“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.”

“Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

“There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

“Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.”

William Faulkner book If I Forget Thee

“There is little difference between expecting misfortune and undergoing it; except that grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened; but we fear all that possibly may happen.”
Parvolum differt, patiaris adversa an exspectes; nisi quod tamen est dolendi modus, non est timendi. Doleas enim quantum scias accidisse, timeas quantum possit accidere.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

“Grief takes many forms, including the absence of grief.”

Alison Bechdel (1960) American cartoonist, author

“The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same.
Before the onset of death, why should man expect to be free of grief?”

Ghalib (1797–1869) Urdu-Persian poet

“It doth repent me; words are quick and vain;
Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

“Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.”

Robert Greene (dramatist) (1558–1592) English author