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Quotes About Weeping

It's the southern way, Doctor." "The southern way?" she said. "My mother's immortal phrase. We laugh when the pain gets too much. We laugh when the pity of human life gets too . . . pitiful. We laugh when there's nothing else to do." "When do you weep . . . according to the southern way?" "After we laugh, Doctor. Always. Always after we laugh.
~ Pat Conroy
The Holy Word That walk'd among the ancient trees, Calling the lapsèd soul, And weeping in the evening dew; That might control The starry pole, And fallen, fallen light renew!
~ William Blake
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
~ William Blake
Ay, grief goes, fades; we know that–but ask the tear ducts if they have forgotten how to weep.
~ William Faulkner
There was the cell where Fr. Eulalio, a thriving lunatic of eighty-six who was castigating himself for unchristian pride at having all the vowels in his name, and greatly revered for his continuous weeping, went blind in an ecstasy of such howling proportions that his canonization was assured.
~ William Gaddis
It was all part of growing up. You got these little quick passions, you blinked, and they were gone. You forgave faults, found perfection, fell madly; then the next day the sun came up and it was over. Chalk it up to experience, old girl, and get on with the morning. Buttercup stood, made her bed, changed her clothes, combed her hair, smiled, and burst out again in a fit of weeping. Because there was a limit to just how much you could lie to yourself.
~ William Goldman
I weep as I have never wept: Oh it was summer when I slept, It's winter now I waken.
~ Christina Rossetti
I wept in my dreams. I dreamed you lay in the grave; I awoke, and the tears still poured down my cheeks. I wept in my dreams, I dreamed you had left me; I awoke and I went on weeping long and bitterly. I wept in my dreams, I dreamed you were still kind to me; I awoke, and still the flow of my tears streams on.
~ Heinrich Heine
And may my bronze name / touch always her thousand fingers / grow brighter with her weeping / until I am fixed like a galaxy / and memorized / in her secret and fragile skies.
~ Leonard Cohen
"I weep for you," the Walrus said:"I deeply sympathize."With sobs and tears he sorted outThose of the largest size,Holding his pocket-handkerchiefBefore his streaming eyes.
~ Lewis Carroll
The Walrus and the CarpenterWere walking close at hand:They wept like anything to seeSuch quantities of sand:"If this were only cleared away,"They said, "it would be grand!""If seven maids with seven mopsSwept it for half a year,Do you suppose," the Walrus said,"That they could get it clear?""I doubt it," said the Carpenter,And shed a bitter tear.
~ Lewis Carroll
My baby. My baby. She loved to call him Willy, but others could also call him Willy. Only she could say, My baby. But as much as he was her baby then, he was more so now, after the vigil on her knees, after the curses and after the prayers, after the weeping and after the begging, after going into the deepest blackest place.
~ Unknown
The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said: I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.
~ Paulo Coelho
By the River Piedra I sat down and wept. There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river -- leaves, insects, the feathers of birds -- is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed. If only I could tear out my heart and hurl it into the current, then my pain and longing would be over, and I could finally forget.
~ Paulo Coelho
I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.
~ Paulo Coelho
Now it has been said from ancient times that all women who weep may be divided into three sorts. There are those who lift up their voices and their tears flow and this may be called crying; there are those who utter loud lamentations but whose tears do not flow and this may be called howling; there are those whose tears flow but who utter no sound and this may be called weeping.
~ Pearl S. Buck
As a warrior, she won't have allowed herself to mourn. But women can't make themselves as detached as men. Our hearts are bigger. We feel loss in a way men don't. Orna has the body and mind of a warrior but her heart is like mine, and I know inside she's weeping.
~ Darren Shan
A middle-aged tennis instructor preparing to instruct his son in tennis, becomes intoxicated in the family's garage and subjects his son to a rambling monologue while the son weeps and perspires.
~ David Foster Wallace
There are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!
~ William Shakespeare
My love to love is love but to disgrace it, For I have heard it is a life in death, That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.
~ William Shakespeare
The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye; And when she weeps, weeps every little flower; Lamenting some enforced chastity.
~ William Shakespeare
I began to wait. My thoughts swung wildly. I was either fixed on practical details of immediate survival or transfixed by pain, weeping silently, my mouth open and my hands on my head.
~ Yann Martel
Not the angry, demanding cry of a child who wants attention, or the startled cry of a child who has hurt himself. This was a grown-up type of crying: involuntary, soft, sad, weeping.
~ Liane Moriarty
She had the rectitude, Joe Hill Conley later said, of someone who had just come from weeping in the next room.
~ Jeffrey Eugenides