Quotes About Loss

Loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life.

He felt a wistfulness for things lost and irretrievable.

As you get older, the heart shed its leaves like a tree. You cannot hold out against certain winds. Each day tears away a few more leaves; and then there are the storms that break off several branches at one go. And while nature's greenery grows back again in the spring, that of the heart never grows back.

How we keep these dead souls in our hearts. Each one of us carries within himself his necropolis.

Well, quite softly, one day following another, a spring on a winter, and an autumn after a summer, this wore away, piece by piece, crumb by crumb; it passed away, it is gone, I should say it has sunk; for something always remains at the bottom as one would say—a weight here, at one's heart.

There is always after the death of anyone a kind of stupefaction; so difficult is it to grasp this advent of nothingness and to resign ourselves to believe in it.

In every parting there comes a moment when the beloved is already no longer with us.

He dreamed of funeral love, but dreams crumble and the tomb abides

The next day was, for Emma, a dismal one. Everything seemed enveloped in a black atmosphere that hovered indistinctly over the exterior of things, and sorrow rushed into her soul, moaning softly like the winter wind in abandoned manor houses. It was the sort of reverie you sink into over something that will never return again, the lassitude that overcomes you with each thing that is finished, the pain you suffer when any habitual motion is stopped, when a prolonged vibration abruptly ceases.

How did you expect me to live without you? Once you've known happiness it's impossible to get used to not having it. I was desperate! I thought I should die! I'll tell you all about it, you'll see... And you-- you stayed away from me!' He had been carefully avoiding her for the past three years, out of that natural cowardice that characterises the stronger sex; and Emma went on, moving her head in winsome little gestures, more affectionate than an amorous cat.

but now the love of Charles for Emma seemed to her a desertion from her tenderness, an encroachment upon what was hers, and she watched her son's happiness in sad silence, as a ruined man looks through the windows at people dining in his old house.

Some details escaped her, but the regret remained with her.

Death always brings with it a kind of stupefaction, so difficult is it for the human mind to realize and resign itself to the blank and utter nothingness.

It was all her fortune. It seemed to her very fine thus to throw it away.

England and Brittany were places one came back from. But America, the colonies, and the Antilles were lost in some unknown region on the other side of the world.

and now, their great love, in which she dwelt immersed, seemed to dwindle beneath her, like the waters that vanish into the bed of the river, and she could see the mud.

Het was een van die zuivere gevoelens die het normale leven niet verstoren, die men koestert omdat ze zeldzaam zijn en waarvan het verlies dieper zou kwetsen dan dat het bezit voldoening schenkt.

What happiness there had been at that time, what freedom, what hope! What an abundance of illusions! Nothing was left of them now. She had got rid of them all in her soul's life, in all her successive conditions of life, maidenhood, her marriage, and her love—thus constantly losing them all her life through, like a traveller who leaves something of his wealth at every inn along his road.

Sur la fosse, entre les sapins, un enfant pleurait agenouillé, et sa poitrine, brisée par les sanglots, haletait dans l'ombre, sous la pression d'un regret immense plus doux que la lune et plus insondable que la nuit.

Their great love, in which she lived totally immersed, seemed to be subsiding around her, like the river sinking into its bed...and she could see the mud at the bottom.

Era un d'aquells sentiments purs que no entrebanquen l'exercici de la vida, mantinguts gelosament perquè són poc comuns, una d'aquestes il·lusions la pèrdua de les quals trasbalsen molt més l'ànima que no ho farien els gaudis de la possessió.

A veces recordamos durante siglos cierto momento que ya no volverá, que ha pasado, que está en la nada para siempre, y por el que pagaríamos en prenda todo nuestro futuro

Alles eek haar gehuld in een zwart waas dat over het oppervlak van de dingen zweefde, en het verdriet trok zacht huilend door haar ziel, als de winterwind door een verlaten kasteel. Het was zo'n mijmeren waarin men verzinkt om wat nooit meer terugkomt, een matheid die ons telkens overvalt na een niet te herroepen daad, een smart ten slotte, veroorzaakt door het stokken van een vertrouwde beweging, door het abrupt stilvallen van een lang aangehouden trilling.

C'était cette rêverie que l'on a sur ce qui ne reviendra plus, la lassitude qui vous prend après chaque fait accompli, cette douleur enfin que vous apportent l'interruption de tout mouvement accoutumé, la cessation brusque d'une vibration prolongée.