top of page
Loss Quotes


"American houses...' she said, peering over her right shoulder and down the street. 'They always seem to believe that nobody ever loses anything, has lost anything. I find that very sad. Do you know what I mean?"


"I tried to imagine him capital-S Somewhere as we prayed, but even then I could not quite convince myself that he and I would be together again. I already knew too many dead people. I knew that time would now pass for me differently then it would for him- that I, like everyone in that room, would go on accumulating loves and losses while he would not. And for me, that was the final and truly unbearable tragedy: Like all the innumerable dead, he'd once and for all been demoted from haunted to haunter."


"When a dreamer loses his lover, his dream profits. (Unless, of course, the lover was the dreamer's dream.)"


"Yes you have returnedAnd things are as they wereBut this you cannot hide,A part of you has died."


"He cried that night for all that he had lost, but he would say it taught him a valuable lesson: that holding on to things "will only break your heart."


"When you lose a friend or a lover, those who remain in your life gain (more of your attention)."


"Surprised by joy- impatient as the WindI turned to share the transport-- Oh! with whomBut thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,That spot which no vicissitude can find?Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind--But how could I forget thee? Through what power,Even for the least division of an hour,Have I been so beguiled as to be blindTo my most grievous loss? -- That thought's returnWas the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;That neither present time, nor years unbornCould to my sight that heavenly face restore."


"Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself."


"Unbeknown to us, some of the people who we hope are missing us wherever they are do miss us; some miss someone else; and some are dead."


"I want to tell him that it's just a stupid car, but bits of me are scattered all over town; the graveyard, school, Cassie's room, the motel, and standing in from of the sink in my mother's kitchen. It takes too much energy to gather all the bits together, so I just sit there and watch him implode."


"I didn't mean I'd seen everything, John Grady said.I know you didn't.I just meant I'd seen some things I'd as soon not of.I know it. There's hard lessons in this world. What's the hardest? I dont know. Maybe it's just that when things are gone they're gone. They aint comin back. Yessir."


"Sydney spent a lot of time on my bed these days.Unfortunately, it wasn't with me."


"Fear no more as long as her memory surrounds you like a ghost, cry no more as long as she weeps for you like a willow."


"May be you are gone,but that doesn't make me come back."


"A night without stars is a night wasted."


"If you haven't already, you will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and you never completely get over the loss of a deeply beloved person. But this is also good news. The person lives forever, in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through, and you learn to dance with the banged-up heart."


"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can't avoid. I mean my own body. It had such a different importance while it was the body of H.'s lover. Now it's like an empty house."


"Lost love is still love, Eddie. It just takes a different form, that's all. You can't hold their hand... You can't tousle their hair... But when those senses weaken another one comes to life... Memory... Memory becomes your partner. You hold it... you dance with it... Life has to end, Eddie... Love doesn't."


"One thing became crystal clear to me when I couldn't see you anymore. I realized that the only way I had been able to survive until then was having you in my life. When I lost you, the pain and loneliness really got to me."


"I missed you, Angel. Not one day went by that I didn't feel you missing from my life. You haunted me to the point that I began to believe Hank had gone back on his oath and killed you. I saw your ghost in everything. I couldn't escape you and I didn't want to. You tortured me, but it was better than losing you."


"Times goes far a lot of I still remember my father what he said in January "Books aren't important" March 27 he died (suicided!).... ANd what has left me??A lot of great people died this year, privous and every other which will come, believe or not the heart can't take it!Only it can take it, if it reads books, watches films and does this which make this person to be out of the humanity once out, never sound hear, never sad."


"We myopically stare at the gaping hole left in our lives and see nothing but the hole, not realizing a hole is defined by everything around it that is not a hole."


"Bridget cried for the leavers and the left. For the people, like herself, grimly forsaking what few precious gifts they would ever get. She cried for Bailey, for Tibby, for the resolute clump of cells making headway in her uterus, and for Marly, her poor, sad mother, who'd missed everything."


"We sat like that for a long while, and when we stood up, all my sad things were in boxes, and Beck was my father."



"The friends who met here and embraced are gone,Each to his own mistake."


"One of the hardest things you will ever have to go through is the death of a child. The second hardest thing you will ever have to go through is having a child die at Christmas time. The third hardest thing you will ever have to go through is telling your child that their friend and family member has passed away. The bittersweet moment that pulls you through it all is when your child says, "Mom don't cry. They're okay because they are with God now and they promise not to leave until they help you get through this."


"A silence overtook the odd family in their odd surroundings as loss became the mockery of the moment, and they were caught up in the emotional release that is common in a theater audience after the sudden ending of a tragic movie; the curtain closes and the people are still in their seats, numb and sighing their way back into reality."
bottom of page