Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

Grief is the price we pay for love.

Grief is so human, and it hits everyone at one point or another, at least, in their lives. If you love, you will grieve, and that's just given.

Grief, for me, is a moment-to-moment experience.

When grief is deepest, words are fewest.

Grief is exhausting.

Grief jumps out at you when you're least expecting it.

It's easier to identify with loss than love, because we have had so much more experience of it.

If you learn the language of loss early, I think you seek out others who have experienced the same thing, who speak that same language of loss.

With grief, you have reason to despair; it's a human thing.

I don't mourn the dead. I mourn the living.

Grief is an emotion that's almost unplayable because you're in a separate emotional state; it's an inconsolable emotion.

I think any time we lose people, it's a hard moment.

Grief changes shape, but it never ends.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

It is difficult to ever think about your loved one having suffered.

Having your heart broken is like going through grief, it's really hard.

Loss is something that I think is ultimately the number one struggle for humans.

I know what it's like to lose.

A fundamental and unfortunate part of being alive is to suffer loss and to suffer grief.

I know how it feels to lose.

In my own life, I have found grief to be enormously distorting, particularly if it's sudden or extreme in nature.

It's very hard to be happy when you've lost.

Little Words When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf, Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds; And I can only stare, and shape my grief In little words. I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown The bitter woe that racks my cords apart. The weary pen that sets my sorrow down Feeds at my heart. There is no mercy in the shifting year, No beauty wraps me tenderly about. I turn to little words- so you, my dear, Can spell them out.

Nothing remained but loneliness and grief.

In December 1988, my mother died of lung cancer. I died too. I couldn't function.