I feel like the writer observing the grief, but it is difficult to be detached from it.

Arnold Bennett was a writer I admired. He was actually taking notes at his father's deathbed.

As somebody once said, we're not punished for our sins, we're punished by them.

Gossip is more popular than literature.

I think with every writer there are two people there.

It's a natural thing for people to say, you know, Who's in this book? I find myself get ting a little defensive. People come along and I'm waiting for that first question.

I don't think anyone is the perfect one to play me.

I've always believed in survival.

We were married for almost 45 years. We fought all the time, it wasn't a great love or anything, it wasn't a great, all-consuming passion. She was just there. A lot of people were startled because we didn't seem devoted but we were.

I'm a writer, and what I do is write. I wasn't able to do anything else.

My life is every moment of my life. It is not a culmination of the past.

I went through life like an idiot for a great deal of the time, saying there's nothing I would change. That was a very arrogant thing to say. There's a lot I would change. There are people I would have steered clear of.

My mother was passionate. She was stubborn, the dominant one in the family. She dominated my father.

I came down to the living room one day and my wife was standing in the living room. It wasn't an illusion. I saw her out of the corner of my eye. The moment I saw her, she vanished.

The problem with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent.

A thing well done is worth doing.

I feel like the writer observing the grief, but it is difficult to be detached from it.

I'm a much nicer person since my wife died. I found out what pain is, so on that level I'm much nicer.

We are all the foolishness and all the crimes we did. We're also all the kindnesses we did. I hate to think of life as if we understood time. We don't understand time.

My father I liked, but it was only after his death that I got to know him by writing the play.

I've always enjoyed a woman's company more than men's. They're usually better looking.

We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin.

During my grief, I realised there was nothing I could do for my mother, but I did have a child.

Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.

Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.

When a child can be brought to tears, and not from fear of punishment, but from repentance he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from the grief of their conduct you can be sure there is an angel nestling in their heart.

Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.

There is a kind of euphoria of grief, a degree of madness.

When Michael died I was tipped over the edge. I was beyond grief.

This book, conceived in sorrow, composed in grief, and constructed at the brink of despair, contains my mind's best thoughts, and my soul's triumph over the powers of darkness.

For me as an American, the most painful aspect of this is that I believe that that administration has taken the events of 9/11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible.

My heart burnt within me with indignation and grief; we could think of nothing else. All night long we had only snatches of sleep, waking up perpetually to the sense of a great shock and grief. Every one is feeling the same. I never knew so universal a feeling.

And remember, it's also very funny, because side by side with grief lies joy.

Grief changes shape, but it never ends.

Therefore I do pray and entreat you in the name of Jesus Christ to do so much as to make my being here in Japan known to my poor wife, in a manner a widow and my two children fatherless; which thing only is my greatest grief of heart and conscience.

Grief is a normal and natural response to loss. It is originally an unlearned feeling process. Keeping grief inside increases your pain.

All human wisdom works and has worries and grief as reward.

Pity speaks to grief More sweetly than a band of instruments.

If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.

Touch'd either the Passions of Rage or Grief to a Miracle.

If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle. It has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.

Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.

Grief causes suffering and disease.

Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys.