Ah, heartbreak. There’s truly nothing like it, is there? And by truly nothing like it, we of course mean truly nothing more uniquely painful and confusing in the way where you know everyone goes through it but when it’s happening to you, personally, it feels like you’re the very first, the only one. The good news? That actually couldn’t be further from the truth. So, so many people have been through this exact same thing (or at least something a whole lot like it!). Even better news? Some of those people just so happen to be artists and writers and poets and philosophers and heartbroken creatives of all kinds who have left their lovelorn wisdom and musings for you in the form of these broken heart quotes, which we’ve collected here to help ya recover. (Which, yes, you will. We promise.)

Not only can leaning into your sad girl era feel, frankly, kind of validating sometimes, but it can also be downright healthy. No, you don’t want to stay sad forever (and trust, you won’t be). But sometimes, as they say, the only way out is through. To actually overcome your sadness, you gotta let yourself really feel it.

So take this as full permission to get fully in your feels, with a little help from some of the most poignant words about broken hearts ever penned. Yes, we’re encouraging you to indulge in your sadness (a little!), but these quotes might actually help you feel better, too. Heartbreak can feel isolating, but these wise words are here to remind you that you’re actually not alone.

So whether you’re mourning the end of a long-term relationship, getting over an unrequited crush, or navigating the messy aftermath of a confusing situationship, here's a list of the 56 most profound quotes on having a broken heart we could find. Cheers to getting through this—because, yes, you will get through it.

1. “Throughout history, men have broken women’s hearts in a particular way. They love them or half-love them and then grow weary and spend weeks and months extricating themselves soundlessly, pulling their tails back into their doorways, drying themselves off, and never calling again. Meanwhile, women wait. The more in love they are and the fewer options they have, the longer they wait, hoping that he will return with a smashed phone, with a smashed face, and say, I’m sorry, I was buried alive and the only thing I thought of was you, and feared that you would think I’d forsaken you when the truth is only that I lost your number, it was stolen from me by the men who buried me alive, and I’ve spent three years looking in phone books and now I have found you. I didn’t disappear, everything I felt didn’t just leave. You were right to know that would be cruel, unconscionable, impossible. Marry me.” —Lisa Taddeo, Three Women

2. “He was beautiful and, yes, I loved him, in one of infinite ways a person could love. I knew that I would wish a thousand times that things could have ended differently. But I also knew, somewhere in me, that there was no soft ending.” —Melissa Broder, The Pisces

3. “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

4. “And you call me up again just to break me like a promise, so casually cruel in the name of being honest. I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here, 'cause I remember it all, all, all too well.” —Taylor Swift “All Too Well”

5. “The most terrible thing about it is not that it breaks one’s heart—hearts are made to be broken—but that it turns one’s heart to stone.” —Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

6. “I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.” —Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

7. “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

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

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

10. “I have a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave I'm afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I'd take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you'd forget me.” —Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

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

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

13. “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

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

15. “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”

16. “And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue? Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?” —Taylor Swift, “All Too Well”

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

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

19. “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

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

21. “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

22. “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”

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

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

25. "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"

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

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

28. “Now I'll go sit on the floor wearing your clothes. All that I know is I don't know how to be something you miss.” —Taylor Swift, “Last Kiss”

29. “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

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

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

32. “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”

33. “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”

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

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

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

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

38. “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

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

40. “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”

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

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

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

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

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

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

47. “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

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

49. “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”

50. “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”

51. “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”

52. “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”

53. “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

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

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

56. 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”

57. “Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me. You showed me colors you know I can't see with anyone else.” —Taylor Swift, “Illicit Affairs”