“The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size. It is not the size of you. It is its own size. And grief comes to you. You know what I mean? I’ve always liked that phrase “He was visited by grief,” because that’s really what it is. Grief is its own thing. It’s not like it’s in me and I’m going to deal with it. It’s a thing, and you have to be okay with its presence. If you try to ignore it, it will be like a wolf at your door.”

“Now there's something else I know. You might not think you're grieving, but grief comes in all sorts of ways. There's the kind of grief that leaves you numb, and the kind of grief that rips your world in half. And then there's another kind of grief that doesn't feel like grief at all. Its like a tiny splinter you don't even know you have until it festers so deep it has nowhere left to go but into your soul. I think that's the hardest kind of grief there is because you know you're hurting but you don't know why.”

“Grief causes you to leave yourself. You step outside your narrow little pelt. And you can’t feel grief unless you’ve had love before it - grief is the final outcome of love, because it’s love lost. […] It’s the cycle of love completed: to love, to lose, to feel grief, to leave, and then to love again. Grief is the awareness that you will have to be alone, and there is nothing beyond that because being alone is the ultimate final destiny of each individual living creature. That’s what death is, the great loneliness.”

“The Thing Isto love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the slit of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weights you like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think , how can a body withstand this? Then you hold like life a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, againEllen Bass”

“Taylor Swift on why girls look up to her: "It’s the message. I try to have a normal life and look at things in a normal way, under very abnormal circumstances. That’s always going to be my main goal, that’s always what I’m going to strive for, to be a normal human being. It’s interesting because you’re put in really abnormal situations. You have an abnormal-size microscope covering your life and everything you do. You look at the idea of being 22, that’s when you’re supposed to be out there living and being selfish and making mistakes and messing up. If I mess up once, it’s a headline everywhere.”

“It's better to keep grief inside. Grief inside works like bees or ants, building curious and perfect structures, complicating you. Grief outside means you want something from someone, and chances are good you won't get it.”