„Sadness isn't sadness. It's happiness in a black jacket. Tears are not tears. They're balls of laughter dipped in salt. Death is not death. It's life that's jumped off a tall cliff.“

„Death isn't funny."
"Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with us — us humans — death is so sad that we must laugh at it.“

—  Robert A. Heinlein, book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

„When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.“

—  Sherman Alexie, book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

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

—  Nora Roberts American romance writer 1950

Source: Born in Fire

„Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end.“

—  Paulo Coelho, book Aleph

Source: Aleph

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

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

„Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.“

—  Jean Jacques Rousseau Genevan philosopher 1712 - 1778

„Beauty and love pass, I know… Oh, there's sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses“

—  F. Scott Fitzgerald, book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

„I truly believe that when you're funny, you're blessed. Your whole life is kind of golden. I was happy, although it was not perfect happiness. There was illness and sadness and death.“

—  Martin Short Canadian stand-up comedian 1950

Parade Magazine; January 23rd, 2000

„Tears are as sweet as laughter to some natures.“

—  Jerome K. Jerome, book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

„If she's sad or upset or angry, she needs to be alone-she fears a man dismissing her womanly tears.“

—  Gillian Flynn, book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

„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?

„Flow my tears, fall from your springs,
Exil'd for ever: let me mourn
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.“

—  John Dowland English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer 1563 - 1626

"Flow my tears", line 1, The Second Book of Songs (1600).

„Everything is sad and ridiculous in old age. Even the fear of death.“

—  Adolfo Bioy Casares Argentine novelist 1914 - 1999

"En la vejez todo es triste y ridículo: hasta el miedo a la muerte."
Diario de la Guerra del Cerdo, 1969.

„She was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then. The sadness meant: We are at the last station. The happiness meant: We are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.“

—  Milan Kundera, book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

„Smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.“

—  Anne Brontë, book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XV : An Encounter and its Consequences; Gilbert Markham

„Tears and laughter, they are so much Gaelic to me.“

—  Samuel Beckett, book Molloy

Molloy (1951)

„Sometimes tears make more good than laughter.“

—  Pedro Muñoz Seca Spanish writer 1879 - 1936

„They're beautiful. But sad.'
Everything's sad if you make it so, I said.“

—  John Fowles, book The Collector

Source: The Collector

„Everywhere pain, disease and death—death that does not wait for bent forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child—death that fills the world with grief and tears. How can the orthodox Christian explain these things?“

—  Robert G. Ingersoll Union United States Army officer 1833 - 1899

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)
Context: What can be more frightful than a world at-war? Every leaf a battle-field—every flower a Golgotha—in every drop of water pursuit, capture and death. Under every piece of bark, life lying in wait for life. On every blade of grass, something that kills,—something that suffers. Everywhere the strong living on the weak—the superior on the inferior. Everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on the strong—the inferior on the superior—the highest food for the lowest—man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. Murder universal. Everywhere pain, disease and death—death that does not wait for bent forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child—death that fills the world with grief and tears. How can the orthodox Christian explain these things?