100+ Goodbye Quotes About Fond Memories and Saying Farewell

These goodbye quotes use educational insights and pop culture references to offer solace and wisdom during our farewell moments.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” as William Shakespeare eloquently penned in Romeo and Juliet, a poignant farewell message filled with emotions.

Whether small or big, goodbyes are an important ritual in our culture.

It is an opportunity to express everything you want to say while also wishing them the best for their future endeavors.

In the comment section below, tell us which farewell quotes resonated most with you.

What are the benefits of reading goodbye quotes?

It’s often hard to find the right words when leaving somewhere or someone to start a new chapter; whether it be a new job, going off to school, or moving to a new state or country.

Goodbyes signify that something has ended, and it is time for a new beginning.

A good “bye”:

• Honors your past and provides closure as you move on to all your future endeavors
• Allows you to recognize your life experiences with other people and the world around you
• Expresses how you truly feel about people, whether a dear friend or awesome colleagues

Whether you’re parting with someone for a short time or forever, saying a mindful goodbye gives you the time to acknowledge your value in each other’s lives.

Giving a meaningful goodbye lets you bless the other person’s going and coming.

So the next you offer a farewell message or good bye, pay attention to the moment and create an intention of goodwill in your heart to make it a blessing.

To help make your goodbyes count, below is our collection of inspirational, beautiful, uplifting, and funny goodbye quotes and sayings collected from various sources over the years.

Goodbye Quotes to Bid Farewell

1. “Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.” — William Shakespeare

2. “The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.” — Charles Dickens

3. “The return makes one love the farewell.” — Alfred de Musset

4. “The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.” — Nicholas Sparks

5. “It feels right. But it’s emotional. Saying goodbye to anything you’ve done that long is hard.” — Angela Ruggiero

6. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” — Semisonic

7. “If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” — Paulo Coelho

8. “This is not a goodbye, my darling, this is a thank you.” — Nicholas Sparks

9. “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.” — Garrison Keillor

10. “There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Meaningful Farewell Quotes

11. “History never really says goodbye. History says, ‘See you later. ” — Eduardo Galeano

12. “The two hardest things to say in life is hello for the first time and goodbye for the last.” — Moira Rogers

13. “They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” — Confucius

14. “Man’s feelings are always purest and most glowing in the hour of meeting and of farewell.” — Jean-Paul Richter

15. “So long, see you around, but never a final goodbye.” — Fred Flagler

16. “I’ll see you in another life. When we are both cats.” — Tom Cruise

17. “Farewell, dearest friend, never to see one another any more till at the right hand of Christ.” — Donald Cargill

18. “It’s sad, but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life starts with goodbye.” — Carrie Underwood

19. “Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I thought you would, I’d never leave.” — A.A. Milne

20. “Moving on is a simple thing; what it leaves behind is hard.” — Dave Mustaine

21. “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go” — Oscar Wilde

22. “It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest thing in the world.” — John Green

23. “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” — A.A. Milne

24. “I guess that’s part of growing up, too—saying good-bye to the things you used to love.” — Jenny Han

25. “Remember me and smile, for it’s better to forget than to remember me and cry.” ― Dr. Seuss

26. “I make it easier for people to leave by making them hate me a little.” — Cecelia Ahern

27. “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss

28. “For every goodbye, God also provides a hello.” — Donna Gable Hatch

29. “Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

30. “I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye, and may God bless all!” — Christopher McCandless

Quotes About Making It Count

31. “I wonder how People say goodbye to someone forever ?” Could we see when and where we are to meet again? We would be more tender when we bid our friends goodbye.  — Ovid

32. “Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.” ― John Steinbeck

33. “Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation.” — Rumi

34. “Saying goodbye doesn’t mean anything. It’s the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it.” — Trey Parker

35. “It’s time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad, and I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.” — Ernie Harwell

36. “The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye, the story of love is hello and goodbye…until we meet again.” — Jimi Hendrix

37. “Goodbyes make you think. They make you realize what you’ve had, what you’ve lost, and what you’ve taken for granted.” —  Ritu Ghatourey

38. “Don’t be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.” — Richard Bach

39. “Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting.” — J.M. Barrie

40. “Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.” — Jean-Paul Richter

Goodbye and Good Wishes Quotes

41. “No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.” – Robert Southey

42. “You can kiss your family and friends goodbye and put miles between you, but at the same time, you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world, but a world lives in you.” — Frederick Buechner

43. “A farewell is necessary before we can meet again, and meeting again, after moments or a lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.” ― Richard Bach

44. “The finale of every year is a time to say goodbye to one year and welcome the coming of a new one. A blessed year may it be.” — Kate Summers

45. “Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.” — Edna St. Vincent Millay

46. “So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.” — Helen Keller

47. “We’ll meet again, Don’t know where, don’t know when, But I know we’ll meet again, Some sunny day.” — Vera Lynn

48. “Sadly enough, the most painful goodbyes are the ones that are left unsaid and never explained.” — Jonathan Harnisch

49. “Behind you, all your memories. Before you, all your dreams. Around you, all who love you. Within you, all you need.” ― Lilli Vaihere

50. “You and I will meet again When we’re least expecting it, One day in some far off place, I will recognize your face, I won’t say goodbye my friend, For you and I will meet again.” — Tom Petty

51. “Two of the greatest predictors of success are the ability to say hello and the ability to say goodbye.” — Robert J. Braathe

52. “Goodbyes are not forever, are not the end; it simply means I’ll miss you until we meet again.” — Unknown

53. “Saying goodbye to the living was hard enough; saying goodbye to the dead was an impossible task.” — Andrew Shaffer

54. “There was something unfinished about not saying farewell, like a door left open in the chill night.” — Julie C. Dao

55. “If no one has called you back when you left a place, then your decision to leave that place was precisely true!” — Mehmet Murat ildan

Parting Quotes to Contemplate

56. “Maybe we’ve lived a thousand lives before this one, and in each of them, we’ve found each other. And maybe each time, we’ve been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.” ― Nicholas Sparks

57. “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” ― Jack Kerouac

58. “Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead. –I shall feel it.” ― Victor Hugo

59. “I don’t care if it’s a sad goodbye or a bad goodbye, but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse.” ― J.D. Salinger

60. “Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle Earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

61. “Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.” ― William Shakespeare

62. “Do you know what your problem is? You can’t live with the idea that someone might leave.” ― John Green

63. “I thought I was stronger than a word, but I just discovered that having to say goodbye to you is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” ― Colleen Hoover

64. “Thank God I found the GOOD in goodbye.” ― Beyonce Knowles

65. “There’s nothing good about goodnight when it means goodbye.” ― Jeff Thomas

Insightful Farewell Quotes

66. “Goodbye always makes my throat hurt.” – Charlie Brown

67. “Goodbyes—they often come in waves.” — Jarod Kintz

68. “A man never knows how to say goodbye; a woman never knows when to say it.” — Helen Rowland

69. “It’s so hard saying goodbye… it’s hard saying goodbye to all the things that one has held dear for weeks, months, sometimes years.” — Saqib Saleem

70. “With every goodbye comes a new beginning, and we can look forward to the possibilities that lie ahead. When we part ways, we can take comfort in knowing that life was good.” ― Rolf van der Wind

71. “Perhaps the only thing sadder than saying goodbye to a friend is knowing that they will never be the same as who you remember them to be.” ― Jomny Sun

72. “Saying goodbye is the hardest solution to any problem. But sometimes, it’s the only choice we have.” — Anurag Prakash Ray

73. “No more words. We know them all—all the words that should not be said. But you have made my world more perfect.” — Terry Pratchett

74. “The pain of a hard goodbye is the heart’s tribute to the privilege to love.” — Beth Moore

75. “Follow your dreams, work hard, practice, and persevere. Make sure you eat a variety of foods, get plenty of exercise, and maintain a healthy lifestyle.” — Sasha Cohen

Quotes For A Touching Farewell

76. “Goodbye may seem forever. Farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory, and there you will always be.” —  Walt Disney

77.“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” — T.S. Eliot

78. “Our memories of yesterday will last a lifetime. We’ll take the best, forget the rest, and someday will find that these are the best of times.”  — Styx

79. “Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.” — George Eliot

80.“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” — Helen Keller

81.“I don’t have to be so afraid of goodbye because goodbye doesn’t have to be forever.” — Jenny Han

82. “We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere.” — Tim McGraw

83. “Say goodbye to all your troubles and worries today so you can say welcome to joy and life tomorrow.” ― Myke Blaze

84. “Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.” — Flavia Weedn

85. “The world is round and the place which may seem like the end, may also be the beginning.”  — Ivy Baker Priest

86. “As you embark on a new path we wish you nothing but all the luck and success for the bright future ahead.” — Unknown

Goodbye Quotes To Help You Let Go

86. “Seems like we always spend the best part of our time just saying goodbye.” ― Elizabeth Taylor

87. “Goodbyes are one of the hardest things about life. One way or another, people were always leaving… Always moving on.” ― Karen Kingsbury

88. “I’ve been in the same place for 10 years, and having to say goodbye and clean out the locker is the toughest part.” ― Roy Oswalt

89. “Live your life as if you are ready to say goodbye to it at any moment as if the time left for you were some pleasant surprise.” ― Marcus Aurelius

90. “I keep going till that pain says hello to me. I don’t say goodbye until that pain says hello. That’s a good set.” ― Greg Plitt

91. “Love tends to end in a very painful goodbye.” ― Taylor Swift

92. “My world has changed, and so have I. I have learned to choose, and I have learned to say goodbye.” ― Pocahontas

93. “Goodbyes were impossible unless you didn’t realize you were saying them.” ― Luanne Rice

94. “Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It’s the thing that lets us say goodbye.” ― Jeffrey Eugenides

95. “To say goodbye is to die a little.” ― Raymond Chandler

Quotes for Emotional Moments

96. “I told you that I love you; I was only telling a lie. I’ll be long gone come the crack of dawn, and I believe the word is goodbye.” ― James Taylor

97. “In the twilight glow I see her, blue eyes crying in the rain. As we kissed goodbye and parted, I knew we’d never meet again.” ― Willie Nelson

98. “Woke the next day and found her note. Love ya, goodbye, that’s all she wrote.” ― David Gates

99. “Goodbye, my love, my life. Goodbye, goodbye.” ― Dalton Trumbo

100. “I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.” ― Bob Dylan

101. “So goodbye, I’ll be leaving; I see no sense in this crying and grieving. We’ll both live a lot longer if you live without me.” ― Linda Ronstadt

102. “One of the difficult things of so much traveling is to say goodbye.” ― Michael Palin

103. “Nothing’s forever; forever’s a lie. All we have is what’s between hello and goodbye.” ― Marilyn Bergman

104. “I was a mess when the movie [Into the Forest] ended, and I had to say goodbye. It was one of the hardest endings.” ― Evan Rachel Wood

105. “Naturally, there will come a time when I will have to say goodbye, but I’ve soul-searched, and this is not the time.” ― Vin Scully

More Farewell Messages

These farewell messages are poignant and thought-provoking.

106. “You had me at hello, goodbye, and everything in between.” — Shannon L. Alder

107. “The easiest way to find out how you feel about someone. Say goodbye.” — Phil Knight

108. “It was hard saying goodbye to that oblivion they call childhood.” ― Saqib Saleem

109. “So, for now, I say goodbye to this chapter of my life, and I look forward to what comes next.” — Brooke Davis

110. “Good-byes hurt the most when the other person’s already gone.”― Angie Thomas

111. “I am not afraid to die; I am only afraid of saying goodbye to you forever.”― Shannon L. Alder

112. “Goodbye too painful a word to utter, we part in silence.” ― Melanie A. Smith

113. “I don’t think that I could ever say goodbye to you… Not even if you said it to me.” ― Jaimie Roberts

114. “Goodbye is the saddest word I ever heard; goodbye is the last time I will hold you near.” — Celine Dion

115. “Our band of awesome colleagues will fall one short with you gone. You were an integral part of our team; best of luck on all your future endeavors!” — Unknown

In My Heart Forever Quotes

116. “I didn’t think saying goodbye would be so hard. And with everything that’s to come—We’ll face it together. To whatever end.” ― Sarah J. Maas

117. “Goodbye doesn’t have to be forever.” — Jenny Han

118. “Saying goodbye feels hard, for sure, but I am confident that it is a door through which we walk to bring us to another good chapter in our story together.” — Claudia Quigg

119. “Hello is a beginning, and so is goodbye. Goodbye is like a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly.” — Refiloe Moahloli

120. “I wanted to say goodbye to someone and have someone say goodbye to me. The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us we´re still alive.” — Stephen King

121. “Every parting is a form of death, as every reunion is a type of heaven.” — Tryon Edwards

122.“Every beginning has an ending. Don’t let the goodbye scare you from starting what could be the best story of your life.” ― Dawn Lanuza

 123. “Farewell or goodbye, it really doesn’t matter. It shows one magic. If you find it, you are a magician!” ― Deyth Banger

124. “If she says goodbye, someone else will say hi.” ― Amit Kalantri

125. “A new beginning is also always a farewell.” — Unknown

Goodbye Quotes About A New Adventure

Whether offering best wishes to coworkers as they depart for a new job or parting ways in a relationship, a little piece of your heart will always go with those you say farewell to.

126. “Being able to say goodbye is a sign of growth.” ― Gustavo Cerati

127. “It’s going to be really emotional to say goodbye. I’m going to find it very difficult. But it must be done, it must be done.” ― J. K. Rowling

128. “Sometimes when you say goodbye, that’s the right thing to do in a relationship.” ― Richard Bach

129. “If you never stop when you wave goodbye, you just might find, if you give it time, you will wave hello again.” ― John Mayer

130. “It all comes down to who you crucify; you either kiss the past or future goodbye.” ― Ringo Starr

131. “To part is the lot of all mankind. The world is a scene of constant leave-taking, and the hands that grasp in cordial greeting today, are doomed ere long to unite for the last time when the quivering lips pronounce the word, farewell.” ― R.M. Ballantyne

132. “I would never wish to say that I’ve finally waved goodbye to any character, it’s just that the emphasis tends to shift.” ― Rowan Atkinson

133. “Sometimes you have to say goodbye to the things you know and hello to the things you don’t.” ― Steve McQueen

134. “The only good thing you ever said was goodbye.” ― Joan Jett

135. “Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” — Henry David Thoreau

136. “In the mornings, I used to say goodbye to my wife like someone going to work. I’d leave the house, walk around a few blocks, and come back like a person arriving at the office.” ― Orhan Pamuk

137. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” — Lao Tzu

Bittersweet Goodbye Quotes 

138. “You’ve changed me forever. And I’ll never forget you.” ― Kiera Cass

139. “I have learned along my journey that letting go doesn’t mean loving less.” ― Alex Elle

140. “You get a strange feeling when you leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love, but you miss the person you are at this time and place because you’ll never be this way ever again.” ― Azar Nafasi

141. “Don’t ever tell anyone anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” ― J.D. Salinger

142. “I hate goodbyes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.” ― Charles M. Schulz

143. “True friends don’t say good-bye; they just take extended leaves of absence from each other.” — Unknown

144. “Good friends never say goodbye. They simply say, ‘See you soon.’” — Unknown

145. “I hope you realize that every day is a fresh start for you. That every sunrise is a new chapter in your life waiting to be written.” — Juansen Dizon

146. “It’s not the days in life we remember, rather the moments.” — Walt Disney

147. “Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Goodbye and Goodnight Quotes

148. “Truly great friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to forget.” ― G. Randolf

149. “Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer

150. “I’ll never see them again. I know that. And they know that. And knowing this, we say farewell.” ― Haruki Murakami

151. “Goodbye…? Oh no, please. Can’t we go back to page one and do it all over again?” ― A. A. Milne

152. “Every day, I shall put my papers in order, and every day I shall say farewell. And the real farewell, when it comes, will only be a small outward confirmation of what has been accomplished within me from day to day.” ― Etty Hillesum

153. “No Time For Goodbye is a deliciously smart thriller, full of surprises and perfect pacing. I’m jealous I didn’t write it.” — Alafair Burke

154. “It’s goodbye to reality when love sets in.” — Saul Bellow

155. “And if there’s a moral there, I don’t know what it is, save maybe that we should take our goodbyes whenever we can.” — Neil Gaiman

156. “I remember when my father passed away, we drove the funeral procession past the bank so he could say one last goodbye. That’s how much the bank meant to my father.” — Alexi Giannoulias

157. “I’ve said goodbye to the overworked notion that architecture has to save the world.” — Peter Zumthor

158. “I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you good night — and there’s a lot of difference.” — Ernest Hemingway

159. “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.” — Irish Blessing

160. “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out, and your dog would go in.” — Mark Twain

161. “Park was never going to love her more than he did on the day they said goodbye. And she couldn’t bear to think of him loving her less.” — Rainbow Rowell

Positive Goodbyes

162. “It’s goodbye to some things. And hello to others.” — David Levithan

163. “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” — Charles Dickens

164. “May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hand.” — Irish Blessing 

165. “Life is made of so many partings welded together.”— Charles Dickens

168. “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” – Anatole France

169. Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain

170. “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” — Vincent van Gogh

171. “Goodbye doesn’t mean the end. It only means that I will return or see you some other time.” ― Frank Alile

Get comfortable with goodbyes

A goodbye is just as important as a greeting.

Healthy goodbyes help us focus on what matters, keep the doors open, and allow us to move forward without unnecessary baggage.

Life is full of endings and new beginnings.

Although goodbyes can be difficult sometimes, the ability to tolerate endings is important.

We hope the above quotes will help you approach your endings with a positive attitude or give you inspiration for sending someone off with your best wishes for them.

Which of these goodbye quotes was your favorite?

Do you have any other inspirational quotes to add?

Feel free to share with us in the comment section below.