Henry Thomas Quotes

In my own life, I find myself doing some task - driving or playing golf - and having a conversation with my mother or father, who are both deceased. I don't know if that means I'm mentally ill, but I suspect lots of people do it. And when I hold that conversation, different images of my parents appear to me.

The bottom line is I'm writing to save the dead. I'm writing to save the people I have lost, some of whose bodies are still walking around.

I suppose the things you remember about someone who has died are the funny moments. Those are the ones that stand out.

I think when we lose somebody, when we interact with those things that they also loved - like, you listen to their favorite music, or you read their favorite books - it's just a way to get in touch with them and your memories of them.

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

In the midst of the sense of tragedy or loss, sometimes laughter is not only healing, it's a way of experiencing the person that you've lost again.

The littlest thing can have the strongest connection when you're grieving. Your Proustian, poetic nerve is turned up to ten.

I was very empty after my father passed away. It was an emotional time, as it would be for anyone, but to be in the studio every day was kind of cathartic and healing and it just seemed very natural to continue.

I think about my mother every day. But usually the thoughts are fleeting - she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely... gone.

When my dad died a lot of songs came, and they're still coming.

To grieve is something extremely difficult, we don't even know how to begin to grieve, and I don't know how you can be taught to grieve.

When we are dealing with death we are constantly being dragged down by the event: Humor diverts our attention and lifts our sagging spirits.

When my dad passed, there's a lot of sadness right below the surface, and I think there will be until the day I die. So, writing sad songs helps it. And when I sing them, it's pure therapy for me.

When I need to cry, I think of very sad things, mostly about animals.

I learned to knit in 2002, six months after my 5-year-old daughter, Grace, died suddenly from a virulent form of strep. I was unable to read or write, and friends suggested I take up knitting; almost immediately I fell under its spell.

I have a, you know, a John Ritter-shaped hole in my heart. Nobody can replace that.

You have moments of grief in life, and if you can put pen to paper and capture that, that's something wonderful. I can revisit actual songs about past deaths, and I know that emotion is as true now as it was then.

Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich.

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.

Bereavement is terrible, of course. And when somebody you love dies, it's a time for reflection, a time for memory, a time for regret.

Seven years after my mother's passing, I still reach for the phone for a split second to call her. We spoke every day.

If I had any advice to give to anybody, it would be record your parents talking so that, when you're longing to hear that voice, you can play the tape. But for me, it's a little often. You don't always need to be reminded that he isn't here anymore.

Grief reveals itself in the most mundane activities, like eating. It's never when you're looking at old pictures.

Games helped me a lot when The Rev died. It was something I able to go do and stay in the house and not have to be outside and deal with people. But I also found a community online that I was able to escape the feeling I was having of losing a best friend.

Any child who has lost a parent probably knows every single photograph in existence of that parent.