Find Solace With Quotes About Grief And Loss

While everyone’s individual experience with grief and loss tends to be quite different, grief can be a universal part of the human condition. Our needs as a social species typically drive us to form strong bonds with each other, and when these bonds are severed through death or other forms of loss, we can experience emotional upheaval. 

Quotes about grief and loss

The following quotes on grief may provide fresh perspectives on the grieving process. If you are working through a loss, you are not alone. 

• “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” – C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
• “You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” – Anne Lamott
• “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.” – Washington Irving
• “Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
• “Grief can’t be shared. Everyone carries it alone, his own burden, his own way.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• “Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.” – Blaise Pascal
• “Tears are the silent language of grief.” – Voltaire
• “When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time – the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes – when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever – there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.” – John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

• “Grief is not a disorder, a disease, or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical, and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.” – Dr. Earl A. Grollman
• “There are three needs of the griever: To find the words for the loss, to say the words aloud and to know that the words have been heard.” – Victoria Alexander
• “I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss.” – Rita Mae Brown
• “Grieving is a necessary passage and a difficult transition to finally letting go of sorrow – it is not a permanent rest stop.” – Dodinsky
• “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world – the company of those who have known suffering.” – Helen Keller, We Bereaved
• “There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rule book that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after forty-two days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass – if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it is okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.” – Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
• “It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses.” – Colette 
• “We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.” – Dean Koontz, The Darkest Evening of the Year
• “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

How to cope with grief and loss

Reading quotes from other people’s experiences with grief may help you feel less alone, but it can’t necessarily replace professional treatment. If you are having difficulty processing your emotions after a loss, it may be beneficial to speak with a mental health professional.

In many cases, grief can be overwhelming. If you are experiencing emotional turmoil that is impacting your ability to function, the thought of adding an in-person therapy appointment to your calendar may seem overwhelming. In these situations, online therapy can be a helpful alternative to in-office grief counseling. With online therapy through an accredited service like BetterHelp, clients can talk to their therapists from the convenience and comfort of their own homes. 

Research has indicated that online therapy can have similar efficacy rates to traditional in-person therapy, including when addressing mental health concerns related to grieving. A group of researchers conducted a meta-analysis of studies examining online therapeutic methods and found that speaking to a therapist in an online format can produce comparable mental health outcomes to in-person therapy.