“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY - MAN

“It's okay,” he said. “We're together.” He didn't say you're okay, or we're alive. After all they'd been through over the last year, he knew that the most important thing was that they were together. She loved him for saying that.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“And,” Annabeth continued, “it reminds me how long we’ve known each other. We were twelve, Percy. Can you believe that?”
“No, he admitted. “So…you knew you liked me from that moment?”
She smirked. “I hated you at first. You annoyed me. Then I tolerated you for a few years. Then—”
“Okay, fine.”
She leaned in and kissed: him a good, proper kiss without anyone watching—no Romans anywhere, no screaming satyr chaperones.
She pulled away. “I missed you, Percy.”
Percy wanted to tell her the same thing, but it seemed too small a comment. While he had been on the Roman side, he’d kept himself alive almost solely by thinking of Annabeth. I missed you didn’t really cover that.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“i felt her absence. it was like waking up one day with no teeth in your mouth. you wouldn't need to run to the mirror to know they were gone”
― James Dashner, The Scorch Trials

“Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great.”
― Roger de Bussy-Rabutin

“Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“You can decorate absence however you want- but your still gonna feel what’s missing.”
― Siobhan Vivian, Same Difference

“There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realise that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realise, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, [...]”
― Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk

“Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god.
”
― Dark Jar Tin Zoo, Love Quotes for the Ages. Specifically Ages 19-91.

“Growth in love comes from a place of absence, where the imagination is left to it’s own devices and creates you to be much more then reality would ever allow.”
― Jamie Weise

“Love is as simple as the absence of self given to another. God, when invited, fills the void of any unrequited love; hence loving is how one is drawn closer to God no matter its most horrific repercussions.”
― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

“Your body is away from me,
but there is a window open
from my heart to yours.”
― Rumi

“If the portraits of our absent friends are pleasant to us, which renew our memory of them and relieve our regret for their absence by a false and empty consolation, how much more pleasant are letters which bring us the written characters of the absent friend.”
― Héloïse d'Argenteuil, The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse

“When the river of emotions bursts its banks and expectations go over the edges of reality, the brain creates hallucinations. Ringxiety-stricken people feel illusive vibrating alerts and hear phantom phone rings, since absence of ringing generates scaring emptiness and destroys their self-esteem. ("Kein Schwein ruft mich an" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Silence can be breathing space and spawn release and wellness in a time of appalling inflation of words. But silence may be intolerably screaming, if it means absence of communication, deficiency in friendship and emotional deficit. (« A gap of silence”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“But now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“When we stake a claim to the needs and wants of our life, we may easily fail to live up to the standards of others. Empathy and connectedness, however, might bridge the gap, by stirring our consciousness of the sensitive queries and by assessing the intricate framework of our surroundings with their countless, prickly nitty-gritties. ("Absence of Desire")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Beauty is not a warrant for wellbeing and so does happiness not hinge on social success, but is only tangible via intricate, meandering discovery journeys in the mind. ("Absence of beauty was like hell")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“In the architecture of their life some may display Potemkin happiness in view of hiding the dark features of their fair weather relationship, preferring to set up a window dressing of fake satisfaction rather than being rejected as emotional outcasts. ("Absence of beauty was like hell")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“As light splinters into darkness, new thoughts may take over in the mind and allow upbeat views to gain power. Thus and so, thoughtfulness readily opens a blistering sky in the faltering shadow of unawareness. ("Absence of Desire")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Unfailing friends are essential, when ‘presence’ and ‘absence’ are wrangling in our daily living, and our presence is rampaged by murk and woe, while passion and lust for life are trampled. Reliable allies can shore us up and since we are our best ally, we first have got to make sure we get along well with ourselves. ("Being my best friend”).”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I mean she's Cleopatra... shouldn't she and Antony have known better? They were so different..."
"Variety is the spice of life"
"And from a thousand miles apart"
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder”
― Ally Carter, Uncommon Criminals

“Do you eat all of the men in the family? Where do they go? Does this house have a basement?”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we must make sure to heal our impaired vision, filter our perception, and sharpen the focus of our attention because willful blindness can never empower inspiriting vibrations or awaken the twinkles of enlightenment. ("Absence of beauty was like hell")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Social gatherings, not infrequently, grow into the scenery of funny episodes on a Brueghelian canvas or become a psychosomatic arena with displays of emotional outbursts. They can indeed arouse confrontations of absence and attendance, of presence, past, and future. ("I hope she won't mind my leaving")”
― ERIK PEVERNAGIE

“And it is strange that absence can feel like presence.”
― Ally Condie, Crossed

“Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“I discover that absence has a consistency, like the dark water of a river, like oil, some kind of sticky dirty liquid that you can struggle and perhaps drown in. It has a thickness like night, an indefinite space with no landmarks, nothing to bang against, where you search for a light, some small glimmer, something to hang on to and guide you. But absence is, first and foremost, silence. A vast, enveloping silence that weighs you down and puts you in a state where any unforeseeable, identifiable sound can make you jump.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“She sheltered her colors in the dark, where others were blind to see; I caught a glimpse of her lastly when she gave me a chance, before disappearing into the day. There was beauty locked in her that unfolded like an umbrella's claw, her true self that desired compassion, trust, protection and the potential to soar. But I missed to late, that what I wasn't looking for, when she left her reasons in the rain.”
― Anthony Liccione