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“Wisdom is for the meek,�� he returns. “And it seldom helps them as much as they believe it will. After all, as wise as you are, you still married Locke. Of course, perhaps you are wiser than even that—perhaps you’re so wise you made yourself a widow, too.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“Maybe there is no one way to deal with grief, but knowing that we're not totally alone is the best we can do.”
― Ann Benjamin

“She did not belong to the healthy group of widows and widowers who, after mourning, would nurture the seed of their grief into growing from loss—perhaps continuing the dreams of the lost, or learning to cherish alone the things they’d cherished together.

She belonged instead to the sad lot who clung to grief, who nurtured it by never moving beyond it. They’d shelter it deep inside where the years padded it in saudade layers like some malignant pearl.”
― Darrell Drake, A Star-Reckoner's Lot

“People kept giving me space, all of us hoping my grief had a half-life, but I didn't need space. I needed people to say Miles's name out loud. I needed them not to flinch when I said it. Weren't they curious about the color of his eyes? I needed them to acknowledge not just that he had died but that he had lived.”
― Artis Henderson, Unremarried Widow

“They entered the summer parlor, where the Ravenels chatted amiably with his sisters, Phoebe and Seraphina.
Phoebe, the oldest of the Challon siblings, had inherited their mother's warm and deeply loving nature, and their father's acerbic wit. Five years ago she had married her childhood sweetheart, Henry, Lord Clare, who had suffered from a chronic illness for most of his life. The worsening symptoms had gradually reduced him to a shadow of the man he'd once been, and he'd finally succumbed while Phoebe was pregnant with their second child. Although the first year of mourning was over, Phoebe hadn't yet returned to her former self. She went outdoors so seldom that her freckles had vanished, and she looked wan and thin. The ghost of grief still lingered in her gaze.
Their younger sister, Seraphina, an effervescent eighteen-year-old with strawberry-blonde hair, was talking to Cassandra. Although Seraphina was old enough to have come out in society by now, the duke and duchess had persuaded her to wait another year. A girl with her sweet nature, her beauty, and her mammoth dowry would be targeted by every eligible man in Europe and beyond. For Seraphina, the London Season would be a gauntlet, and the more prepared she was, the better.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“For what is grief but love in disguise?”
― Ashley Ormon

“But she was a widow and she had to watch her behavior. Not for her the pleasures of unmarried girls. She had to be grave and aloof. Ellen had stressed this at great length after catching Frank's lieutenant swinging Scarlett in the garden swing and making her squeal with laughter. Deeply distressed, Ellen had told her how easily a widow might get herself talked about. The conduct of a widow must be twice as circumspect as that of a matron.

'And God only knows,' thought Scarlett, listening obediently to her mother's soft voice, 'matrons never have any fun at all. So widows might as well be dead.'

A widow had to wear hideous black dresses without even a touch of braid to enliven them, no flower or ribbon or lace or even jewelry, except onyx mourning brooches or necklaces made from the deceased's hair. And the black crepe veil on her bonnet had to reach to her knees, and only after three years of widowhood could it be shortened to shoulder length. Widows could never chatter vivaciously or laugh aloud. Even when they smiled, it must be a sad, tragic smile. And, most dreadful of all, they could in no way indicate an interest in the company of gentlemen. And should a gentleman be so ill bred as to indicate an interest in her, she must freeze him with a dignified but well-chosen reference to her dead husband. Oh, yes, thought Scarlett, drearily, some widows do remarry eventually, when they are old and stringy. Though Heaven knows how they manage it, with their neighbors watching. And then it's generally to some desperate old widower with a large plantation and a dozen children.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“Marriage was bad enough, but to be widowed-oh, then life was over forever!”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“Feeling like a displaced person Laura struggles with being defined by her status as a widow.

“Distracted by the word widow, which had taken root, budded and bloomed in her mind like a weed in a vacant lot, Laura opened the dictionary on her desk. Flipping past thousands of words, she used in every-day communication with family, friends, and acquaintances �� those little black letters, symbols to express thoughts for the ear to hear and the heart to feel �� she wondered, What words gave expression to her pain? What words described the sense of something lurking inside her, or the dark shadows stalking her mind?

Widow: a five-letter word, preceded by words like wide, and widget and followed by words like widow’s peak, widow’s weeds, and widower.

This little word �� widow- in small case, had no business masquerading as a noun: a person, place or thing. In contrast, - widget, a small mechanical object, not a feeling thing, just an object �� seemed an honest noun.

Widow is not an object, she thought. “It’s a word so thin as to be nothing but a wisp of breath passing through one’s vocal cords and disappearing almost imperceptibly between one’s lips. It has no life of its own. It’s a mere label, and it could just as well be a piece of paper saying, chocolate cookies or best before date.”
― Sharon J. Harrison, Picking Apples in the Sunshine

“I felt like I was failing at widowhood. I missed my husband, but no one knew that when they looked at me. They just saw a mom with blonde highlights going to yoga, picking up her daughter from school, buying groceries at Trader Joe’s. And now I was at a party with a date when I should have been home, grieving, all alone.
I didn’t look like a widow. I wasn’t acting like a widow. But I felt like a widow.
I guess I was just widowish.”
― Melissa Gould, Widowish: A Memoir

“I believe that Grief is a working state of being that allows you to work through the pain and sadness of your loss and helps you to move forward and find healing.”
― Carolyn S Schrader, Death Did Us Part: Stories of Grief and Gratitude

“Less than two weeks ago, my husband was perfectly normal ... and now he has a brain tumor? How can this be our life?”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Have I said yet that we were lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing people, both near and far?”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“porque después se deja de ser viuda, de recordar que algo penetró en la carne con tanta falta de escrúpulos y con tanta fuerza recogida y temblorosa, respetuosa de mí, al cabo, y es lo que no todos saben hacer, y él sí;”
― Carlos Fuentes

“�� ¿Y por qué no vives siempre con nosotros como antes, mamacita?
�� Porque ahora tu mamacita tiene que trabajar en vez de tu papacito, que se fue al cielo.”
― Carlos Fuentes, La región más transparente

“Mwanamke mwenye umri wa miaka arobaini na mbili na kuendelea anafaa kuolewa kama ni mjane na ataweza kuwapenda watoto wako kama mama yao alishafariki. Yule ambaye hajawahi kuolewa au aliyewahi kuolewa lakini akaachika bado ni kubahatisha, kwa sababu hujui kwa nini hajaolewa au kwa nini aliachika, hata kama ana watoto.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Two homes on either side of the road saw
Two women waving a good bye to their men

One was a newly married husband
Other was a proud son of a widow”
― Bhavik Sarkhedi, The Weak Point Dealer

“Go ahead." That's all I say. Those two words, go ahead. Destroy me with what you are going to tell me. Bring me back to that night and pray it doesn't cripple me again.”
― Katie Blanchard, Pressing Flowers

“There was only so much he could stand being mad at her for. She was being a pain but he still liked her.”
― Rose Andrews, The Widow's Second Chance

“From there he saw Fermina Daza walk in on her son's arm, dressed in an unadorned long-sleeved black velvet dress buttoned all the way from her neck to the tips of her shoes, like a bishop's cassock, and a narrow scarf of Castilian lace instead of the veiled hat worn by other widows, and even by many other ladies who longed for that condition”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“Can you not forgive him, Ricco? Please, I am begging you, for his sake. . . please forgive him.��

Their eyes locked. 

His, agonizing. 

Hers, pleading.

“You truly loved him, did you? You loved my grandfather.��

She met his gaze unflinchingly. “I wouldn’t marry a man I do not love.��

“Enough to ask forgiveness for his stead?��

She nodded solemnly. “And more, if need be. I would do anything for him who had done nothing but kindness to me because he deserved it, Ricco. Despite everything he’d done, and because of everything he did for you, your grandfather . . . deserved to be un-hated.”
― Mayumi Cruz, The Billionaire's Widow

“Glioblastoma is insidious. It spreads quickly and can spring up from a few cells to a full-fledged tumor that impacts daily living in a matter of weeks.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“The laptop, to which I had been chained for so many years of corporate work, was becoming my lifeline to the outside world.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“Do I have what it takes to help my young family survive my husband's terminal illness?”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“If your kid goes to a therapist weekly, a peer grief group monthly, and a grief camp for a few days in the summer—which would be a lot of grief work, by the way—there are still somewhere around three hundred days in the year where it’s all on you, the widowed parent, to figure out what to do.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“For the duration of Dennis's illness, I felt like Hester Prynne. I had the overwhelming sense that I was walking around with a giant 'FW' emblazoned on my shirt: "Future Widow.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“The question 'How are you' would usually throw me into an existential tailspin. It seems like such a simple question--but it would cause fits of uncertainty in me almost every time.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“I had no guidebook to tell me what to say to the kids--nor the time to find such a thing, if it even existed.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“No profound remarks are required. The simplest message--I'm here and I care--is all that's needed.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice

“I've been too tired to post much for a few days. Or maybe more precisely, too tired to think about what to post.”
― Jenny Lisk, Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice