Words to describe a broken person

Understatement of the year: Heartbreak sucks. There’s no better way to put it. And even though some people downplay the severity of what it feels like to get your heart broken, it is a very real pain—both physically and mentally.

But sometimes, the best way to get through heartbreak is by doing exactly that—going through it. Take it from someone in the thick of probably the greatest heartbreak I’ve ever experienced: Lean into your sadness, no matter how hard it can be.

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Because by allowing yourself to feel everything you’re feeling without trying to hold back, you can really begin the process of healing.

So whether it’s listening to a sad love song, watching a heart-wrenching movie, or reading a devastating book, sometimes all it takes are the perfect words that describe how you’re feeling to get the comfort you’re looking for.

Here's a list of the most gut-wrenching quotes on heartbreak we could find. Cheers to getting through this.

1. “I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart.” ― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

2. “Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't.” ― Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

3. “Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.” — Warsan Shire

4. “The hottest love has the coldest end.” — Socrates

5. “Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead.” — Adele, “Someone Like You”

6. “You can’t buy love, but you can pay heavily for it.” — Henny Youngman

7. “There is something bleak and barren about a world that is missing the person who knows you best.” — Jodi Piccoult, The Book of Two Ways

8. “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” — Emily Dickinson, 809

9. I thought that I’d been been hurt before but no one’s ever left me quite this sore. Your words cut deeper than a knife. Now I need someone to breathe me back to life.” — Shawn Mendes, “Stitches”

10. “Only time can heal your broken heart. Just as only time can heal his broken arms and legs.” — Miss Piggy

11. “What about us? What about all the broken happy ever afters?” — Pink, “What about us?”

12. “These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real” — Evanescence, “My Immortal”

13. “My heart no longer felt as if it belonged to me. It now felt as if it had been stolen, torn from my chest by someone who wanted no part of it.” — Meredith Taylor, Churning Water

14. “To fall in love is awfully simple, but to fall out of love is simply awful.” — Bess Myerson

15. “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.” — Alvy Singer, Annie Hall

16. “Why’d you have to say goodbye? Look what you’ve done to me. I can’t stop these tears from fallin’ from my eyes.” — Mary J. Blige, “I’m Goin’ Down”

17. “Thinking of you is a poison I drink often.” — Atticus

18. “The shattering of a heart when being broken is the loudest quiet ever.” — Carroll Bryant

19. "Oh you broke my heart. I told you I was weak for love, but then you went around, and did what you wanted to do, and now I'm crying." — Miley Cyrus, "FU"

20. “I’d rather have a broken arm than a broken heart.” — Christie Brinkley

21. “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” ― Kahlil Gibran

22. “So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.” ― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

23. “Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”― Mineko Iwasaki

24. “I think heartbreak is something you learn to live with as opposed to learn to forget.” — Kate Winslet

25. “Since you’ve gone I’ve been lost without a trace. I dream at night, I can only see your face.” — The Police, “Every Breath You Take”

26. “You were red and you liked me cause I was blue. You touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky, and you decided purple just wasn’t for you.” — Halsey, “Colors”

27. “It is strange how often a heart must be broken. Before the years can make it wise.” ― Sara Teasdale, The Collected Poems

28. "Loving you is like a battle, and we both end up with scars." — Lauryn Hill, “Ex-Factor”

29. “I wish I were a little girl again because skinned knees are easier to fix than a broken heart.” — Julia Roberts

30. “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart, concealing it, will break.” — William Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew

31. “Back then, in those first days, I was so alone that every day was like eating my own heart.” — Junot Diaz, This is How You Lose Her

32. “The scars of your love remind me of us. They keep me thinking that we almost had it all.” — Adele, “Rolling in the Deep”

33. “Ever since I met you my life’s been a song. A sad song, a love song with hate in between.” — Willie and Lukas Nelson, “Sound of Your Memory”

34. “Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.” — Alphonse de Lamartine

35. “Love hurts worse than getting slammed by a 250-pound linebacker.” — Miranda Kenneally

36. “The broken heart. You think you will die, but you keep living, day after day after terrible day.” — Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

37. “My feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping but I shall go on living.” — Pablo Neruda

38. “When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and you pray for rain.” — Andrea Gibson

39. “The greatest tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.” — W. Somerset Maugham

40. “Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.” — Neil Gaiman

41. “All I wanted was to break your walls. All you ever did was wreck me.” — Miley Cyrus, “Wrecking Ball”

42. “I scratched out your name and your face. What is it about you that I can't erase, baby? Well every promise don't work out that way” — Beyonce, “Sandcastles”

43. “It turns out freedom ain't nothin' but missin' you. Wishin' I'd realized what I had when you were mine.” — Taylor Swift, “Back to December”

44. “In another life I would make you stay, so I don’t have to say you were the one that got away.” — Katy Perry, “The One That Got Away”

45. “Tell me the truth boy, am I losing you for good? We used to kiss all night, but now there's just no use.” — Solange, “Losing You”

46. “I mean, at the end of the day, what the hell does it matter who I end up with if it can't be you?”― Tabitha Suzuma, Forbidden

47. “I don't think anyone can give you advice when you've got a broken heart.” ― Britney Spears

48. “There is an ocean of silence between us… and I am drowning in it.”― Ranata Suzuki

49. We only said goodbye with words. I died a hundred times. You go back to her, and I go back to black.” — Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black”

50. “But if you want to leave, you can. I’ll remember you though. I remember everyone that leaves.” — Lilo, Lilo & Stitch

Syeda Khaula Saad Syeda is a writer for Cosmopolitan who likes to analyze and improve the way we look at sex as a way to topple the patriarchy.

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