Quotes about sadness
page 6

“… how do you run and play when you feel like there are bricks of the heaviest sadness weighing down every part of your body? How do you laugh and talk when there are no laughs left inside of you?”

Katherine Hannigan (1962) American artist and novelist

Source: Ida B. . . and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World

Feeling, Parting

“So I took her hand, and I don't know what everybody else heard, but to me it sounded like a slow dance: a little sad, but maybe a little hopeful, too.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Hope, Dance

“Hello George. Hey Martha (Percy) Did you bring us a rat? (George) George, stop it! He's busy! (Martha) Too busy for rats? That's just sad. (George)”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Business

“What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.

“The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender, and because of that, the warrior can be very brave as well.”

Chögyam Trungpa (1939–1987) Tibetan Buddhist lama and writer

“To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in, you may never get over it as long as you live.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) English-American childrens' playwright and author

“Live your life so that you’ll have no regrets. No matter how hard, no matter how sad, if something is precious to you, protect it with both arms.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Life

“I was never interested in what everybody else was interested in. I was very interiorized. I always felt kind of sad.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

“Things should look right, Fun; there should be a lot of fun and no more sadness than absolutely necessary”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“It's a sad day when Myrnin is the safe choice, she thought. Apparently, he thought so, too, because he gave her a long, troubled look before pressing his thumb to a glass plate inside the room and opening the door.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

“Harper, your song has a sorrowful sound,
Though the tune was written as gay.
Your voice is sad and your hands are slow
And your eye meeting mine turns away.”

Anne McCaffrey book Dragonsong

Source: Dragonsong

“Dying seems less sad than having lived too little.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“It all seems so sad, so unbearably sad for a second, to think of the lovely old maple with the swing. We never told the tree how much we loved it. We never gave it a name, never did anything for it.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Love, Thinking, Tree

“Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Source: Ulysses by James Joyce

Men

“We need to be together."
"Why?" I asked softly. The word was carried away on the wind, but he heard.
"Because I want you."
I gave him a sad smile, wondering if we'd meet again in the land of the dead. "Wrong answer," I told him.
I let go”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Smile, Dead

“I wish I knew. It might make me miss him more clearly. It might have made sad sense.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Sense

“My only relief is to sleep. When I'm sleeping, I'm not sad, I'm not angry, I'm not lonely, I'm nothing.”

Jillian Medoff (1963) American writer

Source: Hunger Point

Sleep

“Which is a sad thing when you're only seventeen.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Exiled Queen

“What does he say?' he asked.
'He’s very sad,’ Úrsula answered, ‘because he thinks that you’re going to die.'
'Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Smile, Thinking, Personality

“Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Memory

“and the sad notes floated out to the
patio and hung in the trees like birds too tired to fly”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: The Rum Diary

Bird, Tree, Flying

“Nobody felt sad as long as we could postpone tomorrow with more nostalgia.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Nostalgia

“It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.”

Banana Yoshimoto book The Lake

Source: The Lake

“Tory a father isn’t supposed to fear his fourteen-year-old daughter. That being sad, you terrify me.”

Kathy Reichs book Seizure

Source: Seizure

Fear, Daughters

“We burn so hard, but we shed so little light; it makes us crazy and sad.”

Clive Barker book Galilee

Source: Galilee

Light

“It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Art of Travel

Love, Books

“And Isi always listened, never told Enna she had been foolish, never said hollow things like 'You'll be all right.'… Isi saw Enna's struggle and her sadness, and she understood.”

Shannon Hale Enna Burning

Source: Enna Burning

“His statement to himself should have been 'I possess this now, therefore I am happy', instead of what it so Victorianly was: 'I cannot possess this forever, therefore I am sad.”

John Fowles book The French Lieutenant's Woman

Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman

Happiness

“When she is happy, she can't stop talking, when she is sad she doesn't say a word.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Sad, Happiness

“Why are they so sad?” I asked.
“Well, they’re dead,” Carter speculated.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Dead

“See, now I don't know whether to be all 'Yay!' because you're empowered or sad because you're having delusional almost-sex with an imaginary boyfriend.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Sex

“Sadness can find you anywhere, anytime, so you better have fun when you can.”

Rebecca Wells (1952) American writer

Source: The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

Motivational

“It's easy to look back and see it, and it's easy to give the advice, but the sad fact is, most people don't look beneath the surface until it's too late.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped (2001)

People

“He put a dark place in me and I can't forgive him for that. But it's a part of me now and how can I regret what I am - though it often makes me sad.”

Valerie Martin (1948) American writer

Forgiveness, Parting

“You occupied my space. But because you were not in my present, when I looked into my future I saw… nothing. Isn't that sad? And stupid?”

Jerry Spinelli book Love, Stargirl

Source: Love, Stargirl

Stupidity, Future

“A remarkable thing about me is that the time that elapses between a sad thought and a flood of tears is three or four seconds.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Tear, Time

“We lay on our backs looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when he made life so sad and disinclined.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: On the Road: the Original Scroll

Life, God

“She struggled with her sadness, but tried to conceal it, to divide it into smaller and smaller parts and scatter these in places she thought no one would find them.”

Nicole Krauss book Great House

Source: Great House

Parting

“I wonder about all the roads not taken and am moved to quote Frost… but won't. It is sad to be able only to mouth
other poets. I want someone to mouth me.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Quotes

“Writing isn't just a job that stops at six thirty… It's a mad, sexy, sad, scary, ruthless, joyful, and utterly, utterly personal thing. There's not the writer and then me; there's just me. All of my life connects to the writing. All of it.”

Russell T. Davies (1963) Screenwriter, former executive producer of Doctor Who

Life, Personality, Madness

“As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

Source: Phantastes

Life, Pleasure, Truth, Music

“I want to believe that memories, even sad and painful ones, should not be forgotten forever.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Pain, Memory

“She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface”

Diane Chamberlain (1950) American writer

Source: The Lost Daughter

Happiness

“We had no choice. Sadness was a dangerous as panthers and bears. the wilderness needs your whole attention.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

“In the first few seconds an aching sadness wrenched his heart, but it soon gave way to a feeling of sweet disquiet, the excitement of gypsy wanderlust”

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) Russian author primarily known for his novel "Master and Margarita"

Way, Feeling, Heart

“So you’ve made a friend. How sad for them.”

Alyson Nöel book Shadowland

Source: Shadowland

“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees

Source: The Bean Trees

Sad, Depressing, Feeling, Personality

“Try not to sing too many sad songs for yourself. The universe already hates you. Self-pity isn't going to help.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Sandman Slim

Hate, Universe, Singing, Help

“Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.”

Patti Smith (1946) American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist

“The world isn't a sad place, it's just big.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

World

“Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad…”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Music, Dance, Madness

“Now something so sad has hold of us that the breath leaves and we can't even cry.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Cry

“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Good Poems for Hard Times

People

“Why are you so sad?
- Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Feeling

“There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

People, Smile

“Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertibe knowledge that she will never forgive you.”

Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her

Source: This Is How You Lose Her

Forgiveness, Knowledge

“She is sadder and sadder, and for a man there is no balm more soothing than the sadness he has caused a woman.”

Milan Kundera book Slowness

Source: Slowness

“Melancholy held me hostage, and the bees built a hive of sadness in my soul.”

Laurie Halse Anderson book Chains

Source: Chains

Soul, Bee

“For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Stanza 3.
Source: Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798), Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
Context: That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Youth, Music, Nature, Learning

“He thought how sad it was to be an Animal who had never had a bunch of violets picked for him.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Animals

“But then Froi looked back to where his work lay unfinished and it made him sad because there had been something about the touch of earth in his hands that made him feel worthwhile.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Feeling

“People are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let's all give each other a pass, shall we?”

David Rakoff (1964–2012) writer

Source: Half Empty

People, Time, Happiness

“But they never last, the golden days. And it can be sad, the sun in the afternoon, can't it? Yes, it can be sad, the afternoon sun, sad and frightening.”

Jean Rhys book Good Morning, Midnight

Source: Good Morning, Midnight

Sun

“There's a hazardous sadness to the first sounds of someone else's work in the morning; it's as if stillness experiences pain in being broken.”

Jonathan Franzen book Freedom

Source: Freedom

Pain

“We never do anything consciously for the last time without sadness of heart.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Time, Heart

“Sadness is the matrix from which wit and irony spring; sadness is uncomfortable and creative, which is why consumer society cannot tolerate it.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

Spring

“No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

Source: White Noise (1984)

Life, Sense, Animals

“It was all right to be sad. It was all right to lament. It was all right to feel anger. But [is] not all right to run away.”

Miyuki Miyabe (1960) a popular contemporary Japanese author active in a number of genres that include science fiction, mystery fictio…

Source: Ico: Castle in the Mist

Feeling, Anger

“Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees

Source: The Bean Trees

Sad, Depressing, Patience

“The inside jokes weren't jokes anymore. They had become stories. Nobody brought up the bad names or the bad times. And nobody felt sad as long as we could postpone tomorrow with more nostalgia.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Nostalgia, Time

“Normally I hate people who whine all the time, but in your case, it would be okay to complain. Be selfish, say what you want once in a while. It's okay to let yourself be sad." -Kyo talking to Tohru”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 1

Hate, People, Time, Selfishness

“Have all beautiful things sad destinies?”

Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea

Source: Wide Sargasso Sea

Beauty

“Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them.”

Nancy Mitford book The Pursuit of Love

Source: The Pursuit of Love

Life

“The rule of the Morrell family was over, and Richard owned a used-car lot and Monica worked at a nail salon, until one day she got run over by a bus. Very sad.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Black Dawn

Family, Cars

“No, I am never setting foot in this house again it scares me and makes me sad and I wish you could be a mom whose eyes worked but I don't think you can.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Moms, Thinking, Housing

“The sad truth is, they should never trust me.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Truth

“One sad thing about this world is that the acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that people will never know about.

(from 'Celestial Navigation')”

Anne Tyler (1941) American novelist

People, World

“All that sadness. All that anger. It is the smoke that gets into your eyes. If you do not blow it away, how can you hope to see?”

Anthony Horowitz (1955) English novelist and screenwriter

Source: Russian Roulette: The Story of an Assassin

Hope, Anger

“It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Deep, Fate

“I always feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. She tended to me. She administrated me.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

Love, Feeling, Girl

“The tune was sad, as the best of Ireland was, melancholy and lovely as a lover's tears.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Born in Fire

Love, Lovers, Tear

“Thinking about spaghetti that boils eternally but is never done is a sad, sad thing.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Thinking

“When you get older, it feels like happy memories and sad memories are pretty much the same thing. It is all just emotion in the end. And any of it can make you weep.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Source: Not A Star

Feeling, Memory, Happiness

“But I believe good things happen everyday. I believe good things happen even when bad things happen. And I believe on a happy day like today, we can still feel a little sad. And that's life, isn't it?”

Gabrielle Zevin book Elsewhere

Source: Elsewhere

Life, Feeling, Happiness

“I didn't feel sad or happy. I didn't feel proud or ashamed. I only felt that in spite of all the things I'd done wrong, in getting myself here, I'd done right.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Feeling, Happiness

““Where is it written that one should only care about big things? I fought for big things, long ago… for issues, principles, a country. Where are all of them now?”
The steely gray eyes were narrow and sad when next he looked up at Gordon. “I found out something, you know. I discovered that the big things don’t love you back. They take and take, and never give in return. They’ll drain your blood, your soul, if you let them, and never let go.
“I lost my wife, my son, while away battling for big things. They needed me, but I had to go off trying to save the world.” Powhatan snorted at the last phrase. “Today I fight for my people, for my farm—for smaller things—things I can hold.””

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 9 (p. 229; see also p. 305)

Love, People, World, Soul

“Poet: “Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic.” Do you get what I mean?
Pisthetaerus: I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (To the acolyte.) take off yours; we must help the poet.”

Aristophanés The Birds

tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Birds+941 Birds, line 941-947 (our emphasis on 947) Birds (414 BC)

Understanding, Help, Animals

“He didn't move. He couldn't talk. He didn't say a word to her. He just looked at her. It is so sad that he had to go this way”

Tariq Aziz (1936–2015) Iraqi Foreign Minister under Saddam Hussein

Daughter of Tariq Aziz, Zenaib Aziz, referring to death of Tariq Aziz... mentioned on BBC News (June 5, 2015), "Tariq Aziz, ex-Saddam Hussein aide, dies after heart attack" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33021771 About

Way

“The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
nor the horses, nor the ants in your own house.
The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have died forever.

The shoulder of the stone does not know you
nor the black silk on which you are crumbling.
Your silent memory does not know you
because you have died forever.

The autumn will come with conches,
misty grapes and clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
because you have died forever.

Because you have died for ever,
like all the dead of the earth,
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.

Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
Of the signal maturity of your understanding.
Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth.
Of the sadness of your once valiant gaiety.”

Federico García Lorca Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías

No te conoce el toro ni la higuera,
ni caballos ni hormigas de tu casa.
No te conoce el niño ni la tarde
porque te has muerto para siempre.No te conoce el lomo de la piedra,
ni el raso negro donde te destrozas.
No te conoce tu recuerdo mudo
porque te has muerto para siempre.El otoño vendrá con caracolas,
uva de niebla y montes agrupados,
pero nadie querrá mirar tus ojos
porque te has muerto para siempre.Porque te has muerto para siempre,
como todos los muertos de la Tierra,
como todos los muertos que se olvidan
en un montón de perros apagados.No te conoce nadie. No. Pero yo te canto.
Yo canto para luego tu perfil y tu gracia.
La madurez insigne de tu conocimiento.
Tu apetencia de muerte y el gusto de su boca.
La tristeza que tuvo tu valiente alegría.
Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (1935)

Dogs, Death, Understanding, Autumn

““One of the laws of nature,” Gordon said, “is that half the people have got to be below average.”
”For a Gaussian distribution, yeah,” Cooper said. “Sad, though.””

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 17 (p. 234)

People, Law, Nature

“I will contemplate the spectacle of your sea. The viewpoints of our mountains also offer us the limitless spectacle of immensity. The unfillable void has a calming effect... The sea! The sea with its charms saddens me. In its joyful moods, it makes me think of the laughing tiger; in its sad moods it recalls the crocodile’s tears, and in its roaring fury, the caged monster that cannot swallow me up.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote in Courbet's letter to Victor Hugo, 28 November 1864; as cited in Chu, Letters, p. 249; quoted in 'Paysages de Mer - Courbet's The Wave', by Anthony White https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/paysages-de-mer-courbets-the-wave/ 1860s

Mountain, Mood, Thinking, Tear