to all of us. But we must be ready to see and willing to receive these gifts. It will require a kind of sacrifice, the sacrifice of believing that, however painful our losses, life can still be good — good in a different way then before, but nevertheless good. I will never recover from my loss and I will never got over missing the ones I lost. But I still cherish life. . . . I will always want the ones I lost back again. I long for them with all my soul. But I still celebrate the life I have found because they are gone. I have lost, but I have also gained. I lost the world I loved, but I gained a deeper awareness of grace. That grace has enabled me to clarify my purpose in life and rediscover the wonder of the present moment.

~ Gerald L. Sittser

God never said that we wouldn’t have unfair situations, that we wouldn’t experience loss. But He promised if we would stay in faith, He would restore everything that was stolen.

~ Joel Osteen

I see now that my faith was becoming an ally rather than an enemy because I could vent anger freely, even toward God, without fearing retribution.

~ Gerald L. Sittser

Of course, Mary Magdalene would have very little tolerance for the Christian platitudes and vapid optimism that seem to swirl around these kinds of tragic events. Those platitudes are tempting, but they're nothing but luxuries for people who've never had demons (or at least have never admitted to them). But equally, she would reject nihilism, or the idea that there is no real meaning in life or death - ideas present in so much of postmodernity. Those ideas, too, are luxuries, but they are for those who have never been freed from demons.

~ Nadia Bolz-Weber

We need to go first because we cannot live without your love and care. If we lived longer than you, we would not and could not survive. It’s supposed to be this way. We also need to cross the Rainbow Bridge before you do so that we can be on the other side to greet you when you get there. We wait at home for you here and we wait at Home for you there. It’s just the way it is.

~ Kate Mcgahan

The answer to most prayers is no.

~ Alex George

And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces.

~ Richard Ford

When love dies, the heart's ashes do not leave on the wind—they rest on the mantelpiece of the soul, darkening the sunrise we once saw to be beautiful.

~ Angela M. Hudson

In our loss and fear we craved the acts of religion, the ceremonies that allow us to admit our helplessness, our dependence on the great forces we do not understand.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I never used to realize it, I guess. I try and play it along and just not make trouble for people. Probably I never would have had any trouble at all if I hadn't run into Brett when they shipped me to England. I suppose she only wanted what she couldn't have. Well, people were that way. To hell with people. The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that. Good advice, anyway. Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice. Try and take it sometime. Try and take it.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Enjoy without injury, live without loss.

~ Amit Kalantri

Where is the land of Luthany,Where is the tract of Elenore?I am bound therefore.'Pierce thy heart to find the key;With thee takeOnly what none else would keep;Learn to dream when thou dost wake;Learn to wake when thou dost sleep.Learn to water joy with tears,Learn from fears to vanquish fears;To hope, for thou dar'st not despair;Exult, for that thou dar'st not grieve;Plough thou the rock until it bear;Know, for thou else couldst not believe;Lose, that the lost thou may'st receive;Die, for none other way canst live.'When earth and heave lay down their veil,And that apocalypse turns thee pale;When thy seeing blindeth theeTo what thy fellow-mortals see;When their sight to thee is sightless;Their living, death; their light, most lightless;Search no more--Pass the gates of Luthany,Tread the region Elenore!'Where is the land of Luthany?And where the region Elenore?I do faint therefore.'When to the new eyes of theeAll things by immortal power,Near or far,HiddenlyTo each other linked are,That thou canst not stir a flowerWithout troubling of a star;When thy song is shield and mirrorTo the fair snake curled pain,Where thou dar'st affront her terrorThat on her thou may'st attainPersean Conquest; seek no more,O seek no more!Pass the gates of Luthany,Tread the region Elenore!

~ Francis Thompson

I've never, nor shall I ever, mourn the loss of a fool. Losing a fool, is the same as gaining, retaining, and reaffirming my intelligence.

~ Justin K. Mcfarlane Beau

If you lose money in business, you can still cover up the loss. If you lose time, the only thing you have by your side is wreckage.

~ Ajeet Sharma

Due to your merit karma, your efforts will bring you success and when the merit karma is expended, your efforts will bring in losses.

~ Dada Bhagwan

​It's Hard, Not to Fail, but, there is Always a Chance of Success. Of course, there is No Chance of Success, if You didn't Try.

~ Vineet Raj Kapoor

Failure, loss and defeat are just mile markers on the road to success.

~ Jeffrey Fry

I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away.

~ Carol Rifka Brunt

So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal theloss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us - that'ssnatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completelychanged, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue toplay out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to theend of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails offbehind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of insurmountable emptiness...Maybe, in some distant place, everything is already, quietly, lost.Or at least there exists a silent place where everything candisappear, melting together in a single, overlapping figure. And aswe live our lives we discover - drawing toward us the thin threadsattached to each - what has been lost. I closed my eyes and tried tobring to mind as many beautiful lost things as I could. Drawing themcloser, holding on to them. Knowing all the while that their livesare fleeting.

~ Haruki Murakami

What's the difference? You ask meThe difference is, a smile touches my lipsWhen I remember both the memory of you entering my lifeAnd the memory of you leaving my life

~ Tammy-Louise Wilkins

The old Amy, the girl of the big laugh and the easy ways, literally shed herself, a pile of skin and soul on the floor, and stepped this new, brittle, bitter Amy ... a razor-wire knot daring me to unloop her, and I was not up to the job with my thick, numb, nervous fingers. Country fingers. Flyover fingers untrained in the intricate, dangerous work of 'solving Amy'. When I'd hold up the bloody stumps, she'd sigh and turn to her secret mental notebooks on which she tallied all my deficiencies, forever noting disappointments, frailties, shortcomings.

~ Gillian Flynn

Love doesn't always curl your toes sometimes it takes a bite right out of your soul.

~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

How do people know they are sane? Can a person be gripped by lunacy, only to be released a short time later, never to relive the episode again?

~ Dee Remy

(Her husband's departure ...) had picked Mildred up by the hair and dropped her down at the doorstep of insanity.From Butterfly on F street

~ Edward P. Jones

I am a memory house for those I have lost, those I no longer know.

~ Hannah Lillith Assadi

I want to wake Chrissie and tell her this as if it's a warning: Don't push too hard; your last chance to see a person the way you wanted them to be may come at any moment. One minute you have a parent, or a friend, or a lover, something solid, and physics tells you their resistance will always be there to meet you as you press yourself into relief against them. Then all of a sudden your mother is a fading outline in a thunderstorm, wet and weak and so far out of reach; or your lover who may also be your best and only friend is pulled so quickly into someone else's life that you don't even realize he's left yours until you're getting a save-the-date card; or your father is somewhere at the end of the world and even if you had a number for him, you'd feel wrong calling to tell him to quit collecting stuff when it's painfully clear you have nothing to offer to replace it. But I don't wake Chrissie because she's sleeping like a baby, and anyway, she isn't a baby and she doesn't need me to tell her what it is to watch somebody let you down by being human in the saddest and neediest ways, what it is to push at something that has long since given way.

~ Danielle Evans

There’s a universalunderstanding betweenmen of the silent sorrowa man endures whenhe loses a woman heloves

~ Phil Volatile

Relationships are like walls painted off-white and every time you’ll hurt me, it will be like resting dirty shoes on them, like bashing holes in the walls, one after the other. And then there will come a day, where the walls will be filled with so many holes, that there wouldn’t be any place left for you to place the tiniest kiss. Only then will I walk away for good.

~ Malak El Halabi

Have the courage to walk away, those that value you will want you back, & those that do not won't hold you back.

~ Trevor Driggers

Inside a home you left me, a blue orphanage. Inside a bluish mosaic, space to live.

~ Heng Siok Tian