James Agee Quotes

Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.

I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with 'It is in my heart and mind and memories.

I remember the day my mother died, and it's still hard to talk about it. I just blocked it out.

When my mother passed away I was 20.

My mother, she passed away when I was 28 years old. She fought cancer for more than 10 years. She had breast cancer, and I miss her.

When my mother died, and when my father died, it's big. Our parents are giants; they're titans of our lives, so of course it's going to be a big deal.

When my brother called to inform me, on the morning of May 22, 2003, that our mother Caroline Oates had died suddenly of a stroke, it was a shock from which, in a way, I have yet to recover.

My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing.

Well, my mother, I knew until I was 13. She died when I was 13.

During my grandma's funeral, I looked over once and saw my mom crying, and I felt so bad for her.

My mother passed in 2002. That was a blow like no other blow.

I realized that my mother was at the center of my work, because now that my mother is no longer there, there's nobody left.

After my father died, we went to church for a long time every day, and then every other day during the summer.

My mother's death was very painful as it occurred over a period of a week. Watching her die was the hardest thing my dad ever went through.

My mother passed. She passed when I was 10 or 11.

And then, into the fantasy, as into a dream, would come the thought: it's not like this anymore; the world has changed. Just the way, even at that time fully two years after my mother's death, I'd catch myself thinking about her as alive; and would suddenly remember, an admonitory finger of grief upon my breast, that she was gone.

Warm summer sun, shine kindly here. Warm southern wind, blow softly here. Green sod above, lie light, lie light. Good night, dear Heart, Good night, good night.

You count the hours you could have spent with your mother. It's a lifetime in itself.

Ah what avails the sceptred race, Ah what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee.

When death takes your mother, it steals that word forever.

In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face the face of one long dead Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.

But I think this: that whatever prices I've paid, whatever sorrows I shoulder, well, I have blessings, too. Not just my family now, but the others-the ones who have died...They're with me still. They're here...

The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me.

If you should ask me where I've been all this time I have to say "Things happen." I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth, on the river ruined in its own duration: I know nothing save things the birds have lost, the sea I left behind, or my sister crying. Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock with day? Why the dark night swilling round in our mouths? And why the dead?