Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara KingsolverRead
There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the intense experience of grief that can overwhelm a person, making it hard to focus on anything else.
In this quote, Barbara Kingsolver describes a moment when grief becomes so powerful that it drowns out external sounds and thoughts. The 'roaring' signifies not just a physical sensation but also the psychological impact of emotional pain, illustrating how overwhelming sorrow can envelop an individual, making it difficult to engage with the world around them.
Themes
GriefLossEmotional PainOverwhelmSorrow
In practice
Example use cases
During a memorial service, sharing this quote can highlight the deep feelings of loss experienced by loved ones.
More from Barbara Kingsolver
All quotes βChildren can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
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I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
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I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don't move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
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Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
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Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.
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For I could not read or speak and on the long nights I could not turn the moon off or count the lights of cars across the ceiling.
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