80 Comforting Grief And Loss Quotes

Grieving the loss of a loved one is an incredibly personal journey, often filled with a complex tapestry of emotions. Words, while sometimes insufficient in capturing the depth of such feelings, can offer solace, understanding, and a sense of shared experience. In times of sorrow, many find comfort in the thoughts and expressions of others who have navigated similar paths. This collection of 80 comforting grief and loss quotes aims to provide a source of reflection and healing, offering gentle reminders that you are not alone in your journey. Whether you seek to find peace, gather strength, or simply feel understood, these quotes serve as a heartfelt companion in moments of mourning.

1. “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.” - William Shakespeare

2. “And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you...” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

3. “I know how much you grieve over those who are under your care: those you try to help and fail, those you cannot help. Have faith in God and remember that He will is His own way and in His own time complete what we so poorly attempt. Often we do not achieve for others the good that we intend but achieve something, something that goes on from our effort. Good is an overflow. Where we generously and sincerely intend it, we are engaged in a work of creation which may be mysterious even to ourselves - and because it is mysterious we may be afraid of it. But this should not make us draw back. God can always show us, if we will, a higher and a better way; and we can only learn to love by loving. Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love. Imperfect love must not be condemned and rejected but made perfect. The way is always forward, never back.” - Iris Murdoch

4. “I waited for dawn, but only because I had forgotten how hard mornings were. For a second I'd be normal. Then came the dim awareness of something off, out of place. Then the truth came crashing down and that was it for the rest of the day. Sunlight was reproof. Shouldn't I feel better than I had in the dead of night.” - Francine Prose

5. “Grief was like a seizure that shook me like a storm.” - Patricia Cornwell

6. “They say, 'The coward dies many times'; so does the beloved. Didn't the eagle find a fresh liver to tear in Prometheus every time it dined?” - C.S. Lewis

7. “Her grief still burdened her, and she knew she would bear it the rest of her days.” - Dana Fuller Ross

8. “You’ve been wondering lately when the moment is that somebody is truly lost to you.” - Sarah Hall

9. “I do not believe that grief is ever so great that it can not be contained within.” - Judith McNaught

10. “But it was not the room’s disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief.” - James Baldwin

11. “And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.” - Sarah Waters

12. “I basked in you;I loved you, helplessly, with a boundless tongue-tied love.And death doesn't prevent me from loving you.Besides, in my opinion you aren't dead.(I know dead people, and you are not dead.)” - Franz Wright

13. “All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy

14. “And when I stand in the receiving linelike Jackie Kennedywithout the pillbox hat,if Jackie were fat and had taken enough Klonopinto still an ox,and you whisperI think of youevery day,don't finish withbecause I've been going to Weight Watcherson Tuesdays and wonder if you want to go too.” - Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno

15. “She heard him mutter, 'Can you take away this grief?''I'm sorry,' she replied. 'Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.” - Terry Pratchett

16. “But what was there to say?Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief.Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.” - Arundhati Roy

17. “It's funny, how one can look back on a sorrow one thought one might well die of at the time, and know that one had not yet reckoned the tenth part of true grief.” - Jacqueline Carey

18. “You said move on, where do I go?” - Katy Perry

19. “In days that follow, I discover that anger is easier to handle than grief.” - Emily Giffin

20. “What madness, to love a man as something more than human! I lived in a fever, convulsed with tears and sighs that allowed me neither rest nor peace of mind. My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry. Everything that was not what my friend had been was dull and distasteful. I had heart only for sighs and tears, for in them alone I found some shred of consolation.” - St. Augustine

21. “This time, there are no tears. This time, there is only emptiness and I feel it set in the straight line of my mouth. I am not strong enough for this. I want an earthquake, a hurricane, anything - even a devil, the one with the cloven hoof - Mrs. Leed's unfortunate 13th child - to rush out and stomp on me, break me into little pieces and hurl me to the stars, let me go back with those people I love. Please.” - Kathleen DeMarco

22. “Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. Unless, of course, you can literally believe all that stuff about family reunions 'on the further shore,' pictured in entirely earthly terms. But that is all unscriptural, all out of bad hymns and lithographs. There's not a word of it in the Bible. And it rings false. We know it couldn't be like that. Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back. How well the Spiritualists bait their hook! 'Things on this side are not so different after all.' There are cigars in Heaven. For that is what we should all like. The happy past restored.” - C.S. Lewis

23. “Heart weeps.Head tries to help heart.Head tells heart how it is, again:You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday.Heart feels better, then.But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart.Heart is so new to this.I want them back, says heart.Head is all heart has.Help, head. Help heart.” - Lydia Davis

24. “It sucks that we miss people like that. You think you've accepted that someone is out of your life, that you've grieved and it's over, and then bam. One little thing, and you feel like you've lost that person all over again.” - Rachel Hawkins

25. “In a world gushing blood day and night, you never stop mopping up pain.” - Aberjhani

26. “I just looked at her, feeling utterly empty. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to her. My life is in that bed. Please let me stay.” - Maggie Stiefvater

27. “Tears of grief are unique. They contain chemicals that aren't found in the more mundane droplets of moisture that bathe the eyes, as if our tears wash us free of some noxious cause of sorrow. And tonight, after crying until I am empty, I have a rare glimpse of my own interior landscape - wounds piled like tiny skeletons into the reef of conscious adult life. I am aground amid my conquered traumas, stranded as a consequence of my achievements.” - Carol Cassella

28. “After breakage/there is always sleep.” - David Rivard

29. “Life Lesson 3: You can't rush grief. It has its own timetable. All you can do is make sure there are lots of soft places around -- beds, pillows, arms, laps.” - Patti Davis

30. “Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.” - Mark Twain

31. “Music, When Soft Voices DieMusic, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.” - Percy Bysshe Shelley

32. “Your tale is of the longest," observed Monks, moving restlessly in his chair.It is a true tale of grief and trial, and sorrow, young man," returned Mr. Brownlow, "and such tales usually are; if it were one of unmixed joy and happiness, it would be very brief.” - Charles Dickens

33. “Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.” - Charles Dickens

34. “Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back.” - Meghan O'Rourke

35. “[F]or grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed.” - Pericles

36. “She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.” - Jean Rhys

37. “As Luke knelt down beside his corpse, Clary couldn’t help but remember what he had said about having loved Valentine once, about having been his closest friend. Luke, she thought with a pang. Surely he couldn’t be sad — or even grieved?But then again, perhaps everyone should have someone to grieve for them, and there was no one else to grieve for Valentine.” - Cassandra Clare

38. “It's like Romeo & Juliet,' I say. 'You can't separate them. Otherwise, there would be no Shakespeare.' Silence. I decide to be more straightforward. I tell him, 'Nothing frightens me anymore. I am not even afraid to die.' Bussey's eyes, already wide open, grow even wider. My death is the last thing he needs. I have the strange feeling that there are two of me. One observes the conversation while the other does the talking. Everything is abnormal, especially this extreme calm that has taken me over. I try to explain to Bussey that if I decide to die, it will be without bitterness. I know I did everything I possibly could, so it will be respectful farewell. I will bow to life like an actor, who, having delivered his lines, bends deeply to his audience & retires. I tell Bussey that this decision has nothing to do with him, that it is entirely mine. I will choose either to live or to die, but I cannot allow myself to live in the in-between. I do not want to go through life like a ghost. 'Do you think you'll find Danny this way?' Bussey asks. My mind sifts through all available theories on the afterlife. It is as if this metaphysical question has become as real as the air we breathe. Buddhism teaches that life is an eternal cycle without beginning or end. I recall the metaphor: "Our individual lives are like waves produced from the great ocean that is the universe. The emergence of a wave is life, and its abatement is death. This rhythm repeats eternally." Finally I answer Bussey, 'No, I don't think so.' Bussey seems relieved, but I'm more panicky, because I had never thought that I could wind up alone. In my mind, whatever the odds, Danny & I were & would be together forever.” - Mariane Pearl

39. “Man cries, his tears dry up and run out. So he becomes a devil, reduced to a monster.” - Kouta Hirano

40. “There are all kinds of ways for a relationship to be tested, even broken, some, irrevocably; it’s the endings we’re unprepared for.” - Katherine Owen

41. “The thing about dead people... The thing is you sound like a bastard if you don't romanticize them, but the truth is... complicated, I guess.” - John Green

42. “The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief of grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,—it must have been Very pretty.” - Edna St. Vincent Millay

43. “When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.” - Banana Yoshimoto

44. “That was the thing about being bereaved. People were overcome with sympathy. They did things for you without even considering whether or not it was the right thing to do.” - Brenna Yovanoff

45. “Healing Follows Forgiveness” - Pat Bluth

46. “Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.” - Pablo Neruda

47. “They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite” - Cassandra Clare

48. “-(I)n memory, remorse wraps the self.” - Claudia Rankine

49. “... Now to die of griefwould mean, I'm afraid, to die belatedly, while latecomersare unwelcome, particularly in the future. ...” - Joseph Brodsky

50. “The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.” - John Green

51. “Grief ... gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.” - C.S. Lewis

52. “Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.” - Sophocles

53. “It had been many months since I'd shed tears for Tomaso, but grief is like that. It's not a continuous process; it comes in waves. You can keep it at bay for a time, like a dam holding back a lake, but them something triggers an explosion inside of you, shattering the wall and letting loose a flood.” - Paul Adam

54. “Love is a debt, she thought. When the bill comes, you pay in grief.” - Mary Doria Russell

55. “History dressed up in the glow of love’s kiss turned grief into beauty.” - Aberjhani

56. “She could almost feel him prodding her; urging her to go on. As the wails of pain and torment assulted her ears, she knew that's exactly what she would do until the war was over and she could crawl into a quiet, dark corner and mourn for the part of her that had died with him.” - Jaclyn A Wilson

57. “Grief shared was grief lessened.” - Karen Marie Moning

58. “It feels weird, being out in the real world again. Around people just living their lives like normal. Their presence is oppressive. The very fact that the world is going on as usual, like nothing ever happened, makes me want to scream. I know it's irrational to expect everything to grind to a halt because of June, but still. A wave of anxiety builds in my chest, my head pounding so loud it drowns out the noise of people talking and tapping away on their laptops.” - Hannah Harrington

59. “Maybe Laney's right. Maybe June did love me. But I'm far less certain that she knew I loved her. Did she realise how much I needed her around? It's not like I ever told her. I was too wrapped up in my own world to notice what was going on in hers. Even if she did know, it wasn't enough to count. It wasn't enough to make her stay. So really, what did it matter, in the end?The bottom line is, it's my fault. I didn't love her enough. I didn't do enough. I wasn't enough. There's no excuse. There is nothing that will ever make that okay.” - Hannah Harrington

60. “It's not that I am not moved by these things, that I don't them in my life. But lately, their power has diminished." - 140” - Robin Romm

61. “The train blows through towndelivering reality,slapping my face and screaming,“You are alone”Rose colored memories drown,taking their last breath.” - Kellie Elmore

62. “I would have been glad if it had been the Lord's will to let one of my children live.” - Karen Cecil Smith

63. “My mother's last word to me clanks inside me like an iron bell that someone beats at dinnertime: love, love, love, love, love.” - Cheryl Strayed

64. “I didn't want him to think I was giving up - I wasn't. I simply couldn't put myself together just yet.” - Markelle Grabo

65. “The grief of children was unconditional, fueled by the implicit belief that it would last forever; for a child, grief was not grief unless it was eternal.” - Andrew Taylor

66. “What Karen wants to do - needs to do - is cry, but she can't. Here, alone, when she could howl, beat the sofa cushions, scream; now, somehow, she is unable. It's for fear that if she gives in to it, she'll lose all sense of who she is. She is afraid that if she falls apart in private, then she'll fall apart completely. That if she crumbles, like a house in an earthquake, she will disappear down some deep, dark crevasse, and never be able to pull herself out and put herself back together again.” - Sarah Rayner

67. “The abundance of small things, it'll bury you.” - Alden Bell

68. “My death..I mean..will it be quick,and with dignity? How will i know when the end is coming?""When you vomit blood,sir," Tao Chi'en said sadly.That happened three weeks later,in the middle of Pacific,in the privacy of the captain's cabin. As soon as he could stand , the old seaman cleaned up the traces of his vomit, rinsed out his mouth , changed his bloody shirt, lighted his pipe, and went to the bow of his ship , where he stood and looked for the last time at the stars winking in a sky of black velvet. Several sailors saw him and waited at a distance, caps in hands. When he had smoked the last of his tobacco, Captain John Sommers put his legs over the rail and noiselessly dropped into the sea.-Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende.” - Isabel Allende

69. “She has been surprised by grief, its constancy, its immediacy, its unrelenting physical pain.” - Michelle Latiolais

70. “All the tears in the world can't bring back the dead or wash away your fears and grief. I want you to put up your chin and tell yourself you are strong. And if you begin to weaken, hold on to me. That's what I am here for.” - Cynthia Wright

71. “Fool your heart and take over control if you don't want to be hurt.” - Aashi uppal

72. “...nor can we know ahead of the fact the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaningless itself.” - Joan Didion

73. “My heart was broken so badly last time that it still hurts. Isn't that crazy? To still have a broken heart almost two years after a love story ends? ” - Elizabeth Gilbert

74. “...it is love, imperfect and unordered, that keeps them apart, even as it holds them somehow together...” - Judith Guest

75. “I ultimately decided to hold my tongue and settle instead for the comfort of ignorance. Not knowing the truth, I retained hope, and that hope I held like a smooth warm stone against my heart.” - Catherine Gilbert Murdock

76. “There is a club in this world that you do not join knowingly.One day you are just a member.It is “The life changing events club.”The fee to join the club is hurt beyond belief, payable in full, up front for a lifetime membership.The benefit of the club is a new found perspective on life, and a deep understanding that you may not be happy about your current situation, but you can be happy in your current situation.The only rule to the club is that you cannot tell anyone that you are a member.The club does not provide a directory of its members, but when you look into a member’s eye, you can tell that they too are part of the club. Members are allowed to exchange that brief eye contact that says: “I didn’t know.”Being a member of this club is the last thing that anyone initially wants in their life.Being a member of this club is the best thing that ever happens to a person in their life, and there is not a person in the club that would ever give up their membership.If you really look and know what you are looking for you can spot the clubs members; they are the ones that provide a random act of kindness and do something for someone who can never repay them for what they have done. They are the people spreading joy and optimism and lifting people’s spirits even when their own heart has been broken.I have paid my dues; my lifetime membership arrived today, not by mail, but by a deep inner feeling that I cannot describe.It is the best club that I never wanted to be part of. But I am glad that I am a member.” - John Passaro

77. “They should make earplugs for people who are grieving, so we don't have to hear the stupid things people say, but I'd look like a dork in them." -Corinna” - Carole Geithner

78. “So much ice.She thumbed a drying tear away.How much water can the weight of ice carry?” - Dianna Hardy

79. “God didn’t design your life so you would constantly fall down, but he does hope that you will be brought to your knees.” - Shannon L. Alder

80. “It...whatever 'it' is, has swallowed me and I lie here in the pit of its cold dark stomach being eaten alive by its bile and I...I don't even know if I want to be saved.” - Kellie Elmore