“Mourning. At the death of the loved being, acute phase of narcissism: one emerges from sickness, from servitude. Then, gradually, freedom takes on a leaden hue, desolation settles in, narcissism gives way to a sad egoism, an absence of generosity.”
Source: Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979
“The first morning passed, and the first afternoon, then the first shift back at work. time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all, time bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”
Source: The Green Mile
“Govern your thoughts such that even in the presence of a closed door, you can switch your focus to an open door.”
Source: Beyond the Closed Door: Unique Keys to Unlock Destinies
“Who could blame her for wanting the baby to be alive? His Irene still cried sometimes about young Billy, and it had been twenty years since he’d drowned as a tot. They’d had five more kids since then, but it was never far away, the sadness.”
Source: The Light Between Oceans
“The question of life being fair or unfair is one of the first things to drop away once you truly understand that you're as vulnerable as the next person to life's vagaries.”
Source: Any Ordinary Day
“Grief is like a deep, dark hole. It calls like a siren. Come to me, lose yourself here. And you fight it and you fight it and you fight it, but when you finally do succub and jump down into it, you can't quite believe how deep it is. It feels as if this is how you will live for the rest of your life, falling. Terrified and devastate, until you yourself die.
But that is the mirage.
That is grief's dizzying spell.
The fall isn't never-ending. It does have a ground floor.”
Source: Carrie Soto Is Back
“We’re all carrying our coffins with us every day.” Or “We are all constantly cheating death.”
Source: The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story
“On the first occasion Mrs Papagay had met her, there had been a discussion of the process of grief, and Mrs Jesse had nodded sagely, "I know that. I have felt that,' like a kind of tragic chorus. 'I have felt everything; I know everything. I don’t want any new emotion. I know what it is to feel like a stoan.”
Source: Angels and Insects
“You leave me much against my will.”
Source: A Few Figs from Thistles
“The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living—including yourself.”
Source: Shield & Shade