“Joy in sorrow is the grace of the spirit.”

“So I died many times that year.In the cold, in the storm, on the run or on the drunk for my heart did not want to beatbut kept on beating anywayand my pain was as real as real can be,and I tried to learn and deal and run and feelbut nothing really worked.I built a comfortable home in my sorrow and settled into a quiet living. No sparks or grand gestures, just a simple daily hymn to comfort. The leaves fell off the trees and coloured this city in all kinds of pretty, and some days that was enough to make me smile at least a little bit, within.”

“There is an old Chinese tale about the woman whose only son had died. In her grief, she went to the holy man and said, ‘What prayers, what magical incantations do you have to bring my son back to life?’ Instead of sending her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, ‘Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. We will use it to drive the sorrow out of your life.’ The woman set off at once in search of that magical mustard seed. She came first to a splendid mansion, knocked at the door and said, ‘I am looking for a home that has never known sorrow. Is this such a place? It is very important to me.’ They told her ‘You’ve certainly come to the wrong place,’ and began to describe all the tragic things that had recently befallen them. The woman said to herself, ‘Who is better able to help these poor unfortunate people than I, who have had misfortune of my own?’ She stayed to comfort them, then went on in her search for a home that had never known sorrow. But wherever she turned, hovels and in palaces, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. Ultimately, she became so involved in ministering to other people’s grief that she forgot about her quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had in fact drive the sorrow out of her life.”

“If you can sing a song, your sorrow shall fade.”

“Your sorrow is your sorrow.”

“And like that, I said goodbye to my grandmother like we were two people who met in a coffee shop, shared a lifetime of stories and left wanting more, but knowing we’d meet there again.”

“You may marry Miss Grey for her fifteen pounds but you will always be my Willoughby. My nightmare. My sorrow. My past. My mistake. My regret. My love.”

“His absence is so big it’s like he’s there.”

“সময় শোকের চেয়ে বলশালী। শোক তীরভূমি, সময় জাহ্নবী। সময় শোকের ওপর পলি ফেলে আর পলি ফেলে। তারপর একদিন প্রকৃতির অমোঘনিয়ম অনুযায়ী, সময়ের পলিতে চাপা পড়া শোকের ওপর ছোট ছোট অঙ্কুরের আঙুল বেরোয়।অঙ্কুর। আশার-দুঃখের-চিন্তার-বিদ্বেষের। আঙুলগুলো ওপরে ওঠে, আকাশ খামচায়।সময় সব পারে।”

“Then one morning she’d begun to feel her sorrow easing, like something jagged that had cut into her so long it had finally dulled its edges, worn itself down. That same day Rachel couldn’t remember which side her father had parted his hair on, and she’d realized again what she’d learned at five when her mother left – that what made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting the small things first, the smell of the soap her mother had bathed with, the color of the dress she’d worn to church, then after a while the sound of her mother’s voice, the color of her hair. It amazed Rachel how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief that was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree’s heartwood. (51)”

“Dear refuge of my weary soul,On thee, when sorrows rise,On thee, when waves of trouble roll,My fainting hope relies.”

“Isn’t it time that these most ancient sorrows of ours grew fruitful? Time that we tenderly loosed ourselves from the loved one, and, unsteadily, survived: the way the arrow, suddenly all vector, survives the string to be more than itself. For abiding is nowhere.”

“Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.”Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.”When are we happy?”When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.”What is regret?”To realize that one has spent one’s life worrying about the future.”What is sorrow?”To long for the past.”What is the highest pleasure?”To hear a good story.”

“I’ll use the blood from my spilling heart to write the words that were never able to slip out of my mouth, so you can see how much you’ve broken me into a perpetual state of melancholy.”

“I fancied my luck to be witnessing yet another full moon. True, I’d seen hundreds of full moons in my life, but they were not limitless. When one starts thinking of the full moon as a common sight that will come again to one’s eyes ad-infinitum, the value of life is diminished and life goes by uncherished. ‘This may be my last moon,’ I sighed, feeling a sudden sweep of sorrow; and went back to reading more of The Odyssey.”