I think the heartbreak of September 11 - America's grief not only over the loss of life but also the loss of our own innocence - has expanded us as people because it has tenderized our hearts. On a psychological level, the American people have matured as a result of that awful day.
It's very shocking, I think, for people caring for the dying to realise how unsaintly they feel, how much anger is mixed up with their grief. In fact, often I think the anger that they feel is a form of grief; it's a kind of raging against what's happening.
The spoken word is man's physician in grief. For this alone has soothing charms for the soul.
I'm not sure many writers are trying to reconcile all the things that are separated in our culture - body and mind, urban and pastoral, lyricism and hardboiled, men and women, joy and grief. I tried to do quite a lot, but I wanted to create a serious work of literature.
People in grief need someone to walk with them without judging them.
The thing about grief is that it's a roller coaster - it's up, it's down. The emotions sometimes take over.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
One of the things that happens to people in grief is they secretly think they're crazy, because they realize they are thinking things that don't make sense.
When I'm talking about depression, I'm talking about the more severe forms of depression, and I think that conceptualising as a form of grief is probably not the most effective way of looking at it. I mean, at the end of the day, people suffer enormously, and you want to treat it.
The biggest problem is the funerals that don't exist. People call the funeral home, they pick up the body, they mail the ashes to you, no grief, no happiness, no remembrance, no nothing. That happens more often than it doesn't in the United States.
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.
Some women lose their husbands, and their worlds change because their financial circumstances change. All I have in common with them is a grief.
Grief, no matter where it comes from, can only be resolved by connecting to other people.
The weird thing about grief, for me at least, was when each of my parents died, for a year or two afterwards I was pretty wildly brave - just willing to take life on.
I think ancient cultures incorporated death into the experience of life in a more natural way than we have done. In our obsessive focus on youth, on celebrity, our denial of death makes it harder for people who are grieving to find a place for that grief.
My mom is my biggest support and critic. I've tried to be a good son, and I don't think I've given her a single day of grief. I want her to know she has my unconditional love.
