Terry Tempest Williams Quotes

Spanish alone was understood or spoken here; our friend, the countryman, stuck to us most nobly, he understood us not a bit better than the rest but saw that we were in distress and would not desert us.

I think when you suffer a tremendous loss, everybody needs love and support in tangible ways. And that's what people have done for us.

With women and women, I think there's an understanding. Nobody knows what a woman feels or experiences but another woman. We are the nurturers, and there are times when we need to be nurtured.

When you listen to other women's stories you begin to understand your own better and you begin to find ways back through and with each other.

For many years now, I feel like my own body struggle has been linked and connected with women I meet in the world. I think we're in this together.

If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.

People could empathize with other people who had gone through the same experience as they had.

It's one thing to talk to a vet about something, but when you're talking to a fellow rookie going through the same struggles you are, you kind of understand it - and you grow together like that.

I think that the more of us who take the time to understand how someone else is feeling, the more likely we are to resist alongside them.

your not alone, Tally. Don't pretend you are

So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren't constantly berating yourself for being sad.

I have a great female support system. We encourage each other because we all face some of the same difficulties. We all experience mommy guilt. It's always great to have an uplifting support system.

People who are always thinking of the feelings of others can be very destructive because they are hiding so much from themselves.

They sat quietly together for a few minutes, Joe holding Fiona's hand, Fiona sniffling. No flowery words, no platitudes passed between them. Joe would have done anything to ease her suffering, but he knew nothing he might do, or say, could. Her grief would run its course, like a fever, and release her when it was spent. He would not shush her or tell her it was God's will and that her da was better off. That was rubbish and they both knew it. When something hurt as bad as this, you had to let it hurt. There were no shortcuts.

but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.

Your tears are my prayers.

What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.

Please, if one of us cries, let both of us cry. But preferably neither of us.

There's a certain class of people who will do you in and then remain completely mystified by the depth of your pain.

Community [is] a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to "rejoice together, mourn together," and to "delight in each other, make others' conditions our own.

If you love someone, truly love them, you should never cause them pain. Never fill their eyes with something so close to grief.

He's going to hurt you," Al said, looking at Pierce. "I can take care of you, teach you to survive. Be there for you, even if you do hate me." I shivered. "I don't want him," I said, and Al turned away, seeming smaller somehow.

Care draws on care, woe comforts woe again, Sorrow breeds sorrow, on grief brings forth twain.

When you're really bummed out, the last thing you want to hear is up-tempo and positive. And it lets you know that you're not alone, that somebody has hurt before. It works the same way with chick songs as it does with political songs. When you hear somebody singing about these things, you know that you're not alone, that somebody else is suspicious of what's going on around us in the world. So you don't feel like you're crazy, and you feel like you might be able to make a difference.

Between friends there is no need of justice.