Ivy Compton-Burnett Quotes

Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river.

I didn't have to say it. I just had to write it. It was painful enough.

When you have heartbreak, what's important is that you don't go halfway. Go all the way down. Don't take pills that keep you in limbo. Cry out all the feelings. Then your own energy for life will put you up again. You become stronger.

When it comes to the grieving process, we all try to ignore that feeling - but it's important to grieve. Even if something's happened for the best, you need to take that moment to feel something.

I go through a lot of depression, and I know other people do, too, but I have an outlet that so many people don't. If you have that inside of you and can't get it out, what do you do?

The time at length arrives, when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished.

There is hurt that cannot be fixed by band aids or poetrybecause no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.

Sorrow and frustration have their power. The world is moved by people with great discontents. Happiness is a drug. It can make men blind and deaf and insensible to reality. There are times when only sorrow can give to sorrow.

She was not crying Which surprised me very much But I understand now That she had found places For her melancholy That were behind more masks Than only her eyes

Lofty mountains are full of springs; great hearts are full of tears.

That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.

I can't drown my demons. They know how to swim.

The violence of sorrow is not at the first to be striven withal; being, like a mighty beast, sooner tamed with following than overthrown by withstanding.

Heavy, heavy-hearted people grow lighter and rise occasionally to their surface through precisely that which makes others heavier,through hatred and love.

You might find it difficult to see anything but your own sadness, the way smoke can cover a landscape so that all anyone can see is black. You may find that if someone pours water all over you, you are damp and distracted, but not cured of your sadness, the way a fire department can douse a fire but never recover what has been burnt down.

The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.

Staring into the mirror, I was surprised to see a haunted look in my brown eyes. There was pain there, pain and loss that even the nicest dress and makeup couldn't hide.

I can tell that you been crying all night, drinking all summer, praying for your happiness, hope that you recover

You who have inhabited me in the deepest and most broken place, are going, going

If you bury the pain deep down it will stay with you indefinitely, but if you open yourself to it, experience it, and deal with it head-on, you'll find it begins to move on after a while.

If I cried me a river of all my confessions, would I drown in my shallow regret?

How can you write if you can't cry?

Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more.

Inside your own self pity there you swim, in sinking down to drown her voice still haunts you, and only with your laughter can you win.