sadness Quotes

“The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts.”

“You really didn’t see the sadness or the longing unless you already knew it was there. But that was the trick, wasn’t it? Everyone had their disappointment and their baggage; only, some people carried it in their inside pockets and not on their backs.”

“She was at school, but you’d never know it if you didn’t actually look. She didn’t whip her hand through the air trying to get the teacher to call on her or charge through the halls getting to class. She didn’t make unsolicited comments for the teacher’s edification or challenge the kid who took cuts in the milk line. She just sat. Quiet. I told myself I should be glad about it—it was like she wasn’t even there, and isn’t that what I’d always wanted? But still, I felt bad.”

“You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.”

“She was sad about what happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who’d lost nothing, was not.”

“The poor little duckling did not know where to turn. How he grieved over his own ugliness, and how sad he was! The poor creature was mocked and laughed at by the whole henyard.”

The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise.

“Beauty, youth, good fortune, even love itself, cannot keep care and pain, loss and sorrow, from the most blessed for...into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and sad and dreary.”

“For with eyes made clear by many tears, and a heart softened by the tenderest sorrow, she recognized the beauty of her sister’s life--uneventful, unambitious, yet full of the genuine virtues which ‘smell sweet, and blossom in the dust’, the self-forgetfulness that makes the humblest on earth remembered soonest in heaven, the true success which is possible to all. ”

“It would be very sad, were I to relate all the misery and privations which the poor little duckling endured during the hard winter;”

“There is nothing so bad as parting with one’s friends. One seems too forlorn without them.”

“An experience of collective pain does not deliver us from grief or sadness; it is a ministry of presence. These moments remind us that we are not alone in our darkness and that our broken heart is connected to every heart that has known pain since the beginning of time.”

“If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live — well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease. We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help.”

“I know it is just plain red, and it breaks my heart. It will be my life long sorrow.”

“Her sadness came off her and washed into me, and I pulled against the noose, wanting to go comfort her.”

“But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?”

“She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation.”

A terrible, painful sadness clutched at Ellen. More than ever before, she felt that her life—the best part of it, at least, the part that was fresh and fun—was behind her. Recognizing the sensation made her feel guilty, for she read it as proof that she was an unsatisfactory mother, an unsatisfied wife. She hated her life, and hated herself for hating it. She thought of a line from a song Billy played on the stereo: “I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday.”

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”

“I wished I could have made her feel better, but sometimes, I guess you just can’t.”

“Then, he started crying. Then, he started talking about Brad. And I just let him. Because that’s what friends are for.”

“Melancholy held me hostage, and the bees built a hive of sadness in my soul. Dark honey filled up inside me, drowning out my thoughts and making it hard to move my eyes and hands.”

“I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge.”

“Salva pressed his face tightly to his father’s as they hugged goodbye, their tears flowing and blending together.”

“The tears were hot in Salva’s eyes. Where had everyone gone? Why had they left without waking him? He knew the answer: because he was a child . . . who might tire easily and slow them down, and complain about being hungry, and cause trouble somehow.”

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

“Her best friend was gone and nobody understood that no amount of makeup, fresh air or shopping was going to fill the hole in her heart.”

“Bruno was sure that he had never seen a skinnier or sadder boy in his life but decided that he had better talk to him.”

“That’s the way that goes.”

“Groups, staring at the ground, looking horribly sad; they all had one thing in common: they were all terribly skinny and their eyes were sunken and they all had shaved heads”

“Others believe that the world can be decoded by reading a newspaper. In my case, the only thing that made sense of the world was you, and without you the world will seem as garbled and tragic as a malfunctioning typewrit9.”

“It occurred to him that he couldn’t remember the last time he felt happiness. It wasn’t just being sent to Camp Green Lake that had made his life miserable. Before that he’d been unhappy at school, where he had no friends, and bullies like Derrick Dunne picked on him. No one liked him, and the truth was, he didn’t especially like himself.”

“It was sad like few other hymns I’d heard. I don’t know why exactly, but I started to hum it as I saw more uniformed officers entering the vestibule outside the visitation room. It seemed like something that might help...After a few minutes, the family joined me. I went over to Herbert’s wife as she held him tightly, sobbing softly. I whispered to her, ‘We have to let him go.’ Herbert saw the officers lining up outside, and he pulled away from her slowly and told me to take her out of the room.”

“As soon as his father walked in, that night, Nwoye knew that Ikemefuna had been killed, and something seemed to give way inside him, like the snapping of a tightened bow. He did not cry. He just hung limp.”

“I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.”

“As [Ekwefi] buried one child after another her sorrow gave way to the despair and then to grim resignation. The birth of her children, which should be a woman’s crowning glory, became for Ekwefi mere physical agony devoid of promise. The naming ceremony after seven market weeks became an empty ritual.”

“I stand in front of the mirror and study my face.…It is the face of a sad, lonely girl something bad has happened to. I wonder if my face will ever look the same again, or if I’ll always see it in my reflection - Finch, Eleanor, loss, heartache, guilt, death.”

″‘The best thing for being sad,’ replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, ‘is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails.‘”

“One of the things you realize about gettin older is that not ever’body is goin to get older with you.”

He who does not weep does not see.

“Suddenly I’m having one of those moments that you have after losing someone - when you feel as if you’ve been kicked in the stomach and all your breath is gone, and you might never get it back. I want to sit down in the dirty, littered ground right now and cry until I can’t cry anymore.”

“There in their secret place, his feelings bubbled inside him like a stew on the back of the stove--some sad for her in her lonesomeness, but chunks of happiness, too. To be able to be Leslie’s one whole friend in the world as she was his – he couldn’t help being satisfied about that.”

“For so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket. But this has never been an option because the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies. And knowing this, knowing that the Dream persists by warring with the known world, I was sad for the host, I was sad for all those families, I was sad for my country but above all, in that moment, I was sad for you.”

“What came to her then was the dustiness of the floor, the feeling that her clothes were more next to her than on her, and the sudden realization that this would all be for nothing—that her mother would never write back and she would never see her again. The reality of this gave her a second Watschen. It stung her, and it did not stop for many minutes.”

“Then slowly she thrust her wet wrinkled hand into her bosom and she drew forth the small package and she gave it to him and watched him as he unwrapped it; and the pearls lay in his hand and they caught softly and fully the light of the sun, and he laughed. But O-lan returned to the beating of his clothes and when tears dropped slowly and heavily from her eyes she did not put up her hand to wipe them away; only she beat the more steadily with her wooden stick upon the clothes spread over the stone.”

“There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.”

“You teach me now how cruel you’ve been—cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort.”

“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”

“That’s the trouble with living things. Don’t last very long. Kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together.”

“The sadness meant: We are at the last station. The happiness meant: We are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.”

“This late age of the world’s experience had bred in them all, all men and women, a well of tears. Tears and sorrows; courage and endurance; a perfectly upright and stoical bearing.”

“And I am sure it is never sadness—a proper, straight natural response to loss—that does people harm, but all the other things, all the resentment, dismay, doubt and self-pity with it.”

“And her joy was nearly like sorrow.”

“Bathsheba burst into great sobs... but she determined to repress all evidences of feeling. She was conquered; but she would never own it as long as she lived.”

“If only she could make her weep; could ruin her; humiliate her; bring her to her knees crying, You are right! But this was God’s will, not Miss Kilman’s. It was to be a religious victory. So she glared; so she glowered.”

“It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor, what it may be.”

“While there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.”

“If we are to feel the positive feelings of love, happiness, trust, and gratitude, we periodically also have to feel anger, sadness, fear, and sorrow.”

“My mom says it’s time for me to give up now, and that what I’m doing is futile.”

“I didn’t feel sad or happy. I didn’t feel proud or ashamed. I only felt that in spite of all the things I’d done wrong, in getting myself here, I’d done right.”

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble’s soul; his heart was waterproof.

“She looks sad. She looks angry. She looks different from everyone else I know—she cannot put on that happy face others wear when they know they are being watched. She doesn’t put on a face for me, which makes me trust her somehow.”

Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.

There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time.

It broke my heart to lose the bell.

It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper, so cry away.

“Forever and ever, kid, until you’re sick and tired of seeing me.”

“It occurs to me how close happiness and sadness are. So closely knitted together. Such a thin line, a thread-like divide that in the midst of emotions, it trembles, blurring the territory of exact opposites ... how quickly a moment of love was snapped away to a moment of hate ... Of how love and war stand upon the very same foundations.”

“I don’t understand why I’m not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die”

“But this sound wasn’t sad! Why, this sound sounded glad!”

“They’re just waking up! I know just what they’ll do! Their mouths will hang open a minute or two Then the Whos down in Whoville will all cry boo-hoo!”

“Why are they sad and glad and bad? I do not know. Go ask your dad.”

I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart.

“But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.”

“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one.”

“Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood, And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.”

“Why, what’s the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”

He often comes when they least expect him, when they are sad and disheartened.”

He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.

“I could tell that Mrs. Winterbottom was trying to rise above some awful sadness she was feeling, but Prudence couldn’t see that. Prudence had her own agenda, just as I had had my own agenda that day my mother wanted me to walk with her. I couldn’t see my mother’s sadness.”

“Tears formed in my eyes and my forehead became warm, thinking about what Saidu had said. I tried not to believe that I too was dying, slowly, on my way to find safety.”

“I see it all raving before me the endless yakking kitchen mouthings of life, the long dark grave of tomby talks under midnight kitchen bulbs, in fact it fills me with love to realize that life so avid and misunderstood nevertheless reaches out skinny skeleton hand to me and to Billie too -- But you know what I mean. And this is the way it begins.”

“one thing I don’t need is any more apologies i got sorry greetin me at my front door you can keep yrs i don’t know what to do wit em they don’t open doors or bring the sun back they don’t make me happy or get a mornin paper didn’t nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars cuz a sorry.”

“i am really colored & really sad sometimes & you hurt me more than i ever danced outta/ i am ready to die like a lily in the desert/ & i cdnt let you in on it cuz i didnt know/ here is what i have/ poems/ big thighs/ lil tits/ & so much love/ will you take it from me this one time/ please this is for you”

“Silence hangs over us, but ... a different kind of silence, one that lets me breathe. ”

“The night was getting more and more frantic. I wished Dean and Carlo were there - then I realized they’d be out of place and unhappy. They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining.”

“There was a lull when we came in. Gene and Blondey just stood there, looking at nobody; all they wanted was cigarettes. There were some pretty girls, too. And one of them made eyes at Blondey and he never saw it, and if he had he wouldn’t have cared, he was so sad and gone.”

“Owning a dog always ended with this sadness because dogs just don’t live as long as people do. ”

“They had three other sons at one time, but one son died when a tractor flipped over on him, one was killed when he skied into a tree, and the third died when he jumped into the freezing cold Ohio River to save his best friend (the best friend survived but my uncle did not).”

“That initial anger she had felt turned to sadness, and now it had become something else, almost a dullness of sorts. Even though she was constantly in motion, it seemed as if nothing special ever happened to her anymore. Each day seemed exactly like the last, and she had trouble differentiating among them.”

“When we are sad - at least I am like this - it can be comforting to cling to familiar objects, to the things that don’t change.”

″‘For woman is yin,’ she cried sadly, ‘the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.‘”

“‘You’re a sad little hermit, and it creeps me out. So get dressed. We’re going bowling.’”

“The merchant began to call to mind his bond, and became very sad and thoughtful; so that care and sorrow were written upon his face.”

“I am sad for the dead and I am sad for the living”

“I’m afraid to hope but I can’t help it, and the idea of hoping in this most hopeless of all places makes me want to cry.”

“I looked at sky this morning and realized summer is almost gone which really made me sad because it doesn’t seem as though it’s been here at all.”

“In her less important moments she returned to America, met Stephen Blaine and married him—this almost entirely because she was a little bit weary, a little bit sad.”

“Beauty and love pass, I know… Oh. there’s sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses.”

“In my loneliness it comforts me to think that the world’s doors, however closed, are never truly locked to me.”

“Michael’s gift is that the Good Lord gave him the ability to forget. He’s mad at no one and doesn’t really care what happened. His story might be sad, but he’s not sad.”

“I hope you find someone who knows how to love you when you are sad.”

“You have to protect yourself from sadness. Sadness is very close to hate.”

“I close my eyes and let the darkness grow and spread until it morphs from a feeling of sadness into something worse: a memory, a flashback.”

“‘Well, I still don’t think it’s pathetic to cry over someone. It just means you care about them deeply and you’re sad.’”

“She asked me to make a copy of her key. I was happy for her. That she wouldn’t be alone anymore. It’s not that I felt sorry for myself. And yet. I made two copies. One I gave to her, and one I kept. For a long time I carried it in my pocket. To pretend.”

“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”

“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”

“One day, I watched the sun setting forty-four times......You know...when one is so terribly sad, one loves sunsets.”

“It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.”

“To forget a friend is sad. Not everyone has had a friend.”

“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me.

“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change.”

“Oftentimes. when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.”

“How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The antipathies, I think—”

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”

“I see the eight of us in the Annex as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds.”

“Just imagine what would happen if all eight of us were to feel sorry for ourselves or walk around with the discontent clearly visible on our faces. Where would that get us?”

“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

“You seem so sad, Eeyore.” “Sad? Why should I be sad? It’s my birthday. The happiest day of the year.”

“I’m telling you. People come and go in this Forest, and they say, ‘It’s only Eeyore, so it doesn’t count.’”

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”

“I have been one acquainted with the night.”

“Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.”

“He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself”

“Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.”

“The noble killed him then, with no warning; a flash of the nobleman’s sword and Domingo’s heart was torn to pieces.”

“What is it? What is it? . . . Am I dying, Bagheera?” “No, Little Brother. Those are only tears such as men use.”

“It was you who did it, Lily. You didn’t mean it, but it was you.”

“Sorrow never stays punishment. But remember, Bagheera, he is very little.”

″‘He’s not a human being,’ she retorted; ‘and he has no claim on my charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.‘”

“My heart is heavy with the things that I do not understand.”

“I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong.”

“On the beach, Roran stood alone, watching them go. Then he threw back his head and uttered a long, aching cry, and the night echoed with the sound of his loss.”

″‘It is required of every man,’ the Ghost returned, ‘that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!‘”

“Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl.

In the same courtyard two of the merry children were playing who had danced round the tree at Christmas, and had been so happy. The youngest saw the gilded star, and ran and pulled it off the tree. “Look what is sticking to the ugly old fir-tree,” said the child, treading on the branches till they crackled under his boots.

Toto did not really care whether he was in Kansas or the Land of Oz so long as Dorothy was with him; but he knew the little girl was unhappy, and that made him unhappy too.

“I am too old and sad to play.”

“I want a boat that will take me far away from here.”

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

“None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom or indifference over his inward joy.”

The sound of the distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves. It is only when we are very happy, that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating monotony, to the accompaniment of our thoughts, whether grave or gay. When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness, and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.

I bear the dungeon within me; within me is winter, ice, and despair; I have darkness in my soul.

“If you have a sorrow that you cannot tell to anyone, you can go to our Father in Heaven.”

“‘Mary Poppins,’ he cried, ‘you’ll never leave us, will you?‘”

And overpowered by memory both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely for man - killing Hector, throbbing, crouching before Achilles’ feet as Achilles wept himself, now for his father, now for Patroclus once again and their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house.

Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you.

“There was just something about her dying that I had understood but not really understood, if you know what I mean. I mean, you can know someone is dying on an intellectual level, but emotionally it hasn’t really hit you, and then when it does, that’s when you feel like shit.”

“I’m just trying to live my life, but it seems as if sadness always piles itself up around me. It’s in my bed, the toothbrush in my bathroom, and the memory of my cellphone.”

“He sketches you as the antagonist and suddenly his transgressions become deleted scenes. He blames you for his sadness. And this is how the wolf cries boy.”

“The soil of a man’s heart is stonier, he thought, and the wind sang its bitter black song, and not so many miles distant...”

“Louis himself felt a little like crying. A wild but not unattractive idea suddenly came to him...”

“The essence of the suicides consisted not of sadness or mystery but simple selfishness.”

“It would be hard to explain, but if you ever get there, come find me. Nothing would ever pull us apart.”

“I don’t cry, much.” “But how would you cry, if someone made you cry?” “I spit,” [Molly] said. “The ducts are routed back into my mouth.‘”

“It all ends in tears anyway.”

“Your Aunt Tessa might be a little sad when I’m gone. Do you think you could give her a lot of hugs for me?”

“Death is not sad; the sad thing is that most people don’t really live at all.”

“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”

“There can actually be richness in the sadness. If you experience joy without craving that the joy linger and intensify, you continue to feel joy without losing your peace of mind.”

“I lost their childhood. Sometimes, you feel bad.”

“And when you love someone, seeing them sad also makes you sad.”

“A thousand girls would sell their own mothers to be in your shoes, and yet here you are, miserable and sulking like a child. So tell me, girl. What is your sad little heart pining for?”

“Magic-everything was magic, and it broke my heart.”

“You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping.”

“Her sadness had melted away in the warmth of her surroundings.”

“She is so lost in her sadness that she has no idea how visible it is.”

″‘I’ll follow him to the ends of the earth,’ she sobbed. ‘Yes, darling. But the earth doesn’t have any ends. Columbus fixed that.‘”

“Losing Moms did break my heart, creating a void in the world where once her smile had been--the sight of which I will miss until the day I die. There was so much more to come that I still wanted to share with her, to make her happy.”

“Peter gave himself up for lost, and shed big tears.”

“Then indeed the little train was very, very sad, and the dolls and toys were ready to cry.”

“SAD DAD BAD HAD Dad is sad. Very, very sad. He had a bad day. What a day Dad had! ”

“Annemarie felt a surge of sadness; the bond of their friendship had not broken, but it was as if Ellen had moved now into a different world, the world of her own family and whatever lay ahead for them.”

..when the spoon is locked up in prison, the picture indicates he is sad because of his body posture (bending over and droopy) without the words having to.

‘Well she had no choice...Trixie bawled. She went boneless. She did everything she could to show how unhappy she was”.

“I will never forget that face as long as I live. Does everybody look that way when they have lost something? I don’t mean like losing a flashlight. I mean do people look like that when they have lost?”

“The thought of being alone on the island while so many suns rose and went slowly back into the sea filled my heart with loneliness. I had not felt so lonely before because I was sure that the ship would return as Matasaip had said it would. Now my hopes were dead. Now I was really alone. I could not eat much, nor could I sleep without dreaming terrible dreams.”

What is it that makes Australian YA so special – hilariously funny and sad at the same time – but just so wonderful and capturing? It’s not that I’ve read heaps of Australian books, but the tendency can’t be denied.

Especially the scenes concerning the Websters and the wedding were hilarious, I sometimes laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. On the other side, the scenes concerning the De Head family were sometimes very sad and their situation had an almost hopeless feel to it, especially near the end.

“The Old Lady is left alone. Sadly she wonders: ‘When shall I see my little Babar again?’ ”

“The familiar hated affliction--feeling awkward, foolish, inept, embarrassed-- surged through him, but for once he did not care and paid it no attention. The mouse dream fitted through his mind. Then he thought of Anne Frank and of his visit to her house--no, not her house, her museum--that morning. And now this and these tears. All somehow connected.”

“The things that break your heart when you think there’s nothing left to break.”

“How Hell could be a worse place than Huangling on that terrible night, she couldn’t imagine.”

“Babar is not quite happy, for he misses playing in the great forest with his little cousins and his friends, the monkeys. He often stands at the window, thinking sadly of his childhood, and cries when he remembers his mother.”

“And as the Baudelaires told Hector their long story, they began to feel as if the handyman was carrying more than their suitcases. They felt as if he was carrying each word they said, as if each unfortunate event was a burden that Hector was helping them with. The story of their lives was so miserable that I cannot say they felt happy when they were through telling it, but by the time Sunny concluded the whole long story, the Baudelaires felt as if they were carrying much less.”

Glenda writes with such gentleness, with intricate attention to the things that really matter, and captures wisps of beauty from the world and its inhabitants, weaves them into a warm tapestry and lays this on the page with such a feather touch. When I first read this book, I just sobbed and sobbed. The sadness is as beautiful as the happiness and hope.

“They just feel sorry for me, he thought.”

“Depressed” is a word that often describes somebody who is feeling sad and gloomy, but in this case it describes a secret button, hidden in a crow statue, that is feeling just fine, thank you.”

“That’s sort of a mean thing to do.”

“No one has ever sent me a letter. Every day my mailbox is empty. That is why waiting for the mail is a sad time for me.”

″‘My box is ruined,’ Crispin sobbed. ‘Now my friends won’t come over anymore.‘”

“Then out of the darkness, clearer and clearer, the sound of sobbing came nearer and nearer.”

“Poor Thidwick sank down, with a groan, to his knees. And then, then came something that made his heart freeze. Bullets came zinging right past Thidwick’s face!”

“Magpie draws her body into the shadow of the rocks, until she feels herself melting into blackness.”

“All my pals will go away. There’s nothing here to play with.”

“But still there was nothing.”

“The very though of never seeing the house on East 88th Street again was grim indeed and too much for him to endure. Signor Valenti read his thought and decided Lyle should have one last look at the house on East 88th Street.”

“She was very sad. The garden was dark. The house was dark too. Mog sat in the dark and thought dark thoughts. She thought, ‘Nobody likes me. They’ve all gone to bed. There’s no one to let me in. And they haven’t even given me my supper’. “

“She was glad to see her parents and they thought she would be happy to be home again. But they soon saw she was sad and missed the colt and the wild horses.”

“As she listened to his wailing, Mowzer felt a sudden strange sadness for him. How lonely he must be, she thought, endlessly hunting the men-mice in the deeps of darkness, and never returning to the rosy glow of a red-hot range. And her kind heart was moved to comfort him.”

“He had no brothers or sisters, and he was very sad and lonely at home.”

“The bakery is not far. Pastry, pastry, pastry, you can’t forget pastry! When Molly gets there, she hasn’t forgotten the pastry. But now there’s something else. The coin purse. It’s gone! Molly runs back to Grandma as fast as possible. How could this happen? She cries very quietly.”

“They sat down on the grass, and opened all their parcels. They had some lovely presents, but Katy did not seem pleased with them. ‘What’s up with Katy?’ asked Pat. ‘She’s wrong side out today,’ said Mrs. Pottage, ‘She’s lost Sarah-Ann’. “

“ ‘She’s sure to turn up somewhere,’ said Pat. ‘I’ll look out for her. You never know. I might spot Sarah-Ann on my travels. I’m good at finding things. Poor Katy – she does look sad. I’ll do my best. Don’t worry now! Cheerio!’ “

‘Instead, she stared at the blueness of the sea and the greenness of the tumbling nearby cliffs and wondered why beautiful. places like this could make you feel sad. At this moment she wished she could cancel out the whole beach with its tumbling vigorous surf and all the surrounding panorama that seemed to fill her longing.”

“Jesus on the cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it; he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the cross. Christ’s cross, embraced with love, never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved and of doing a little of what he did on the day of his death.”

“Grandma Poss looked miserable. ‘Don’t worry, Grandma,’ said Hush. ‘I don’t mind.’ But in her heart of hearts she did.”

“I’m moving. It is the worst thing ever.”

“I could have done a hundred things different, but it was too late now.”

“I learn two things before school even starts: One, I am definitely the only giraffe in this school. And two, flags make very good handkerchiefs.”

“The telltale sound of Verline’s rustling skirts arrived well before her. When she saw Rossamünd stricken within the chalk ring, she gave a startled cry.”

“Then they looked at their street with no children. Then they looked at Henry’s face.”

“Henry’s heart hurt and he cried for an hour.”

“I think you should know that I make up a lot of stuff in my head and then get sad about it. I like to sleep and I like to blog. I am going to die someday.”

“The sad group passed slowly out of sight; but as it disappeared there fell upon the ear the sounds of sweet music, lovelier far than she had heard before - lovelier than the magic cuckoo’s most lovely songs - and somehow in the music, it seemed to the child’s fancy there were mingled the soft strains of a woman’s voice.”

“The sad group passed slowly out of sight; but as it disappeared there fell upon the ear the sounds of sweet music, lovelier far than she had heard before - lovelier than the magic cuckoo’s most lovely songs - and somehow in the music, it seemed to the child’s fancy there were mingled the soft strains of a woman’s voice.”

“The hospitality of squatters is world-famed, but this breaks all previous records, Esther. Accept by all means - everyone of you. On their own heads be the results; but I’m afraid Yarrahappini will be a sadder and wiser place before the month is over.”

“Johnny lay with his eyes closed. Ma didn’t understand. Maybe she though he was lazy. Maybe she couldn’t feel the need that he had, the need to learn. He’d been to school for years now and he’d tried, he really had, but there were many children and no enough teachers; not enough books.”

“The Little House was very sad and lonely. Her paint was cracked and dirty... Her windows were broken and her shutters hung crookedly. She looked shabby...”

“When the Little House saw the green grass and the birds singing, she didn’t feel sad anymore.”

“He went like one that hath been stunn’d, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn.”

“He went like one that hath been stunn’d, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn.”

“Ben crouched beside the dying animal, aware that he could do nothing to save it now -that in a sense that he had done too much already.”

“He swam away in the deep wet world. He was scared, lonely and very sad.”

“The birds took no notice of him. They went on singing, in their thin, hungry voices. It was a long time since they had sung. Now they sang very low, and very sadly.”

“Harry gave up and walked slowly toward the gate...”

“Little blue and Little yellow were very sad. They cried big blue and yellow tears. They cried and cried until they were all tears”

“For as long as she can remember, ten-year-old Jenny has lived in an orphanage. And for as long as she can remember, she wanted parents. But when the day comes and Jenny finally gets a Sunday foster mother, she is bitterly disappointed.”

″‘I’ll do better, Mary. I swear I will.’ Mary didn’t answer. She just looked at Father. Her eyes were sad as Granny’s used to be. Nat knew what she was thinking. ‘You’ve lost your last anchor to windward.‘”

“Alfanhui knew about firewood. He knew which kinds of wood gave off sad flames and which gave off joyful flames, those that made strong, dark fires or those that made bright, dancing fires, those that left female embers to warm the dreams of cats or others that left male embers to bring repose to hunting dogs.”

“As everyone knows, if the first butterfly you see is yellow the summer will be a happy one. If it is white then you will just have a quiet summer. Black and brown butterflies should never be talked about- they are much too sad.”

“Oh, master, I don’t want to leave you! I’m a quiet little horse, I don’t want to be sold. I want to stay with you for ever and ever.”

“Tonight I can write the saddest lines I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.”

“Will there be a part in the Nativity play left for Wombat? Utterly universal. Readers will empathize with the Wombat’s sadness and ultimate joy.”

“I’ll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like the trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I’ll make a sound that’s so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and to all who hear it in the distant towns. I’ll make me a sound and an apparatus and they’ll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.”

“Perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols . . . perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.”

“The kitchen table is covered with food—my favorites, potato salad, lemon meringue pie, pork chops. If everyone wasn’t so sad-faced, I’d swear it was a party. I reach for a cornbread square and my hand passes through it. Weird, but it’s okay. I’m not hungry. I guess I’ll never be hungry again.”

“Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”