Richard Exley Quotes

Don’t let anyone make you feel guilty because you are still grieving. Grief is a slow process and often takes as long as two years to complete its healing work. That doesn’t mean that you will always hurt this badly, but it does mean that you should give yourself permission to take as much time as you need to work through your loss.

Author and conference speaker Richard Exley explained his idea of friendship this way: “A true friend is one who hears and understands when you share your deepest feelings. He supports you when you are struggling; he corrects you, gently and with love, when you err; and he forgives you when you fail. A true friend prods you to personal growth, stretches you to your full potential. And most amazing of all, he celebrates your successes as if they were his own.

Life can be difficult and no one escapes its challenges. Sooner or later you will find yourself pressed to your limits. It may come in the form of a broken relationship, or unemployment, or a serious illness, or the death of a loved one. When it comes you will be tempted to define your life by that painful experience. Don't succumb to that temptation. Refuse to define your life by any single event, whatever it may be. Its a real part of your life, but that is all--just a part.

In the befogging pain of grief, we are able to see only part of the message, and as a result, death often seems like the ultimate insult. It appears to be the final indignity that makes a mockery of our faith. But when the fog of grief begins to clear even just a little—when at last we are able to perceive the whole truth—it becomes obvious that death is a defeated enemy, one that God uses for His eternal purposes until He ultimately destroys it: Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. —2 Corinthians 4:16–18

There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don’t really mind so much, not so very much, after all. Love is not the whole of a man’s life. I was happy before I ever met H. I’ve plenty of what are called “resources.” People get over these things. Come, I shan’t do so badly.… Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this “commonsense” vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.

We can hug our hurts and make a shrine out of our sorrows or we can offer them to God as a sacrifice of praise. The choice is ours. —RICHARD EXLEY

NOVELS Coetzee, J.M. Disgrace. Exley, Frederick. A Fan's Notes. Kohler, Sheila. One Girl. Miller, Henry. Tropic of Cancer. Salter, James. Light Years, A Sport and a Pastime. Stone, Robert. Dog Soldiers. Welch, James. The Death of Jim Loney. Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. White, Edmund. The Beautiful Room Is Empty. SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS Bloom, Amy. Come to Me. Cameron, Peter. The Half You Don't Know. Carver, Raymond. Where I'm Calling From. Cheever, John. The Stories of John Cheever. Gaitskill, Mary. Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To. Houston, Pam. Cowboys Are My Weakness. Johnson, Denis. Jesus' Son. Nugent, Beth. City of Boys. O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. O'Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories. Paley, Grace. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute. Perrotta, Tom. Bad Haircut. White, Edmund. Skinned Alive. Yates, Richard. Liars in Love.