“An old dissembler who lived out his lie
Lies here as if he did not fear to die.”

“Major Major had lied, and it was good. He was not really surprised that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

“He lies to himself. If Eugenides talked in his sleep, he'd lie then, too.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Queen of Attolia

“Much of his work he did while confined to his bed. He was always an invalid, always obliged to take great care of himself, living constantly with death just before him, never idle a moment for fear his work would not be done. Probably no man ever lived who assailed the Church and the State with the same wit and keenness that was always at Voltaire's command; and yet in spite of this he managed to live comfortably, accumulate riches and die in peace.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

“It was in these wounded days the beginning of the man he would grow to be. He bore his pain and endured his wound as if a sign he too had been blooded by the madness that’d taken ahold of the land. He no longer shied from people, from the lone riders, from the reenslaved herded South. He no longer feared their presence on the roads and his conversion was believable to him. He had lived and did not die. He was breathing. Still, it was only the beginning and he was not old enough to know these changes, did not even know enough to think this way yet.”

Robert Olmstead (1954) American writer

“You'll be old and you never lived, and you kind of feel silly to lie down and die and to never have lived, to have been a job chaser and never have lived.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

“Cowards fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer