"But Robin: their dear little Robs. More than ten years later, his death remained an agony; there was no glossing any detail; its horror was not subject to repair or permutation by any of the narrative devices that the Cleves knew. And-since this willful amnesia had kept Robin's death from being translated into that sweet old family vernacular which smoothed even the bitterest mysteries into comfortable, comprehensible form-the memory of that day's events had a chaotic, fragmented quality, bright mirrorshards of nightmare which flared at the smell of wisteria, the creaking of a clothes-line, a certain stormy cast of spring light."

Grief, Loss, Memory, Trauma

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"But Robin: their dear little Robs. More than ten years later, his death remained an agony; there was no glossing any detail; its horror was not subject to repair or permutation by any of the narrative devices that the Cleves knew. And-since this willful amnesia had kept Robin's death from being translated into that sweet old family vernacular which smoothed even the bitterest mysteries into comfortable, comprehensible form-the memory of that day's events had a chaotic, fragmented quality, bright mirrorshards of nightmare which flared at the smell of wisteria, the creaking of a clothes-line, a certain stormy cast of spring light."

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"Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind, And makes it fearful and degenerate; Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep."

William Shakespeare, English Dramatist

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"Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you."

Veronica Roth, American Author

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"My grief lies all within, and these external manner of laments are merely shadows of the unseen grief that swells with silence in the tortur'd soul."

William Shakespeare, English Dramatist

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"I didn't mean to scare you. I'm not suicidal if that's what's freaking you out. I'm not fucked up in the head. I'm not deranged. I'm not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm just a brother who loved his sister more than life itself, so I get a little intense when I think about her."

Colleen Hoover, American Celebrity

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"Closer, it's all right. Touch the man of grief.Do. Don't be afraid. My troubles are mine and I am the only man alive who can sustain them."

Sophocles, Greek Poet

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"There is no grief like the grief that does not speak."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American Poet

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"Grief does not change you. It reveals you."

John Green, American Author

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"I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness."

John Green, American Author

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"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, American Poet

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"O my son Absalom,' Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man's mouth. 'my son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!"

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Explore more quotes by Donna Tartt

"Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent."

Time

"To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about, I need to spend large amounts of time alone."

Time

"Richard Papen: As it happened, I knew Gartrell. He was a bad painter and a vicious gossip, with a vocabulary composed almost entirely of obscenities, gutteral verbs, and the world "postmodernist."

Criticism

"I'm not sure whay I've been drawn to this subject, except that murder is a subject that has always drawn people for as long as people have been telling stories."

People

"We don't like to admit it, but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. All truly civilized people " the ancients no less than us " have civilized themselves through the wilful repression of the old, animal self."

Control

"When we are sad-at least I am like this-it can be comforting to cling to familiar objects, to the things that don't change."

Comfort

"Maybe good luck was like bad luck in that it took a while to sink in."

Luck

"And I'm hoping there's some larger truth about suffering here, or at least my understanding of it - although I've come to realize that the only truths that matter to me are the ones I don't, and can't, understand. What's mysterious, ambiguous, inexplicable. What doesn't fit into a story, what doesn't have a story. Glint of brightness on a barely-there chain. Patch of sunlight on a yellow wall. The loneliness that separates every living creature from every other living creature. Sorrow inseparable from joy."

Suffering

"So I'm not a Southern writer in the commonly held sense of the term, like Faulkner or Eudora Welty, who took the South for their entire literary environment and subject matter."

Environment

"What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can't get there any other way?"

Redemption