Quotes about sadness
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A collection of quotes on the topic of happiness, cry, loss, death.

Total 1430 quotes sadness, filter:

„Reading is pleasure and happiness to be alive or sadness to be alive and above all it's knowledge and questions.“

— Roberto Bolaño, book 2666

Source: 2666

Pleasure, Question, Knowledge, Reading

„You're lovely as a flower,
So pure and fair to see;
I look at you, and sadness
Comes stealing over me.“

— Heinrich Heine German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic 1797 - 1856

Du bist wie eine Blume,
So hold und schön und rein;
Ich schau dich an, und Wehmut
Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.
Du Bist Wie eine Blume, st. 1

Love, Flowers

„We are born sad and we die sad, but meanwhile we love bodies whose sad beauty is a miracle.“

— Mario Benedetti Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet 1920 - 2009

Love, Beauty

„When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.“

— John Lennon English singer and songwriter 1940 - 1980

Beauty, Sleep, Sun, Beauty

„If you want to learn how to be happy, you have to know what is sadness first.“

— Etgar Keret, book Missing Kissinger

Source: Missing Kissinger

Learning, Happiness

„Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.“

— H.P. Lovecraft American author 1890 - 1937

Fear, Memory, Childhood

„I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark almost blue color, and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.”“

— John Green, book The Fault in Our Stars

A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Love, Death, War, People

„Genius inspires resentment. A sad fact of life.“

— Eoin Colfer Irish author of children's books 1965

Source: The Time Paradox

Life

„The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.“

— Alain de Botton Swiss writer 1969

Beauty, Cry

„The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.“

— Hannah Arendt, book The Life of the Mind

Source: The Life of the Mind (1978), "Thinking".

People, Truth, Evil

„p>That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.The world is ugly,
And the people are sad..</p“

— Wallace Stevens, book Harmonium

"Gubbinal"
Harmonium (1923)

People, World

„Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.“

— Christina Rossetti English poet 1830 - 1894

Remember, l. 13-14.
Source: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry: An Anthology

Smile, Forgetting, Cute

„… But if a mirror ever makes
you sad

you should know
that it does
not know
you.“

— Kabir Indian mystic poet 1440 - 1518

„Melancholy suicide. —This is connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize sanely the bonds which connect him with people and things about him. Pleasures no longer attract;“

— Émile Durkheim French sociologist (1858-1917) 1858 - 1917

Source: On Suicide: A Study in Sociology

People, Pleasure, Suicide

„The good times of today are the sad thoughts of tomorrow.“

— Bob Marley Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician 1945 - 1981

Variant: The good times of today are the sad thoughts of tomorrow.

Time, Sad, Heartbreaking

„A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.“

— Arthur Conan Doyle, book The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Life, People, Family, Dogs

„I thought I should make something – I felt it would be so easy – it would take form under my hands like magic.
Then people would see!
A strong naked arm – a tanned powerful neck a young woman rests her head on the arching chest.
She closes her eyes and listens with open and quivering lips to the words he whispers into her long flowing hair.
I should paint that image just as I saw it – but in the blue haze.
Those two at that moment, no longer merely themselves, but simply a link in the chain binding generation to generation.
People should understand the significance, the power of it. They should remove their hats like they do in church.
There should be no more pictures of interiors, of people reading and women knitting.
There would be pictures of real people who breathed, suffered, felt, loved.
I felt impelled – it would be easy. The flesh would have volume – the colours would be alive.
There was an interval. The music stopped. I was a little sad. I remembered how many times I had had similar thoughts – and that once I had finished the painting – they had simply shaken their heads and smiled.
Once again I found myself out on the Boulevard des Italiens.“

— Edvard Munch Norwegian painter and printmaker 1863 - 1944

written in Saint Cloud, 1889
Quotes from his text: 'Saint Cloud Manifesto', Munch (1889): as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 120 -121
1880 - 1895

Love, Women, People, Smile

„Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.“

— Arthur Koestler Hungarian-British author and journalist 1905 - 1983

Death, Sad

„What they teach in these acting schools is incredible, hair-raising crap. The Actors Studio in America is supposed to be the worst. There the students learn how to be natural - that is, they flop around, pick their noses, scratch their balls. This bullshit is known as "method acting." How can you "teach" someone to be an actor? How can you teach someone how and what to feel and how to express it? How can someone teach me how to laugh or cry? How to be glad and how to be sad? What pain is, or despair or happiness? What poverty and hunger are? What hate and love are? What desire is, and fulfillment? No, I don't want to waste my time with these arrogant morons.“

— Klaus Kinski German actor 1926 - 1991

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 59

Love, Hunger, Pain, Hate

„How strange! This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life…. Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!… Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man's finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? … But wait, wait! What's this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is - a strange state…“

— Frédéric Chopin Polish composer 1810 - 1849

Stuttgart. After 8th September 1831.
Source: "Selected Correspondence Of Fryderyk Chopin"; http://archive.org/stream/selectedcorrespo002644mbp/selectedcorrespo002644mbp_djvu.txt

Life, Children, People, Lie

„Who does not know that without women we can feel no content or satisfaction throughout this life of ours, which but for them would be rude and devoid of all sweetness and more savage than that of wild beasts? Who does not know that women alone banish from our hearts all vile and base thoughts, vexations, miseries, and those turbid melancholies that so often are their fellows?“

— Baldassarre Castiglione Italian Renaissance author (1478-1529) 1478 - 1529

Chi non sa che senza le donne sentir non si po contento o satisfazione alcuna in tutta questa nostra vita, la quale senza esse saria rustica e priva d'ogni dolcezza e piú aspera che quella dell'alpestre fiere? Chi non sa che le donne sole levano de' nostri cori tutti li vili e bassi pensieri, gli affanni, le miserie e quelle turbide tristezze che cosí spesso loro sono compagne?
Bk. 3, ch. 51; p. 216.
Souced, Il Libro del Cortegiano (1528)

Life, Women, Feeling, Heart

„I don't like to cast aspersions on the fans because I know you mean well, but what I have found is that ninety-nine percent of the Jar Jar Binks haters are failures at life. In essence, these haters are taking out their frustrations on Jar Jar. I don't mean to be cruel, but we need to examine the facts. The most popular Star Wars collectibles are all Jar Jar-related. Now, the failures at life who have no money, no women, and no future will spend all day on the Internet talking about how they hate Jar Jar Binks. This is very sad. The Phantom Menace is one of the top five films of all time.“

— George Lucas American film producer 1944

The George Lucas Interviews at SuperShadow.com (27 June 2005) http://web.archive.org/web/20050630002609/http://www.supershadow.com:80/starwars/lucas/

Life, Women, Money, Hate

„That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession.“

— Jim Morrison lead singer of The Doors 1943 - 1971

Love, Hate, People, Feeling

„Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come…“

— Colette 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi 1873 - 1954

Barks and Purrs
Context: Toby-Dog: It seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling.
Kiki-The-Demure: A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand.
Toby-Dog: That's wrong. It's indiscreet.
Kiki-The-Demure: Not at all. I have a right to everything.
Toby-Dog: To everything? And I?
Kiki-The-Demure: I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
Toby-Dog: Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come...
Kiki-The-Demure: And then what dreadful thing happens?
Toby-Dog: You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it — Castor Oil!

Love, World, Dogs, Feeling

„Jesus insisted that the greatest ritual service is the service of human need. It is an odd thing to think that, with the possible exception of that day in the synagogue at Nazareth, we have no evidence that Jesus ever conducted a ‘church’ service in all his life on earth, but we have abundant evidence that he fed the hungry and comforted the sad and cared for the sick. Christian service is not the service of any liturgy or ritual; it is the service of human need. Christian service is not monastic retreat; it is involvement in all the tragedies and problems and demands of the human situation.“

— William Barclay Church of Scotland minister and academic 1907 - 1978

Source: The Gospel of Matthew: Vol. 2, Chapters 11-28

Life, Problem, Thinking

„Was it the infinite sadness of her eyes that drew him or the mirror of himself that he found in the gorgeous clarity of her mind?“

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

„Sometimes when I'm alone
I Cry,
Cause I am on my own.
The tears I cry are bitter and warm.
They flow with life but take no form
I Cry because my heart is torn.
I find it difficult to carry on.
If I had an ear to confide in,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.
The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Then to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes…
I Cry
and no one cares about why.“

— Tupac Shakur rapper and actor 1971 - 1996

Life, Pain, World, Confidence

„I feel sad that he’s just a voice now.“

— Yoko Ono Japanese artist, author, and peace activist 1933

Feeling

„He pushed that thoughts away. He didn't like painful memories. Keep moving -- that was his motto. Don't dwell in things. Don't stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of the sadness.“

— Rick Riordan, book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Pain, Way, Memory

„The world doesn't need any more sadness than it's already got.“

— Hiro Mashima Japanese manga artist 1977

World

„It was sad, like those businessmen who came to work in serious clothes but wore colorful ties in a mad, desperate attempt to show there was a free spirit in there somewhere.“

— Terry Pratchett, book Making Money

Source: Making Money

Color, Madness, Clothes

„Talk to me about sadness. I talk about it too much in my own head but I never mind others talking about it either; I occasionally feel like I tremendously need others to talk about it as well.“

— Anne Sexton poet from the United States 1928 - 1974

Source: Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters

Feeling

„Usually she ordered a cup of coffee and a cup of tea, as well as a brownie, propping up her sadness with chocolate and caffeine so that it became an anxiety.“

— Lorrie Moore American writer 1957

Source: Like Life

Coffee, Tea

„Great griefs exhaust. They discourage us with life. The man into whom they enter feels something taken from him. In youth, their visit is sad; later on, it is ominous.“

— Victor Hugo, book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Life, Youth, Feeling

„I went back to those graves not long afterward and found as I stood there that sadness was a very heavy thing. My body weighed twice what it had only a moment earlier, as if those graves were pulling me down toward them.“

— Arthur Golden, book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

„Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.“

— A.A. Milne, book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Happy, Cute

„She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time.“

— Stephen Chbosky, book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Hope, Time

„I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.“

— Charles Bukowski, book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Variant: I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.
Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Feeling, Thinking, Cry

„For a moment I had a strange intuition that just this, and in a real, profound sense, is life; and perhaps happiness even - love with a mixture of sadness, reverence, and silent knowledge.“

— Erich Maria Remarque, book Three Comrades

Source: Three Comrades

Love, Life, Knowledge, Sense

„Simon,” said a voice at his shoulder, and he turned to see Izzy, her face a pale smudge between dark hair and dark cloak, looking at him, her expression half-angry, half-sad. “I guess this is the part where we say goodbye?“

— Cassandra Clare, book City of Heavenly Fire

Variant: Simon," said a voice at his shoulder, and he turned to see Izzy, her face a pale smudge between dark hair and dark cloak, looking at him, her expression half-angry, half-sad. "I guess this is the part where we say goodbye?
Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Parting

„Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?“

— Bernhard Schlink, book The Reader

Source: The Reader

Beauty, Memory, Happiness

„The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.“

— Haruki Murakami, book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Variant: Hajime," she began, "the sad truth is that some things can't go backwards. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back to the way they were. If one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Truth, Way

„Don't dwell on things. Don't stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of sadness.“

— Rick Riordan, book The Lost Hero

Variant: Don't stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of the sadness.
Source: The Lost Hero

Way

„… So please, be tolerant of those who describe a sporting moment as their best ever. We do not lack imagination, nor have we had sad and barren lives; it is just that real life is paler, duller, and contains less potential for unexpected delirium.“

— Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch

Source: Fever Pitch

Life, Imagination, Sport

„The only way to overcome sadness is to consume it.“

— Jonathan Safran Foer, book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Way

„Everything is an illusion; that is the whole thing about it - illusion, immitation, a mirage. It makes me too sad. Its having like a good dream, you know you are going to wake up.“

— Francesca Lia Block American children's writer 1962

Dreams

„I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, "Got any shoes you’re not using?“

— Steven Wright American actor and author 1955

Shoe

„Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.“

— Mark Twain, book Following the Equator

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XLVIII
Following the Equator (1897)
Variant: To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.

Joy, Wedding

„Yet but three come one more.
Two of both kinds make up four.
Ere she comes curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad.
Thus to make poor females mad.“

— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Madness

„Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.“

— Woody Allen American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician 1935

Life, Suffering, Loneliness

„She was becoming sad. There is no joy involved in following others' expectations of yourself.“

— Miriam Toews Canadian writer known for novels set in the Mennonite community 1964

Joy

„The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room while someone is dying. Books are written by the alone for the alone.“

— Donna Tartt American writer 1963

People, Books, Travel, Waiting

„I sank onto the deck. My heart was pounding a million trillion times a minute. I never felt more alive. Anger, sadness, joy. He made me feel it all. No one else had that kind of effect on me. No one.“

— Jenny Han American writer 1980

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Feeling, Time, Heart, Joy

„But my sadness is comforting
Because it’s right and natural
And because it’s what the soul should feel
When it already thinks it exists
And the hand pick flowers
And the soul takes no notice.“

— Fernando Pessoa Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher 1888 - 1935

Feeling, Soul, Flowers, Nature

„Never stop smiling not even when you're sad, someone might fall in love with your smile.“

— Gabriel García Márquez Colombian writer 1927 - 2014

Love, Smile

„It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies du voyage: perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling.“

— Gustave Flaubert French writer (1821–1880) 1821 - 1880

Source: Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour

Travel

„Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else.“

— Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Sad

„It meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness--and somewhere within him, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark.“

— Ayn Rand, book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Pain, Question

„Sometimes you have to do things when sad things happen.“

— Mitch Albom, book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

„Why do beautiful songs make you sad?" "Because they aren't true." "Never?" "Nothing is beautiful and true.“

— Jonathan Safran Foer, book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 43

Beauty, Sad, Beauty

„The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow.“

— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910

Variant: The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in heaven.

Laughter

„Be sad, be sorry-but don't shoulder it.“

— E. Lockhart, book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

„You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.“

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Forgetting, Sad, Heartbreaking, Depressing

„In joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends.“

— Kakuzo Okakura Japanese scholar, author of The Book of Tea 1862 - 1913

Source: The Book Of Tea

Flowers, Joy

„Not everything is about money. You didn't even say, hello. You are not your sad little wallet.“

— Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Money

„Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.“

— C.G. Jung Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology 1875 - 1961

Life, Sad, Happiness, Happy

„And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary?“

— Jonathan Franzen, book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections (2001)
Context: All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary - of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There were further tens of millions of young Americans who didn't have money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool?

Truth

„That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness-and life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same.“

— Gregory Maguire, book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Life, Time

„… the sun would leave my sky if I couldn't assume you'd simply come and tell me you were sad.“

— David Foster Wallace, book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Sun

„Don't mind all those people who say that you should be back to normal in a month or two. Grieving is all part of helping yourself anyway.“

— Cecelia Ahern Irish novelist 1981

Source: P.S. I Love You

People, Help, Parting

„In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.“

— Sue Monk Kidd, book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Smile, Dreams, Forgiveness, Night

„Christmas it seems to me is a necessary festival; we require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our human relationships: it is the feast of failure, sad but consoling.“

— Graham Greene English writer, playwright and literary critic 1904 - 1991

Source: Travels With My Aunt

Failure, Christmas, Season

„she was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad“

— Marilyn Monroe American actress, model, and singer 1926 - 1962

Variant: She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important—you know

Girl, Happiness

„The opposite of the happy ending is not actually the sad ending--the sad endingsometimes the happy ending. The opposite of the happy ending is actually theending.“

— Orson Scott Card American science fiction novelist 1951

Happiness

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

— William Faulkner, book If I Forget Thee

Variant: Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief
Source: The Wild Palms

„I'd sleep and forget it; I had my own life, my own sad and ragged life forever.“

— Jack Kerouac, book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Life, Sleep, Forgetting

„I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You can not protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.“

— Jonathan Safran Foer, book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Oskar's grandmother to his grandfather after she told him of her pregnancy.
"My Feelings" (p. 180)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)

Life, Feeling, Learning, Happiness

„Every bond is a bond to sorrow.“

— James Joyce Irish novelist and poet 1882 - 1941

„A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.“

— Jean Racine French dramatist 1639 - 1699

Death, Pleasure, Sad

„A sad smile crossed her face, and I knew right then what she was trying to tell me. Her eyes never left mine as she finally said the words that numbed my soul.
I'm dying, Landon.“

— Nicholas Sparks, book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Smile, Soul

„Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.“

— C.G. Jung Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology 1875 - 1961

"The Art of Living", interview with journalist Gordon Young first published in 1960
Variant: [T]here are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word "happy" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

Life, Patience, Happiness, Happy