Treasure each other in the recognition that we do not know how long we shall have each other.

The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.

He didn't want to let himself get too close because he knew it wasn't going to last. Good stuff never lasted. Change would come and wipe it away, and what was the point? It hurt too much every time it was ripped away and he was getting tired of losing pieces of himself. Pretty soon there wouldn't be much left, just scraps of gristle and bone without feeling. He didn't need that.

For we lose not only by death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on.

For a moment, off balance, was I annoyed? Anger is always fear, I thought, and fear is always fear of loss. Would I lose myself if he made those choices? It took a second to settle down: I'd lose nothing. They'd be his wishes, not mine, and he's free to live as he wants. The loss would come if I dared force him, tried to live for him and me as well.

My life used to be full of everything. . . Now, if you aren't with me, I haven't a thing in the world.

A fool will lose tommorrow looking back at yesterday. I won't hide my head in sorrow if you should go away.

Cherish what you have, for when it comes to an end, you'll realize that nobody knew how important it was to you.

It seems, everytime I try to find myself, I end up losing everyone else.

How many children had this happened to? How many children were like me, floating like plankton in the wide ocean? I thought how tenuous the links were between mother and children, between friends, family, things you think eternal. Everything could be lost, more easily than anyone could imagine.

. . . there would always be something more to lose, a boyfriend, a home, a job, sickness, more babies, days and nights rolling over each other in an ocean that was always the same. Why hurry disaster?

How could we lose you, we were being so careful. We only looked away for a moment. Arms full of packages, we stand alone on the sidewalk and someone has taken our children.

If the rose at noon has lost the beauty it had at dawn, the beauty it had then was real. Nothing in this world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last. But surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

God catches all your balloons, and when you get to heaven, you get a bouquet of every balloon you've ever lost. So don't cry. They'll all be waiting for you.

If you do something that turns out wrong, you can almost always put it right, get over it, learn from it, or at least deny it. But once you've missed out on something, it's gone. There will be the girl you never got to say the right words to, the band you never got to see live, the winning streak you never got to cheer on, the brilliant retiring professor whose class you never took, the relative you never got very close with. It's a long list no matter what. Try to keep it as short as possible.

Lost yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.

After that, well - like faces in a parade, I could not tell the difference between losing you and losing them.

I have lost friends, some by death... others by shear inability to cross the street.

I didn’t lose it, I just couldn’t find it.

. . . if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.

This, I was beginning to discover, was one of the unexpectedly wounding things about deep loss. I went through the necessary activies of the day, I met the problems that presented themselves in whatever way I could, and I thought of other things. I was distracted. And for a time pain remained in the background. But when everything quieted, when I found myself alone, then without warning the sense of loss returned, cutting, thrusting, leaving me awash with pain and loneliness. It was my mother who slept quietly now, and I who missed her.