“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.”
Source: The Year of Magical Thinking
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Joan Didion 48
American writer 1934Related quotes

“Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life.”
Book VI, Chapter 7.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

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

“Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.”
Variant: Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief
Source: The Wild Palms

“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.
Letter 17, 6.
Letters, Book VIII

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

“It doth repent me; words are quick and vain;
Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine.”
Prometheus, Act I, l. 304
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

“Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.”
"Sephestia's Song to her Child", line 1, from Menaphon (1589); Dyce p. 286.