"Grief is a disease. We were riddled with its pockmarks, tormented by its fevers, broken by its blows. It ate at us like maggots, attacked us like lice- we scratched ourselves to the edge of madness. In the process we became as withered as crickets, as tired as old dogs."

Grief, Pain, Suffering, Loss

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"Grief is a disease. We were riddled with its pockmarks, tormented by its fevers, broken by its blows. It ate at us like maggots, attacked us like lice- we scratched ourselves to the edge of madness. In the process we became as withered as crickets, as tired as old dogs."

Exlpore more Grief quotes

"Once heaven is done with grandma, we'd like her back, thanks."

Mitch Albom, American Writer

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"Death is misery! The lifeless person was once full of life."

Lailah Gifty Akita, Ghanaian Author

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"I saw her tonight. I didn't mean to and I wasn't prepared for it.I came across her sweet smiling face and I had no choice but to be confronted with all the emotions and memories I associated with her.It brought me back to this past summer when she passed from this world into the next and how I watched the minutes in the day pass and felt the sorrow of the approaching sunset knowing that darkness would soon follow.There is something profound about the first night after someone you love dies.Seeing her again and mourning the loss of her anew reminded me that we keep too much to ourselves and we let people go without them ever knowing how much they touched us, intrigued us, taught us, or moved us.I'm a firm believer in actions doing the telling, but people need to hear it as well."

Donna Lynn Hope, Jamaican Author

Grief, Loss, Memory, Emotion

"There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief."

Barbara Kingsolver, American Novelist

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"The loss of a child exploits the emotions of each individual it encounters."

Asa Don Brown, Canadian Author

Grief, Loss, Emotion, Humanity, Wisdom

"She cries quietly, her shoulders heaving up and down, not the kind of loud sobbing that the women Chika knows do, the kind that screams Hold me and comfort me because I cannot deal with this alone. The woman's crying is private, as though she is carrying out a necessary ritual that involves no one else."

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian Writer

Grief, Emotion, Loss, Solitude

"We need never be ashamed of our tears."

Charles Dickens, English Novelist

Grief, Tears, Emotion, Shame, Truth

"There is the staircase,there is the sun.There is the kitchen,the plate with toast and strawberry jam,your subterfuge,your ordinary mirage.You stand red-handed.You want to wash yourself in earth, in rocks and grassWhat are you supposed to dowith all this loss?In the daylight we knowwhat's gone is gone,but at night it's different.Nothing gets finished,not dying, not mourning;the dead repeat themselves, like clumsy drunkslurching sideways through the doorswe open to them in sleep;these slurred guests, never entirely welcome,even those we have loved the most,especially those we have loved the most,returning from where we shoved themaway too quickly:from under the ground, from under the water,they clutch at us, they clutch at us,we won't let go."

Margaret Atwood, Canadian Novelist

Grief, Loss, Mourning, Death

"Sometimes, somehow...I feel that ocean contains tears of mother earth,that mourns over terrible great sin done by men."

Toba Beta, Indonesian Author

Grief, Regret, Truth, Emotion, Today

"She died of internal weeping."

Erica Jong, American Novelist

Grief, Sorrow, Death, Pain

Explore more quotes by Yann Martel

"Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?"

Literature

"Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science."

Scientists

"Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?"

Philosophy

"Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body."

Body

"Trees were not hard, irritable things, but discreetly orgasmic beings moaning at a level too deep for our brutish ears. And flowers were quick explosive orgasms, like making love in the shower."

Nature

"I suppose in the end the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye."

Farewell

"If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."

Philosophy

"Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey."

Redemption

"My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean."

Emotion

"Socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers. They prove to be the ones most faithful to them—it is a fact commonly known in the trade."

Nature