Best Mourning Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Funeral Blues Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead, Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

Love Death Poetry Loss Grief Poem Mourning

Book:Another Time

Source: Another Time

“From Orient Point The art of living isn't hard to muster: Enjoy the hour, not what it might portend. When someone makes you promises, don't trust her unless they're in the here and now, and just her willing largesse free-handed to a friend. The art of living isn't hard to muster: groom the old dog, her coat gets back its luster; take brisk walks so you're hungry at the end. When someone makes you promises, don't trust her to know she can afford what they will cost her to keep until they're kept. Till then, pretend the art of living isn't hard to muster. Cooking, eating and drinking are a cluster of pleasures. Next time, don't go round the bend when someone makes you promises. Don't trust her past where you'd trust yourself, and don't adjust her words to mean more to you than she'd intend. The art of living isn't hard to muster. You never had her, so you haven't lost her like spare house keys. Whatever she opens, when someone makes you promises, don't. Trust your art; go on living: that's not hard to muster.”

Love Loss Grief Strength Trust Perseverance Betrayal Mourning Will Promises Fatalism

Author:Marilyn Hacker

“Reminiscences of old, dried-over pains were no consolation in the face of this. They had the effect of cold beads of water on a hot iron - they danced and fizzled up while the room stank from their steam.”

Pain Death Water Loss Sadness Depression Metaphor Mourning Iron Wrong

Book:The Women of Brewster Place

Source: The Women of Brewster Place

“I did not know the work of mourning Is like carrying a bag of cement Up a mountain at night The mountaintop is not in sight Because there is no mountaintop Poor Sisyphus grief I did not know I would struggle Through a ragged underbrush Without an upward path ... Look closely and you will see Almost everyone carrying bags Of cement on their shoulders That’s why it takes courage To get out of bed in the morning And climb into the day.”

Life Grief Courage Weight Mourning

Book:Gabriel: A Poem

Source: Gabriel: A Poem

“May God strengthen us to be steady in times of mourning.”

God Motivational Faith Strength Mourning Loss Of Love

Author:Lailah Gifty Akita

“Will you not weep?” “I do not have the time for tears.”

Death Loss Grief Strength Tears Sorrow Mourning Weep

Book:Fire & Blood

Source: Fire & Blood

“Everyone is “extremely nice”—and yet I feel entirely alone. (“Abandonitis”).”

Loss Grief Friends Solitude Mourning

Book:Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979

Source: Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979

“Tragedy is a constant rather than the exception”

Friends Tragedy Mourning Female Empowerment Serial Killer

Book:Don't Forget the Girl

Source: Don't Forget the Girl

“When you lose someone, you get used to living day to day without them. But you’ll never get used to the “10 second heartbreak.” That’s the time it takes to wake to full consciousness each day and remember…”

Loss Heartbreak Heartache Mourning Heartbroken

Author:Nina Guilbeau

“This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my meditations.”

Thinking Love Heart Lost Music Sadness Regret Depression Heartbreak Empathy Suicide Nostalgia Mourning Lost Love Ache Mournful Tradgedy Ruminating

Book:Lord Jim

Source: Lord Jim

“I was tired of well-meaning folks, telling me it was time I got over being heartbroke. When somebody tells you that, a little bell ought to ding in your mind. Some people don't know grief from garlic grits. There's somethings a body ain't meant to get over. No I'm not suggesting you wallow in sorrow, or let it drag on; no I am just saying it never really goes away. (A death in the family) is like having a pile of rocks dumped in your front yard. Every day you walk out and see them rocks. They're sharp and ugly and heavy. You just learn to live around them the best way you can. Some people plant moss or ivy; some leave it be. Some folks take the rocks one by one, and build a wall.”

Grief Healing Heartbreak Mourning Grief And Loss Death Of A Loved One

Book:American Pie

Source: American Pie

“In any story the two hardest things to be are a widow or an orphan. Those are the bad cards to draw from the deck marked "life." Because those are the two moments the people you love the most die. It's heart break. Heart shatter. Heart starve. It's so much loss that it's easier if you just died and started the game over. But you can't. You have to wander. Part of it is losing your tribe and being homeless. Part of it is being alone in the dark. I won't lie to you. The deck marked "life" is stacked full of bum cards.”

Life Death Challenges Loss Grief Heartbreak Mourning Widows Orphans Widowhood

Book:Everything Sad Is Untrue

Source: Everything Sad Is Untrue

“Every loss you withstand in your life reopens all the others.”

Death Grief Heartbreak Mental Health Mourning

Book:For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World

Source: For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World

“They say there are five stages to grief What they don’t say is how the lines blur time and time again And that there comes a time when all you know is pain.”

Pain Loss Grief Heartbreak Mourning Grief And Loss Mourn Mournful

Book:26

Source: 26

“It was the end of us, Off with the blinds on justice The two of us — A hot mess. Clueless, like Silverstone, Lump and quivers in our throat; We knew our fate all along. Dinner plates have now gone cold, We have reached the end of the road. We stick to our guns, we cut and run. The mourning period, has just begun.”

Fate Heartbreak Mourning Clueless Love And Loss Love And Relationships Alicia Sylverstone Romance Love Heartachee

Book:Letter 19

Source: Letter 19

“Libby's been lecturing me, she claims seawater is the surest antidote for heartbreak. 'It's the salt. Makes up for all the crying.”

Water Grief Sea Ocean Heartbreak Beach Mourning Seawater

Book:Death and Other Holidays

Source: Death and Other Holidays

“Keeping meticulous score was our favorite girlhood pastime, adjudicating the dispersal of the cereal boxes' plastic treasure, tallying who had more Christmas presents under the tree. When given a piece of cake to split, one sister was handed the knife. The other got to pick her half, quadruple fanatical eyeballs pressing down on the blade, its slow, slow submergence through the buttercream. And then poof. You rolled over and played dead, took yourself right out of the game. Fancy that.”

Children Kids Death Loss Grief Equality Mourning Fairness Sisters Keeping Score

Book:The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs

Source: The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs

“She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow, I had not a thought concealed from her, and it is as if I had lost a part of myself.”

Mourning Sisters Jane Austen

Author:Cassandra Austen

“Roz is crying again. What she's mourning is her own good will. She tried so hard, she tried so hard to be kind and nurturing, to do the best thing. But Tony and the twins were right: no matter what you do, somebody always gets boiled.”

Inevitable Mourning Disillusionment Margaret Atwood The Robber Bride

Book:The Robber Bride

Source: The Robber Bride

“He did not even have the time to understand the depth of this loss. It was almost pleasurable. He hurt so much for her lack that it was like feeling something.”

Pain Loss Pleasure Mourning Understand

Book:The Lifecycle of Suns

Source: The Lifecycle of Suns

“Feelings are great, and they have a purpose, but it’s certainly not to guide your life. Whoever said, “Follow your heart” was a fool. Your “heart” is your emotional center. Emotions have a great purpose - to allow us to enjoy life, to mourn loss, to have a tangible way to experience love - but feelings are fickle, and they are not meant to be the guiding force in our life.”

Love Feelings Emotion Emotions Guidance Mourning Manhood Fickle Passivity Guiding

Book:Manlihood: The 12 Pillars of Masculinity

Source: Manlihood: The 12 Pillars of Masculinity

“Don't cry for the dead, for the dead is deaf, dumb, blind, lame, unemotional and dead.”

Death Emotion Tears Emotional Emotions Mourning Sympathy Funeral Agony Crying Mourn Michael Bassey Johnson Burial Grave

Author:Michael Bassey Johnson

“The graveyard is the everlasting home of every man.”

Source: Think Great: Be Great!

“Did it hurt to die?" I finally ask. "Well," he says, "it hurt before I died." "Were you afraid?" "Of course. I listened for you, but you never came." My stomach tightens. "I wanted to be there. I couldn't get to you. Don't you think it hurt me to let you die?" He smiles. "I know," he says.”

Pain Death Loss Grief Dying Mourning Dead Being Dead

Book:Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

Source: Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Sometimes I almost go hours without crying, Then I feel if I don’t, I’ll go insane. It can seem her whole life was her dying. She tried so hard, then she was tired of trying; Now I’m tired, too, of trying to explain. Sometimes I almost go hours without crying.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Suicide Mourning

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Mr. Foote was right: no one can guess. No one knows the final outcome, though why is it called an outcome? No one comes out, eventually. "We aren't going to make it out of here alive," Tig used to say as a joke, although it wasn't one. And if you did guess, if you could foresee, would that be better? No: you'd live in grief all the time, you'd be mourning things that hadn't happened yet.”

Death Grief Dying Outcomes Mourning Ending Endings

Book:Old Babes in the Wood: Stories

Source: Old Babes in the Wood: Stories

“When the source of all my meaning came to die, so did the meaning of death.”

Death Purpose Grief Dying Meaning Grieving Mourning

Book:Heaven and Hurricanes

Source: Heaven and Hurricanes

“Lyssa thought she would talk to her mother about it, and then she remembered. She had to keep remembering, even after she'd seen the body and signed the paperwork and arranged a funeral. Somehow she'd expected the dying to be the worst part, that after it was over she could go home and tell some healthy living version of her mother about the terrible thing that had just happened to her.”

Death Change Loss Grief Dying Mourning Remembering

Book:The Office of Historical Corrections

Source: The Office of Historical Corrections

“I am no longer ashamed how for weeks, after, I wanted to be dead--not to die, mind you, or do myself in--but to be there already, walking amongst all those I'd lost, to join the throng singing, if that's what there is-- or the nothing, the gnawing-- So be it.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Sorrow Poem Mourning Afterlife

Book:Book of Hours: Poems

Source: Book of Hours: Poems

“For me elegy is a Ouija planchette something I pretend not to touch as I push it around trying to make it say what I want it to say”

Writing Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Words Mourning Elegy

Book:13th Balloon

Source: 13th Balloon

“I didn't want to wait on my knees In a room made quiet by waiting. A room where we'd listen for the rise Of breath, the burble in his throat. I didn't want the orchids or the trays Of food meant to fortify that silence, Or to pray for him to stay or to go then Finally toward that ecstatic light. I didn't want to believe What we believe in those rooms: That we are blessed, letting go, Letting someone, anyone, Drag open the drapes and heave us Back into our blinding, bright lives.”

Death Poetry Grief Dying Poem Mourning

Book:Life on Mars: Poems

Source: Life on Mars: Poems

“Dying may be the way of all things flesh, but living is too. Never let death shroud life with fear. Live beyond it, lad. Only then can the memory of those ye’ve loved and lost be rightly honored.”

Death Grief Dying Living Mourning Life And Death Fear Of Death Grieving Quotes Honoring The Dead

Book:The Maiden Ship

Source: The Maiden Ship

“The guy on the roof nods--it looks like this time, he heard something--and shouts back at me, "How did you know? How did you know she died?" Someone always dies, I want to yell back at him. Always. If not her, then someone else.”

Life Death Loss Grief Dying Mourning

Book:תקלה בקצה הגלקסיה

Source: תקלה בקצה הגלקסיה

“Death can trend and still we won't get used to it, because there is no easy way to die, and every time a person dies. it pains us and breaks our heart. It is OK to cry.”

Death Quotes Motivational Quotes Dying Philosopher Mourning Die Encouragement Quotes Mourn Rest In Peac

Author:De_philosopher_DJKyos

“Losing someone you love to death. Is like losing a piece of a puzzle. your world feel incomplete and there is no piece that can feel in for missing piece. There will always be that space of missing puzzle , even if the puzzle is complete.”

Death Quotes Motivational Quotes Dying Philosopher Mourning Encouragement Quotes Rip Mourn Rest In Peace

Author:De_philosopher_DJKyos

“How are you? I'm shattered, thanks, how are you? I walk aimlessly through the rooms of my house, what have you been up to? I have woken up in the middle of the last 240 nights in a heart-pounding sweat, what's new with you? I sometimes wish I would never wake up, have you been on vacation this year? I ache for the arms of my sweetheart to hold me tight, how's your family? I feel barren and useless and creepy and mundane, seen any good movies lately? I'm terrified that I'll feel this way forever, I like that sweater you're wearing. I keep seeing his body on the hospital gurney, don't you love this weather. My broken heart is in my throat, let's do lunch. I'm so completely and utterly tired of being sad, thanks, how are you?”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Christine Silverstein

“I love you. I want to know what you are going through, if not now, then some day I want to sit with you and hear it. My imagination is not big enough to comprehend the emotions you are having. How small and insignificant all of this worldly stuff must seem to you. Can you talk? You must miss him intensely. You must think about him in every moment. Which is harder for you, being alone or being in the world of people? Life must feel surreal to you.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Christine Silverstein

“Feel sorry for yourself. Sure, your tiny steel-ribbed mother told you never to do that, But who the hell is going to do it for you? "Piangi, piangi," the old man in the opera tells Violetta. "Cry, honey, cry." Do it right. Do it yourself.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Lise Menn

“I love you. How many times have you been asked, "How are you" today? It's a dreadful question. It's an absurd question. Knowing you and seeing what has happened in your life makes me stop in my tracks and catch myself before I ask anyone that question again. How the hell can you answer that question in the aisle of a supermarket? Come back to the house, you say. Bring your toothbrush and call your boss. You will need a week to hear the complete answer. And you will never be the same if you listen. It's the question that the entire human race reduces itself to each and every day, in each and every encounter, and without the intention of ever truly hearing the answer.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Christine Silverstein

“I became very good at protecting all who would ask. How are you? I'm all right. I'm fine. I'm hanging in there. I'm feeling OK. Thanks for asking. I'm good. I'm doing well. I'm a little tired. I'm handling things. I'm fine, thanks to all of you. I'm getting better. I'm keeping busy. I'm making progress. Fine, better, well, good and thank you for asking.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Christine Silverstein

“Look, it's like falling out of a twenty-story building. All your good friends, they try to puff themselves up for you as soft as possible, But they're still only couch pillows. They may save your life when you hit them, But you're still gonna break every bone in your body.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Lise Menn

“I have yet to meet one widow who hasn't changed in monumental ways as she has coped with her loss. Most of us have gotten to the point where we are not the "pleasers" we once were. We say what we think, we realize that life is precious, and we don't have time to be anything less than who we really are.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Catherine Tidd

“I know how you feel. I hope you're keeping busy. You look good. You will see the gift in this tragedy. Time will heal. The holidays will be tough. It will get easier. I'm glad to hear you're doing well. You're a strong person. Have you gone away at all? How are the kids? How's his mother doing? Call me if you need anything, anything at all.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Christine Silverstein

“I love you. I'm probably going to fail you. My life is full of distractions and I need to live my life. You understand this about me and everyone else, more than I can ever imagine. We need to live our lives. And so I fear that I am not there for you. And my own guilt about that is hard to face. Being with you scares me and makes me uneasy. It's hard to be around truth manifest. I'm not strong enough to hear your truth, know what you know and try to give you what you need. If I tell you this fear, will you still love me? I just want to sit with you, walk with you, hear your voice, hold your hand, be in your home, look at your face, watch you pet the cat, and beg you to trust me.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Christine Silverstein

“Interregnum of old life and new. Angry with you for this dislocation. I loved you in my other life.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Donna Hilbert

“How much she's learned through love about everything, including that quadrant of self visible only to others but exceptionally accessed through the one who knows her best.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Natasha Sajé

“Days are not the way they were when he was alive.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Christine Thiele

“Each day for me is filled with things that I used to look forward to in the morning. Now they feel empty and stressful. Handling my life by myself is sad for me. I liked being part of a team. I liked having someone else to share my day with every night.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Grieving Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Christine Thiele

“Some things you have to do for yourself if you want them done right. Ironing your favorite dress with the tricky collar, Making hot chocolate the way you like it. Feeling sorry for you. Nobody else can do it properly.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Mourning Widows Self Pity Spouses

Author:Lise Menn

“You think you've stopped crying And then the blues come back, You wonder what brought them: The red pen? The wind in the yard? The plaid shirt in the bank? Your buried grief seeps to the surface, Like oil under tar sands. Let it go. It's the rich black residue of the past, Dead life becomes this stuff that sticks to the soles of your feet, Welling up when it damned well pleases. Let it go.”

Death Poetry Loss Grief Dying Poem Letting Go Mourning Widows Spouses

Author:Lise Menn

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Mourning Quotes