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Meghan O'Rourke Quotes

Poet

Meghan O'Rourke is an American poet born in 1976. Her work is known for its profound emotion and unique style, exploring themes such as love, death, and identity.

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All Grief Mother Loss Death Thinking Way Dying Illness World Feels People Autoimmune Disease Persons Chronic Illness Different Fall Feelings Mourn Seems Stories

Famous Meghan O'Rourke Quotes

“So much of dealing with a disease is waiting. Waiting for appointments, for tests, for "procedures." And waiting, more broadly, for it--for the thing itself, for the other shoe to drop. Except in the waiting you keep forgetting that "it" will really happen--it's more like a threat, an anxiety: Will my love love me forever?”

Death Waiting Loss Grief Patience Illness

Book:The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

“But now it seemed to me that Hamlet was moody and irascible in no small part because he is grieving: his father has just died. He is radically dislocated, stumbling through the days while the rest of the world acts as if nothing important has changed.”

Death Loss Grief Grieving Shakespeare Hamlet

Book:The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

“One of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you most.”

Life Death Change Loss Grief

Book:The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

“Grief is paradoxical: you know you must let go, and yet letting go cannot happen all at once. The literature of mourning enacts that dilemma; its solace lies in the ritual of remembering the dead and then saying, There is no solace, and also, This has been going on a long time.”

Death Literature Loss Grief Dying Books Grieving Solace

Book:The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

“And after my mother's death I became more open to and empathetic about other people's struggles and losses.”

People Mother Loss Struggle Empathetic

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“Loss is so paradoxical: It is at once enormous and tiny.”

Loss Tiny Enormous Paradoxical

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me.”

Mother Dies Loss Knowing Prepared

Book:The Long Goodbye: A Memoir

Source: The Long Goodbye: A Memoir

“Television has never known what to do with grief, which resists narrative: the dramas of grief are largely internal - for the bereaved, it is a chaotic, intense, episodic period, but the chaos is by and large subterranean, and easily appears static to the friendly onlooker who has absorbed the fact of loss and moved on.”

Facts Loss Grief Known Television Periods Drama Moved Chaos Intense Narrative Internals Friendly Chaotic Static Moved On

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“Many researchers say the dominant emotion experienced after loss is yearning or searching. And while you might feel more anger early on, it's accompanied by a whole host of other feelings.”

Feels Whole Feelings Might Loss Emotion Host Yearning Dominant Researchers

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“Faith does help mourners survive their loss, some studies suggest; but I imagine one still struggles.”

Doe Stills Helping Loss Struggle Study Imagine

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“Be patient with yourself. Don't make the loss harder by thinking you should be a certain way, or have bounced back, etc.”

Thinking Way Should Certain Loss Harder Patient Etc Be Patient

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“There are many kinds of loss embedded in a loss - the loss of the person, and the loss of the self you got to be with that person. And the seeming loss of the past, which now feels forever out of reach.”

Feels Kind Persons Self Past Loss Forever Seeming Embedded

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“Loss doesn't feel redeemable. But for me one consoling aspect is the recognition that, in this at least, none of us is different from anyone else: We all lose loved ones; we all face our own death.”

Feels Different Faces Loses Loss Aspect Recognition Loved Ones Consoling

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

“Relationships take up energy; letting go of them, psychiatrists theorize, entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it. The more your identity was wrapped up with the deceased, the more difficult the loss.”

World Energy Difficult Loses Loss Relationship Identity Letting Go Psychiatrist Deceased

Author:Meghan O'Rourke

Persons Might Lost Loss Alive Mourn Lost Ones His Loss

Book:The Long Goodbye: A Memoir

Source: The Long Goodbye: A Memoir

About the Author

Born: 1976
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 86

Books & Sources

The Long Goodbye: A MemoirRelated source material

The Long GoodbyeRelated source material

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic IllnessRelated source material

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