Sorrows do not last forever when we are journeying towards the thing we have always wanted.
Misery is a match that never goes out.
The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.
In the first place, [his eyes] never laughed when he laughed. Have you ever noticed this peculiarity some people have? It is either the sign of an evil nature or of a profound and lasting sorrow.
The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 'Let no one be called happy till his death;' to which I would add, 'Let no one, till his death, be called unhappy.'
Joy goes as deep as sorrow, but leaves less of itself behind.
What happens in a certain place can stain your feelings for that location, just as ink can stain a white sheet. You can wash it, and wash it, and still never forget what has transpired - a word which here means 'happened, and made everybody sad'.
Too oft is transient pleasure the source of long woes.
Tears may be dried up, but the heart - never.
Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that it purloined. Over the years, as the memory of Sophie Mol ... slowly faded, the Loss of Sophie Mol grew robust and alive. It was always there. Like a fruit in season. Every season. As permanent as a government job.
There are disappointments which wring us, and there are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered as a permanent loss of happiness.
My regret was immediate and permanent and useless.
