Condolence Quotes

Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language

He blinked. His eyes fell as he processed her response. Then he lifted his chin and attempted a grin that was almost painfully dejected. "No, it's all right. I understand." Dr. Erland leaned back against his desk. "My sincerest condolences, Your Highness. In more ways than one, it seems.

Humans are very strange. When you need a hug, they throw you away, when you need condolence , they insult you, and when you need love, they betray you.

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience.

I am to be converted to the joys of knitting,' said Mrs. Ali, smiling at the Major. 'My condolences,' he said.

I, too, have felt that the war goes on and on. When my son, Ian, died at El Alamein-- side by side with... visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said, "Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and nexe year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.

We went to the door and I let Asha in. I expected an uberawkward moment when he and Vayl met. But Asha took care of that problem right away. "So you belong to Jasmine," he said in his melancholy voice. It somehow delivered Vayl his deepest condolences without bearing a trace of malice toward me.

A few even celebrate, because the Republic gives them one thousand Notes as a condolence gift. Money and one less mouth to feed? What a thoughtful government.

I back away from condolences. People are kind, people mean well, but knowing this does not make their words rankle less.

When Roshar saw her ripped, one-legged trousers and Arin at her side as they stood outside the prince’s tent, his eyes glinted with mirth and Kestrel felt quite sure that the prince was going to say it was about time Arin tore her clothes off. Then Roshar might comment coyly on Arin’s inability to reach a full conclusion (Only one trouser leg? she imagined Roshar saying. How lazy of you, Arin), or on the quaint quality of Arin’s modesty (What a little lamb you are). Perhaps he’d offer condolences to Kestrel on the partial death of her trousers. He’d ask whether she’d gotten injured on purpose.

Visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said "Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and next year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.

My experience with tragedy is that people will offer condolences and support but never be around when you want to collect.

Philosophers should be offered condolences rather than encouragement.

The ladies, who had condoled so thoroughly with her during her time of grief, found it rather more difficult to participate in her happiness, which takes a true and proper friend indeed.

Without the letters of condolence, telegrams of congratulations, and occasional postcards, the friendship of a separated friend is not a social reality. It has no existence without the rites of friendship. Social rituals create a reality which would be nothing without them. It is not too much to say that ritual is more to society than words are to thought. For it is very possible to know something and then find words for it. But it is impossible to have social relations without symbolic acts.

Nurse: "You look like a pharmaceutical rep. you can leave samples in the closet." Joe: "I'm actually a lawyer." Nurse: "My condolences.

If you have lived your life in such a way that no one has ever found you obnoxious then you have my condolences for you have never really lived.

He had crossed the room with no notion what he might say or do - he had no knowledge of the language of condolence, no skill at social small talk; his metier was business and politics. And yet, when his hostess had introduced them and left, he found himself still holding the hand he had kissed, looking into soft brown eyes that drowned his soul. And without further thought or hesitation had said, 'God help me, I am in love with you.

No.” The smile had left Sarah’s voice. “He still works for the Basij. Beware of weak men, little sister. He never returned to help, not even to express condolences for Father. Find a strong man. Get a man who will stand up for you, even if it means he has to fight the whole world. There is nothing more dangerous than a weak man.

What were you supposed to do, talking to a hologram of a dead man, when a younger version of that man was still alive? Should you offer condolences? Jordan decided that really wasn't necessary.

Why did everyone send casseroles in times of crisis? Why didn't anyone ever send brownies and Jack Daniel's?

Do not go to my grave. Mary knows, I am not there. Look for me in between pages and on people’s lips. Do not go to my old school. Do not go to my old house — I am not in any of those places. Look for me in your hearts and greet me there.

My condolences I'll shed a tear with your family I'll open a bottle up, pour a little bit out in your memory I'll be at the wake dressed in all black I'll call out your name, but you won't call back I'll hand a flower to your mother when I say goodbye Cause baby you're dead to me I need to kill you That's the only way to get you out of my head Oh I need to kill you To silence all the sweet little things you said I really want to kill you Wipe you off the face of my earth And bury your bracelet Bury your bracelet Six feet under the dirt

Zhuangzi's wife died. When Huizu went to convey his condolences, he found Zhuangzi sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing. "You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old," said Huizu. "It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing - this is going too far, isn't it?" Zhuangzi said, "You're wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn't grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there's been another change and she's dead. It's just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter. "Now she's going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don't understand anything about fate. So I stopped.

On the way out, I give the man with the broken arm my condolences and say that I hope that he recovers quickly and painlessly. His smile makes me glad to have said it.

My condolences, you're still alive.

Father, R.I.P., Sums Me Up at Twenty-Three She has no head for politics, craves good jewelry, trusts too readily, marries too early. Then one by one she sends away her friends and stands apart, smug sapphire, her answer to everything a slender zero, a silent shrug--and every day still hears me say she'll never be pretty. Instead she reads novels, instead her belt matches her shoes. She is master of the condolence letter, and knows how to please a man with her mouth: Good. Nose too large, eyes too closely set, hair not glorious blonde, not her mother's red, nor the glossy black her younger sister has, the little raven I loved best.

I'd always understood that the past did not die just because we wanted it to. The past signed to us: clicks and cracks in the night, misspelled words, the jargon of adverts, the bodies that attracted us or did not, the sounds that reminded us of this or that. The past was not a thread trailing behind us but an anchor. That was why I looked for you all these years, Sarah. Not for answers, condolences; not to ply you with guilt or set you up for a fall. But because – a long time ago – you were my mother and you left.

May this be your final sorrow.

She was an expert in the exact amount of condolence which would be acceptable.

By the time the Spanish flu had completed its cycle, there was nobody in Linares who had not lost someone, so there was no one to ease the sorrow of others with their condolences.

I am thinking of having a T-shirt printed: Yes my husband died. Yes I am very sad. Yes you are kind to offer condolences. Now can we change the subject?

I hear congratulations are in order, Father, on your nuptials,” he says with a grim smile before turning his attention to Cress. “And you, Lady Crescentia, have my deepest condolences.

Before I lost my father, I never understood the rituals surrounding funerals: the wake, the service itself, the reception afterward,the dinners prepared by well-meaning friends and delivered in plastic containers, even the popular habit of making poster boards filled with photos of the dear departed. But now I know why we do those things. It's busywork, all of it. I had so much to take care of, so many arrangements to make, so many people to inform, I didn't have a moment to be engulfed by the ocean of grief that was lapping at my heels. Instead, I waded through the shallows, performing task after task, grateful to have duties to propel me forward.

It felt so weird, to be on the other side, where you were the one expected to offer condolences, not receive them. I wanted my "sorry" to sound genuine, because it was. That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted to say.

I must console him for the distance we have moved from the place where he stopped.

There were friends all over London who would welcome his eagerly to their homes, who would throw open their guest rooms and their fridges, eager to condole and to help. The price of all of those comfortable beds and home-cooked meals, however, would be to sit at kitchen tables, once the clean-pajamaed children were in bed, and relive the filthy final battle with Charlotte, submitting to the outraged sympathy and pity of his friends' girlfriends and wives. To this he preferred grim solitude, a Pot Noodle and a sleeping bag.

Here is Abraham Lincoln’s touching condolence letter to 22-year-old Fanny McCullough, the daughter of a long-time friend: “Dear Fanny It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before. Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother. Your sincere friend, A. Lincoln

Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language.

The grocer told him that he participated in his sorrow, the Hebrew way of expressing condolence.

Is he your only child? I asked, "my only son" padma said. "My condolences" I said....Anita Blake

Consider, too, that a man lifting his head from the very funeral pyre must need some novel vocabulary not drawn from ordinary everyday condolence to comfort his own dear ones.

if there exists a way to respond to condolences that does not feel like ripping open the stitches of a wound with one’s teeth, I have not yet found it.

A bunch of writers in a room requires a collective noun that the English language doesn’t have. A condolence, perhaps. A sympathy. It’s a war hospital for the written word.

condolences; a few of them pat Hannah on the head, as if she’s

The sooner we associate long hours and multitasking with incompetence and carelessness the better. The next time you hear boasts of executives pulling an all-nighter or holding conference calls in their cars, be sure to offer your condolences; it's grim being stuck in sweatshops run by managers too ignorant to understand productivity and risk. Working people like this is as smart as running your factory without maintenance. In manufacturing and engineering businesses, everyone learns that the top priority is asset integrity: protecting the machinery on which the business depends. In knowledge-based economies, that machinery is the mind.

Well-meaning friends ' often the worst kind ' handed me the usual clich+!s, and so I feel in a pretty good position to warn you: Just offer your deepest condolences. Don't tell me I'm young. Don't tell me it'll get better. Don't tell me she's in a better place. Don't tell me it's part of some divine plan. Don't tell me that I was lucky to have known such a love. Every one of those platitudes pissed me off. They made me ' and this is going to sound uncharitable ' stare at the idiot and wonder why he or she still breathed while my Elizabeth rotted.

MY FIVE DOS FOR GETTING BACK INTO THE GAME: 1. Do expect defeat. It’s a given when the stakes are high and the competition is working ferociously to beat you. If you’re surprised when it happens, you’re dreaming; dreamers don’t last long. 2. Do force yourself to stop looking backward and dwelling on the professional “train wreck” you have just been in. It’s mental quicksand. 3. Do allow yourself appropriate recovery—grieving—time. You’ve been knocked senseless; give yourself a little time to recuperate. A keyword here is “little.” Don’t let it drag on. 4. Do tell yourself, “I am going to stand and fight again,” with the knowledge that often when things are at their worst you’re closer than you can imagine to success. Our Super Bowl victory arrived less than sixteen months after my “train wreck” in Miami. 5. Do begin planning for your next serious encounter. The smallest steps—plans—move you forward on the road to recovery. Focus on the fix. MY FIVE DON’TS: 1. Don’t ask, “Why me?” 2. Don’t expect sympathy. 3. Don’t bellyache. 4. Don’t keep accepting condolences. 5. Don’t blame others.

leaves the condolences piled on the dining-room table until they begin to overflow into the lounge. She does not want to deal with them, but she cannot bring herself to toss them away unread

We are all Everlasting.....as my thoughts drift of my loved one passing....I am reminded and softly touched by Wings of Love and a peacefull understanding..... I am comforted and my Heart is Warming

Wining and dining instead of crying and wailing at a funeral in sympathy with the bereaved is a mockery of condolence. If the dead are capable of anything, they will zip up the mouth of everyone in attendance except those crying and condoling.

It seemed as if the valley were not always girded by woods, growing on the surrounding hills and facing away from the horizon, but the trees had only taken up their places now, rising out of the ground to offer their condolences. He almost waved away the tangible beauty of the hour like a crowd of persistent friends, almost said to the lingering afterglow, 'thank you, thank you, I'll be all right.'

It was in the Depot Tavern that he received condolences, accepted funerary offers of drink, and, when these recognitions were exhausted, he sank into the habit of talking familiarly about persons and places unknown to his cronies, so that several of them suspected him of reading.

Freeze or reheat. Thinking of you. I still don’t know who it’s from. Many of the condolence cards that arrived after my parents’ deaths came with stories of the cars they’d sold over the years. Keys handed to over-confident teens and over-anxious parents. Two-seater sports cars traded for family-friendly estates. Cars to celebrate promotions, big birthdays, retirements. My parents played a part in many different stories.

Hayden, as the first girl to take pity on my brother, let me offer my condolences. Suggestion? You might want to kick the tires and check the motor before you take him for a test drive. Number four. Just saying. All our parents’ good DNA went to us first. He got the leftover scraps.

only to be sent tealess to bed seemed infinite mercy to him. Officially tealess, that is; for, as was usual after such escapades, a sympathetic housemaid, coming delicately by backstairs, stayed him with chunks of cold pudding and condolence, till his small skin was tight as any drum.

What we have waited for too long, or possessed only in secret, or had for too short a while: how hard it is to walk through our days with a loss not apparent. To have survived endings that had no ceremony and called forth no condolences. That were bereft even of a grave or death certificate. Sadness without sign or symbol.

Arpien didn't like tears. On the few occasions he'd tried to ease a maiden's tears, she inexplicably started producing more. How to fix this? He assumed the Sixth Stance of Deep Mourning and flourished the Bow of Esteemed Members of Foreign Nation States. "My condolences on the loss of your-" "Pickle?" She offered him one from the clay crock.

A blanket could be used to express my condolences. I’m sorry to have to tell you I’m sorry, but that’s life, you know?


Cats know that a warm body is more comforting than a thousand condolences.

Success is always less awkward. It does not make claims upon pity or tact: congratulations are easier to give than condolences.

Dictating condolences to the mother of a murdered husband whom you’ve been busily cuckolding for the last three years would take more than his limited social vocabulary.

My sincerest condolences, Your Highness. In more ways than one, it seems.

So sorry for your loss," Grandma said to Monica. "My condolences." "Yeah, whatever," Monica said. Grandma leaned into the casket for a close look. "What are you gonna do, kiss him?" Monica asked. "I was trying to see where they cut him up when they took his brain out," Grandma said. Monica sucked in some fake smoke. "You'd have to unzip his pants for that one.

Send letters,” Annie said one morning as she sat reading through a huge pile of cards and letters from people offering their condolences. “I used to always worry when I heard something bad had happened to someone that writing would be an intrusion. It’s never an intrusion, it always helps. If there’s one thing we can learn from this, it’s to always just send the letter.

It wasn't until Daddy was buried, when the house was at last empty of people who came full of condolences and left full of sandwiches, apple tart, tea and drink that Mother at last came to a dead stop.

Destiny comes suddenly, bringing concern; she stares at you with horrible eyes and clutches you at the throat with sharp fingers and hurls you to the ground and tramples upon you with ironclad feet; then she laughs and walks away, but later regrets her actions and asks you through good fortune to forgive her. She stretches her silky hand and lifts you high and sings to you the Song of Hope and causes you to lose your cares. She creates in you a new zest for confidence and ambition. If your lot in life is a beautiful bird that you love dearly, you gladly feed to him the seeds of your inner self, and make your heart his cage and your soul his nest. But while you are affectionately admiring him and looking upon him with the eyes of love, he escapes from your hands and flies very high; then he descends and enters into another cage and never comes back to you. What can you do? Where can you find patience and condolence? How can you revive your hopes and dreams? What power can still your turbulent heart?

The sharpest image I hold from that day are the shiny nailheads in the wood, where someone overdone the hammering to shut the wood-slat crate they sent my brother home in. A note came attached, stiff with condolences from Mr. Mercer, the Estelle Mining owner. Other scrawled words said the company believed they’d recovered most of my brother from the explosion but warned us not to open the lid and check.

Hey, who are you calling easy?" I say, clearing my throat. "I was just thinking how I haven't had sex in over a year. Is that the mark of a loose woman?" He looks at me, eyes wide. "God, that is a long time." "Yep, it is." I nod. "A personal record. Before that my longest dry spell was seven months. Definitely more tolerable, although I don't recommend it." He whistles. "I'm at six now, and I may have watched all the porn on the entire Internet. My condolences to your vagina." "My vagina thanks you." Yeah, that's a thing to say. My vagina wishes she could thank him. He smiles at me sweetly. "Did it like the wreath I sent?

The Japanese painter Ryuzaburo Umehara left a will saying that there was no need for a funeral and that condolence offerings were not to be accepted. He wrote that the living should not be troubled for the sake of the deceased.

It also occurred to him that perhaps this only meant that the less he saw of people, the more kindly he felt toward them, and that this might explain his current mild exasperation with his many condolence-offering acquaintances.

When I asked the Reb, Why do bad things happen to good people?, he gave none of the standard answers. He quietly said, “No one knows.” I admired that. But when I asked if that ever shook his belief in God, he was firm. “I cannot waver,” he said. Well, you could, if you didn’t believe in something all-powerful. “An atheist,” he said. Yes. “And then I could explain why my prayers were not answered.” Right. He studied me carefully. He drew in his breath. “I had a doctor once who was an atheist. Did I ever tell you about him?” No. “This doctor, he liked to jab me and my beliefs. He used to schedule my appointments deliberately on Saturdays, so I would have to call the receptionist and explain why, because of my religion, that wouldn’t work.” Nice guy, I said. “Anyhow, one day, I read in the paper that his brother had died. So I made a condolence call.” After the way he treated you? “In this job,” the Reb said, “you don’t retaliate.” I laughed. “So I go to his house, and he sees me. I can tell he is upset. I tell him I am sorry for his loss. And he says, with an angry face, ‘I envy you.’ “‘Why do you envy me?’ I said. “‘Because when you lose someone you love, you can curse God. You can yell. You can blame him. You can demand to know why. But I don’t believe in God. I’m a doctor! And I couldn’t help my brother!’ “He was near tears. ‘Who do I blame?’ he kept asking me. ‘There is no God. I can only blame myself.’” The Reb’s face tightened, as if in pain. “That,” he said, softly, “is a terrible self-indictment.” Worse than an unanswered prayer? “Oh yes. It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.

He crossed his arms over the chair back and smirked his disapproval at Brother Fowles. “Sir, I offer you my condolences. Personally I’ve never been troubled by any such difficulties with interpreting God’s word.” “Indeed, I see that,” Brother Fowles said.

Hercules expressed no wonder at any point of the recital, but when he heard of Medea’s infatuation for Jason he sighed and remarked with unusual mildness, ”The poor girl, I pity her! Echion, my friend, I have a message for you to deliver, and here is my silver cup in payment. Tell the Princess I condole with her, no less heartily than I condoled with Queen Hypsipyle of Lemnos. Tell her that Jason will treat her no less faithlessly than he treated Hypsipyle, though for his sake she has cut herself off from her own house and people and become an accessory to parricide and fratricide. Assure her that when he deserts her, whether it be this year or next year or in twelve years’ time, she can steadfastly count upon Hercules of Tiryns to avenge her or comfort her.

My condolences for your loss,” he said. “My congratulations for your gain.” Devon frowned. “I assure you, I never wanted your husband’s title.” “It’s true,” West said. “He complained about it all the way from London.” Devon sent his brother a damning glance.

Dear Mr. Weston, Hello again. We were beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I guess things have been pretty quiet since the Salvation Army tried to take over the world. We are sorry, but after much deliberation we have elected not to assign any men to Protect Trillium Air Base. We feel that the Forces can protect themselves, and if they can't, who is going to protect the country? Also, thank you for sending us that shard of broken glass with the fingerprint on it. It was yours. Our mail clerk required four stitches and a tetanus shot. Relay our condolences to your Mr. Waghorn. We have no idea what unfortunate circumstance (for him) drew him to your ever-watchful attention, but he has no criminal record and his face is not known to us. Yours Sincerely, Bruce Hmmm, thought Sidney, Waghorn has no criminal record. "Let me see one of those," said Tom. "I'm sorry, Tom, but I can't show you the letters." Tom muttered something about a lack of trust. He was extremely alarmed at the intensity of Sidney's expression. As Sidney himself would have put it, the investigation was progressing. That meant trouble. There was always trouble when his brother got to the letter-writing stage. Tom would have to stay on his toes. Sidney opened the last letter. Dear Mr. Weston, Please stop bothering us. Cordially yours, The Ontario Provincial Police.

As the person who is principally interested in any event is pleased with our sympathy, and hurt by the want of it, so we, too, seem to be pleased when we are able to sympathize with him, and to be hurt when we are unable to do so. We run not only to congratulate the successful, but to condole with the afflicted; and the pleasure which we find in the conversation of one whom in all the passions of his heart we can entirely sympathize with, seems to do more than compensate the painfulness of that sorrow with which the view of his situation affects us. On the contrary, it is always disagreeable to feel that we cannot sympathize with him, and instead of being pleased with this exemption from sympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his uneasiness. If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes, which, however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we feel, can produce no such violent effect upon us, we are shocked at his grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it pusillanimity and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other hand, to see another too happy or too much elevated, as we call it, with any little piece of good fortune. We are disobliged even with his joy; and, because we cannot go along with it, call it levity and folly. We are even put out of humour if our companion laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves; that is, than we feel that we ourselves could laugh at it.

In the beginning, adults operating somewhere between concern and nosiness had asked questions about the war, and I spoke truthfully about the things I'd seen. But my descriptions were often met with an uncomfortable shining of eyes, as if they were waiting for me to take things back, to say that war or genocide was actually no big deal. They'd offer their condolences, as they'd been taught, then wade through a polite amount of time before presenting an excuse to end the conversation. Their musings about how and why people stayed in a country under such terrible conditions were what I hated most. I knew it was ignorance, not insight that prompted these questions. They asked because they hadn't smelled the air raid smoke or the scent of signed flesh on their own balconies; they couldn't fathom that such a dangerous place could still harbor all the feelings of home.

I hear the doctor give his condolences to James and promise if a liver becomes available from a donor match that he's first on the list. Shivers of grief rip trough every nerve ending as I lean over to pray. It's probably a cardinal sin to wish someone else would die but I'm not capable of caring.

Nathaniel's trying to get hold of it right now. All very well, but could he use—Wait a minute! The radiant features of the boy contorted, slipped out of true, as if the condoling intelligence had drawn back in shock; an instant later they were as perfect as before. Let's get this straight. He told you his name? Yes. Now— I like that . . . I like that! He's been giving me gyp for years, simply because I could have spilled the beans, and now he's telling any old broad he meets, free of charge! Who else knows? Faquarl? Nouda? Did he deck his name out in neon lights and parade it round the town? I ask you! And I never told anyone! You let it slip last time I summoned you. Well, apart from that. But you could have told his enemies, couldn't you, Bartimaeus? You'd have found a way to harm him if you'd really wished it. And Nathaniel knows that too, I think. I had a talk with him.

Where sorrows are undeserved, tears of joy are undeterred.

A hundred hands wanted shaking, a hundred tongues expressed their condolences. Thank you, said William, and Kind of you, endlessly. Between his uncle and the helpfulness of the Misses Young and all these other people, William was never alone, not for an hour, except to sleep. He went to bed with the distant, certain expectation that overnight the world would put itself right. He slept for long hours: endless, dreamless sleep, which did not refresh, and when he woke the world bewildered him by persisting in its wayward course. He felt weighted down and dreary. A fog settled between him and his own thoughts, and behind it, unformulated, unexamined, was this: How long before things go back to normal? His mother was dead: he had seen the body; yet this knowledge refused to find a settled place in his mind. It came and went, surprised him every time he chanced upon it, and there were a million reasons not to believe it. His mother was dead, but look: here were her clothes and here her tea cups, here her Sunday hat on the shelf over the coat hook. His mother was dead, but hark: the garden gate! Any moment now she would come through the door.

Hercules expressed no wonder at any point of the recital, but when he heard of Medea’s infatuation for Jason he sighed and remarked with unusual mildness, ”The poor girl, I pity her! Echion, my friend, I have a message for you to deliver, and here is my silver cup in payment. Tell the Princess I condole with her, no less heartily than I condoled with Queen Hypsipyle of Lemnos. Tell her that Jason will treat her no less faithlessly than he treated Hypsipyle, though for his sake she has cut herself off from her own house and people and become a come an accessory to parricide and fratricide. Assure her that when he deserts her, whether it be this year or next year or in twelve years’ time, she can steadfastly count upon Hercules of Tiryns to avenge her or comfort her.

Fifty bucks for that one." Her nose crinkles in distaste. "That doesn't look worth more than a dollar." "It's an antique." "It looks better suited to host a bonfire," she retorts without hesitation. I'm full-on smiling like a fucking fool. "It probably is, but be careful, my employee might hear you. That's his pride and joy." She raises a brow. "My condolences to his wounded ego." Damn. I think I love her.

With the possible exception of the higher reaches of pure mathematics or theoretical physics, one can scarcely imagine anything more inhuman than philosophy. Its worship of logic in all its cold, crystalline purity; its determination to stride the bleak and icy mountaintops of theory and abstraction: to be a philosopher is to be existentially deracinated. Philosophers should be offered condolences rather than encouragement.

The tsar twice went to visit Stolypin again, but on both occasions Stolypin’s wife Olga, blaming him for the attack, refused to allow Nicholas to see him.45 On 5 September Stolypin died of sepsis and Olga Stolypina declined to accept the tsar’s condolences. With martial law declared in Kiev and 30,000 troops on alert, fears spread of an anti-Jewish pogrom in retaliation, prompting many of the Jewish residents to flee the city.

In a world without sky, land becomes an abyss. And the poem, one of condolence's gifts. And an adjective of wind: northern or southern. Don't describe what the camera sees of your wounds and scream to hear yourself, to know that you're still alive, and that life on this earth is possible. Invent a wish for speech, devise a direction or a mirage to prolong the hope, and sing. Aesthetic is a freedom. I said: A life that is defined only in antithesis to death . . . isn't a life!

No,” he said after a pause, “the true art of the gods is the comic. The comic is a condescension of the divine to the world of man; it is the sublime vision, which cannot be studied, but must ever be celestially granted. In the comic the gods see their own being reflected as in a mirror, and while the tragic poet is bound by strict laws, they will allow the comic artist a freedom as unlimited as their own. They do not even withhold their own existence from his sports. Jove may favor Lucianos of Samosata. As long as your mockery is in true godly taste you may mock at the gods and still remain a sound devotee. But in pitying, or condoling with your god, you deny and annihilate him, and such is the most horrible of atheisms.

Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation – "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?" Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions. Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade – that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs – I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen. But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen." It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

And what about your brother, Agus? Will he be entertaining us with his pipes?” “Agg,” Shanks rasped, wrinkling his nose. “I didn’t tell you? He ain’t with us no more.” A heavy fist slammed on the arm of the Viidun’s chair as he growled, “The idiot went off and got himself killed!” “What?” Derian and Eena replied in unison, both horrified by the news. “You heard me!” Shanks bellowed. “The crazy fool should’ve known when to duck. He died in a bloody challenge with some brainless Deramptium! A downright disgraceful way to die! I’m ashamed to say he was my brother!” “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” Eena muttered, mostly speaking to Derian. “What was that?” the Viidun demanded. Derian whispered a hush to Eena. Addressing Shanks, he expressed their condolences. “We are truly sorry for your loss. Your brother will be sorely missed. On the other hand, we look forward to welcoming you and your crew aboard the Kemeniroc.” Derian held up his right hand, extending his thumb and two adjoining fingers. “Strength, truth, and honor, friend,” he said, ending their conversation. “Strength, truth, and honor,” Shanks repeated. The screen went black. The captain turned to Eena who was still in shock. “You have to understand,” he explained, “the Viiduns are a fiercely competitive people with proud, warring ways. Their culture doesn’t call for much sympathy, especially when it appears one of their own has failed to live up to expectations.” Eena was still disturbed by the lack of compassion. “But that was his brother.” “I know. I can hardly believe it myself. Shanks and Agus were very close. They traveled everywhere together. All I can figure is it’s easier for Shanks to express his anger than his anguish.” “After all that, I’m not sure I want to meet him in person. He scares me,” she admitted. Derian laughed. “He scares everyone. That’s why you want to keep him as an ally and not make him an enemy.

My Ren & Stimpy reference wasn’t all that funny when written in the center of someone’s CONDOLENCE CARD. “Fucking Leslie,” I spat. “She threw a bunch of cards on my desk and said they were birthday cards.” Dean proceeded to lose his shit, his cackling laughs echoing inside my office. I glared at him. “It’s not that funny.” “Oh, hell yes it is. You referenced Ren & Stimpy on a sympathy card,” he wheezed. Seriously, fuck you, Leslie. Fuck you, hard. I was convinced I could blame her for everything wrong in my life. Lost my keys? Goddammit, Leslie! Missed the subway? Fuck you very much, Leslie. Another awful dick pic sent to my phone? You’re such an asshole, Leslie.

we live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. the martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. by its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. we can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. from family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. most island universes are sufficiently like one another to permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or “feeling into”. thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, we can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly pickwickian sense) in their places. but in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. the mind is its own place, and the places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. words to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of existence.

native nostalgia, a prelude to the now when will we ever feel safe in the Mother City’s nest? Neng? Nini? i long for a time when harmony between humans and nature was not a utopian dream scattered by the patter of raindrops that threaten rooftops. the rain that is no longer euphony or lullaby to hush you to slumber. a storm is fast approaching, stay on higher ground, dig up trenches and unclog the drains wailing voices choking within the Mother City echo code red, declare this a national emergency belligerent tempest(s) warn of a time to come, a treaty between the mortals and the natural environment is needed! displaced, confused, we’ve become strangers to the Mother City are you going to listen to the wind, or are you going to wait for floating lilies to deliver seeds of condolences?

Ningependa kujitokeza leo kutoa salamu zangu za rambirambi kwa Watu wa Musoma; kutokana na ajali mbaya ya mabasi ya J4 Express, Mwanza Coach, na gari ndogo aina Nissan Terrano, iliyotokea Ijumaa tarehe 5/9/2014 katika eneo la Sabasaba mjini Musoma. Kulingana na vyombo vya habari, watu 39 wamefariki dunia. Wengine wengi wamejeruhiwa vibaya. Mali za mamilioni ya fedha zimeteketea kabisa. Hii ni ajali mbaya na ya kusikitisha mno kwa maana halisi ya maneno mabaya na ya kusikitisha. Maneno hayataweza kuelezea kikamilifu huzuni niliyonayo juu ya ajali hii ya kutisha, lakini Mungu awasaidie wale wote waliofiwa au walioguswa na ajali hiyo kwa namna yoyote ile, na awasamehe marehemu wote dhambi zao na awapumzishe mahali pema peponi. Wale wote waliofariki hawataweza kurudi huku, lakini sisi tutakwenda huko.

An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, “Jenny! Jenny!” The mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the woman’s neck. She also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. She had no kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when she condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no beauty. I say condoled, but her only words were “Jenny! Jenny!” All the rest was in the tone in which she said them. I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God.

During the course of our conversation we started discussing internet lingo and acronyms. Billy made an off handed remark about LOL meaning “laugh out loud.” Debbie said, “You’re not serious are you?” We all looked at her wondering where this was going. “Of course he’s serious. LOL means laugh out loud.” I said. I watched in surprise as the blood drained from her face, and she became white as a sheet. I could tell by the expression on her face that her mind was racing. I didn’t know what was going on, but her distress was almost palpable. You could hear a pin drop as we all waited for her next words. “I thought it meant “lots of love.” Her pale skin and panic were the result of thinking back over all the occasions she improperly used LOL. The implications were staggering. Imagine that a good friend’s mother dies and you offer condolences on Face Book, “I’m so sorry for your loss. LOL.” Or, “I was so saddened to learn you have cancer. LOL.” We laughed for hours!

How old am I? Over thirty, indeed? What cream do I use on my face? How many children do I have? Really—none? They offer condolences and smack their lips over my bad luck. My husband’s family must be very upset—I am married, of course? No? Again, they offer their regrets: a great shame that nobody wanted me. They understand—it is known to happen to some girls. Usually the very ugly or poor ones. Their concern extends to my parents: They must be unhappy, ashamed even, to have an old, unmarried daughter. And the relatives, horribly embarrassed, certainly? By now, I try to insist it may not be a complete disaster to be unmarried, but Setareh feels the need to intervene and freestyle the translation a little. She explains to the girls that, in her personal view, it is indeed a little tragic for my family. That concession renders sympathetic faces all around.When Sakina steps out of the room, questions become juicier: In the West, do I walk around almost naked in the streets? And have I “had relations” with a thousand men?

When Roshar saw her ripped, one-legged trousers and Arin at her side as they stood outside the prince’s tent, his eyes glinted with mirth and Kestrel felt quite sure that the prince was going to say it was about time Arin tore her clothes off. Then Roshar might comment coyly on Arin’s inability to reach a full conclusion (Only one trouser leg? she imagined Roshar saying. How lazy of you, Arin), or on the quaint quality of Arin’s modesty (What a little lamb you are). Perhaps he’d offer condolences to Kestrel on the partial death of her trousers. He’d ask whether she’d gotten injured on purpose. Kestrel flushed. “Things at the scout station didn’t go according to plan,” she said, stating the obvious in order to shunt the conversation to where it should be. Not, absolutely not, about what had happened or didn’t happen in Arin’s tent. “She’s wounded,” said Arin--who, although he didn’t look it, must have also been flustered if he, too, felt he had to state the obvious. “Barely,” Roshar said. “A mere scratch, or she wouldn’t be standing.” “You could offer her a seat,” Arin said. “Ah, but I have only two chairs in my tent, little Herrani, and we are three. I suppose she could always sit on your lap.” Arin shot him a look of deep annoyance and pushed inside the tent. “But I could have said something so much worse,” Roshar protested. “Say nothing at all,” Kestrel told him. “That would be very unlike me.

He stared at it in utter disbelief while his secretary, Peters, who’d only been with him for a fortnight, muttered a silent prayer of gratitude for the break and continued scribbling as fast as he could, trying futilely to catch up with his employer’s dictation. “This,” said Ian curtly, “was sent to me either by mistake or as a joke. In either case, it’s in excruciatingly bad taste.” A memory of Elizabeth Cameron flickered across Ian’s mind-a mercenary, shallow litter flirt with a face and body that had drugged his mind. She’d been betrothed to a viscount when he’d met her. Obviously she hadn’t married her viscount-no doubt she’d jilted him in favor of someone with even better prospects. The English nobility, as he well knew, married only for prestige and money, then looked elsewhere for sexual fulfillment. Evidently Elizabeth Cameron’s relatives were putting her back on the marriage block. If so, they must be damned eager to unload her if they were willing to forsake a title for Ian’s money…That line of conjecture seemed so unlikely that Ian dismissed it. This note was obviously a stupid prank, perpetrated, no doubt, by someone who remembered the gossip that had exploded over that weekend house party-someone who thought he’d find the note amusing. Completely dismissing the prankster and Elizabeth Cameron from his mind, Ian glanced at his harassed secretary who was frantically scribbling away. “No reply is necessary,” he said. As he spoke he flipped the message across his desk toward his secretary, but the white parchment slid across the polished oak and floated to the floor. Peters made an awkward dive to catch it, but as he lurched sideways all the other correspondence that went with his dictation slid off his lap onto the floor. “I-I’m sorry, sir,” he stammered, leaping up and trying to collect the dozens of pieces of paper he’d scattered on the carpet. “Extremely sorry, Mr. Thornton,” he added, frantically snatching up contracts, invitations and letters and shoving them into a disorderly pile. His employer appeared not to hear him. He was already rapping out more instructions and passing the corresponding invitations and letters across the desk. “Decline the first three, accept the fourth, decline the fifth. Send my condolences on this one. On this one, explain that I’m going to be in Scotland, and send an invitation to join me there, along with directions to the cottage.” Clutching the papers to his chest, Peters poked his face up on the opposite side of the desk. “Yes, Mr. Thornton!” he said, trying to sound confident. But it was hard to be confident when one was on one’s knees. Harder still when one wasn’t entirely certain which instructions of the morning went with which invitation or piece of correspondence. Ian Thornton spent the rest of the afternoon closeted with Peters, heaping more dictation on the inundated clerk. He spent the evening with the Earl of Melbourne, his future father-in-law, discussing the earl’s daughter and himself. Peters spent part of his evening trying to learn from the butler which invitations his employer was likely to accept or reject.

There comes a point in one's life where the people whom we grew up admiring begin to die, leaving a great chasm in the world. This is awful enough to deal with without having anything so annoying as feelings getting in the way of personal equanimity. And then, possibly even more horribly, there comes a time in one's life when the people whom we grew up with or the people who are in our same age group begin to die. I have had the disagreeable business of having to watch colleagues only a few years my senior perish without warning, though premonition would not soften the blow. I am now realizing that I am entering this time, the dreadful gateway of existence, the one that leads to watching the ebb and flow of time, the great rote and sussuration of life and death, and being able to do nothing but welter in misery and pine over the dregs of hideous mortality. Death is an unaccountable business, one that robs the living of the peace we believe to be --perhaps mistakenly-- our birthright, one which asks the living to pay for the departed in the currency of feelings, leaving us to wallow in emotional debt. There is a loneliness about behind left behind as is there a thrill of horror for what lies beyond. The sum total of living is to sacrifice peace in favour of finding it, which makes little sense at all. I often wonder if the dead know we grieve for them, as the penury of pity only disconcerts ourselves. It is poor comfort, the business of mourning, for what is there really to mourn about excepting our own desire for reconciliation, something which no one, not even the dead, can furnish?