"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

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"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."

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

Mitch Albom, American Writer

Grief, Family, Humor, Death

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

Lailah Gifty Akita, Ghanaian Author

Grief, Death, Misery, Life, Lost

"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

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"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

Grief, Pain, Loss, Emotion

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

Asa Don Brown, Canadian Author

Grief, Loss, Emotion, Humanity, Wisdom

"We need never be ashamed of our tears."

Charles Dickens, English Novelist

Grief, Tears, Emotion, Shame, Truth

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

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"She died of internal weeping."

Erica Jong, American Novelist

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"The times that were most fun seemed always to be followed by sadness now, because it was when life started to feel like it did when she was with us that we realized how utterly gone she was."

John Green, American Author

Grief, Fun, Sadness, Life, Loss

"Ithink we all experience the same thing. We resent thethought that anything can please us when someone we loveis no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almostfeel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when wefind our interest in life returning to us."

L. M. Montgomery, Canadian Author

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Explore more quotes by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices."

Society

"You could have just said Ngozi is your tribal name and Ifemelu is your jungle name and throw in one more as your spiritual name. They'll believe all kinds of shit about Africa."

Society

"He often paused before he spoke. She thought this exquisite, it was as though he had such regard for his listener that he wanted his words strung together in the best possible way."

Philosophy

"Marriage can be a good thing, a source of joy, love, and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, but we don't teach boys to do the same?"

Relationship

"Each time he suggested they get married, she said no. They were too happy, precariously so, and she wanted to guard that bond; she feared that marriage would flatten it into a prosaic partnership."

Love

"He thought about the next time he would laugh with her and then the next. He found himself often thinking about the future, even before the present was over."

Relationship

"The person more qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more creative, more innovative. And there are no hormones for those attributes."

Leadership

"But by far the worst thing we do to males-by making them feel they have to be hard-is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is."

Psychology

"She felt a sense that things were in order, the way they were meant to be, and that even if they tumbled down once in a while, in the end they would come back together again."

Philosophy

"It doesn't have to be dreads. You can wear an Afro, or braids like you used to. There's a lot you can do with natural hair."

Identity