Quotes About Loss

David W. Orr writes, in The Nature of Design, "We are losing the capacity to say what we really mean and ultimately to think about what we mean. We are losing the capacity for articulate intelligence about the things that matter most.

The book I selected for him was Corelli's Mandolin, a novel set on a small Greek island occupied by the Italian army during World War II. During the course of the story, the islanders have to accept the fact that they no longer control their own destiny and must come together and adapt to the new reality. In the end, they win by losing.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

From the point of view of high generalship those holding attacks had served their purpose pretty well. From the point of view of mother's sons they had been a bloody shambles without any gain. The point of view depends on the angle of vision.

But the actual touch of her lingered, inside his heart. That remained. In all the years of his life ahead, the long years without her, with never seeing her or hearing from her or knowing anything about her, if she was alive or happy or dead or what, that touch stayed locked within him, sealed in himself, and never went away. That one touch of her hand.

I became educated to the fact that the greatest pain does not come zooming down from a distant planet, but from the depths of the heart. Of course, both could happen; your wife and child could leave you, and you could be sitting alone in your empty house with nothing to live for, and in addition the Martians could bore through the roof and get you.

What profit it a man if he gain the whole world but in this enterprise lose his soul?

The bird is gone, and in what meadow does it now sing?

Barefoot conducts his seminars on his houseboat in Sausalito. It costs a hundred dollars to find out why we are on this Earth. You also get a sandwich, but I wasn't hungry that day. John Lennon had just been killed and I think I know why we are on this Earth; it's to find out that what you love the most will be taken away from you, probably due to an error in high places rather than by design.

Why is love so good...? You love someone and they leave. They come home one day and you say What's happening? and they say, I got a better offer someplace else, and there they go, out of your life forever, and after that until you're dead you're carrying around this huge hunk of love with no one to give it to. And if you do find someone to give it to, the same thing happens all over.

What was on the other side? Donna said, He said there was another world on the other side. He could see it. He... never went through it? That's why he kicked the shit out of everything in his apartment; he never thought of going through it, he just admired the doorway and then later he couldn't see it at all and it was too late. It opened for him a few days and then it was closed and gone forever.

Why does a man cry? he wondered. Not like a woman; not for that. Not for sentiment. A man cries over the loss of something, something alive. A man can cry over a sick animal that he knows won't make it. The death of a child: a man can cry for that. But not because things are sad. A man, he thought, cries not for the future or the past but for the present.

He felt the pressure of her love as she squeezed his fingers, and then there was nothing. Except the pain. But nothing else, no Heather, no hospital, no staff men, no light. And no sound. It was an eternal moment and it absorbed him completely.

Is it a loss?" Rachael repeated. "I don't really know; I have no way to tell. How does it feel to have a child? How does it feel to be born, for that matter? We're not born; we don't grow up; instead of dying from illness or old age, we wear out like ants. Ants again; that's what we are. Not you; I mean me. Chitinous reflex-machines who aren't really alive." She twisted her head to one side, said loudly, "I'm not alive!

Gerçeklik, ona inanmay? b?rakt???n vakit, kaybolup gitmeyendir.

Era come se avessi tremato per tutta la vita, a causa di una cronica corrente sotterranea di paura. Tremare, scappare, finire nei guai, perdere le persone che amavo. Come un personaggio dei cartoni animati invece di una persona, mi resi conto. Un cartone animato degli anni Trenta, ammuffito. Dietro a tutto quello che avevo fatto c'era sempre stata la paura di spingermi.

There is nothing worse… no punishment greater than to have known God and no longer to know him.

She took his hand, squeezed it, held it, and then, all at once, she let it drop. But the actual touch of her lingered, inside his heart. That remained. In all the years of his life ahead, the long years without her, with never seeing her or hearing from her or knowing anything about her, if she was alive or happy or dead or what, that touch stayed locked within him, sealed in himself, and never went away.

to have watched a human being you loved deeply, that you had gotten real close to, held and slept with and kissed and worried about and befriended and most of all admired—to see that warm living person burn out from the inside, burn from the heart outward. Until it clicked and clacked like an insect, repeating one sentence again and again. A recording. A closed loop of tape.

He thought, We will miss Roberta Rockingham when she dies; of us, she is the most benign and stable. Because, he realized, she knows she is soon going to die.

Logically, Sherri should have squeezed every moment of pleasure out of life during her remission, but the mind does not function logically, as Fat had figured out. Sherri spent her time anticipating the loss of her remission.

Recordó que en su infancia había alcanzado a comprobar la extinción de una especie tras otra. Los periódicos anunciaban un día la desaparición de los zorros, el siguiente la de los tejones, hasta que la g ente dejó por último de leer aquellos perpetuos obituarios.

The horse-shoe nail. Remember the old poem? 'For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of the shoe the horse was lost. For want of the horse the rider was lost. For want—

No perderemos realmente lo que sentimos, si lo tenemos claramente en el espíritu.