Irvin D. Yalom Quotes

We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind. In the faith that looks through death, in years that bring the philosophic mind.

How families deal with loss, everyone has their own process.

For me as a writer, it was understanding that we're so far behind in our way of dealing with death. We put someone in the ground, we bury them or we burn them, and then we're supposed to just move on and kind of get over it.

Even for the dead I will not bind my soul to grief, death cannot long divide; for is it not as if the rose that climbed my garden wall had bloomed the other side?

How do we transform loss? ... Time's healing balm is essentially a hoax.

Yoga has been the best tool for managing stress and life's challenges. Everything from my studies to my father's death was eased by my practice of it.

If you just lost someone special in your life, get a dog.

It's hard to make progress with grief.

It's important to attend funerals. It is important to view the body, they say, and to see it committed to earth or fire because unless you do that, the loved one dies for you again and again.

Grief is not productive. It simply represents an inefficiency in accepting change of status.

What made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting small things first... it's amazing how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree's heartwood.

Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead, And the apparel of the grave.

Grief is natural,' she said. 'Overcoming it is a matter of choice.

That grief is light which can take counsel.

If we can exit a relationship, pressure to reconcile lessens; if we must live with those who have wronged us, we are pushed to reconcile.

You mourn, for it is proper to mourn. But your grief serves you; you do not become a slave to grief. You bid the dead farewell, and you continue.

We placed the wreaths upon the splendid granite sarcophagus, and at its feet, and felt that only the earthly robe we loved so much was there. The pure, tender, loving spirit which loved us so tenderly, is above us - loving us, praying for us, and free from all suffering and woe - yes, that is a comfort, and that first birthday in another world must have been a far brighter one than any in this poor world below!

only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.

Ritual disposal of the dead speaks clearly of an awareness of death, and thus an awareness of self.

My career, at the moment, is very exciting, but love comes first because it balances me.

I have to say that since my mother died, I am not the same person anymore. My life has changed a great deal because it's really unbearable to think you can't see her anymore or talk to her anymore.

I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.

Living together is an art. It's a patient art, it's a beautiful art, it's fascinating.

When one has lost a friend one's eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation.

Grief is natural; the absence of all feeling is undesirable, but moderation in grief should be observed, as in the face of all good or evil.