“One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.”

“Death had won my three friends; Death had almost won me. But now I was the one who was going to win and I was going to win by outwitting Death over and over again … To compete with Death, as I had discovered in the mountains, was to know one was alive.”

“Sometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of one's own resources.”

“A physician can sometimes parry the scythe of death, but has no power over the sand in the hourglass.”

“I would mould a world of fire and dew
With no one bitter, grave, or over wise,
And nothing marred or old to do you wrong.”

“It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death.”

“When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.”

“The motion of the stars over our heads is as much an illusion as that of the cows, trees and churches that flash past the windows of our train.”

“The carnage was over, but there was still a bitter taste in my mouth.”

“There is a legitimate argument over whether the death penalty effectively deters violent crime, although my personal observation is that not one of the criminals who have been executed over the years has ever killed again.”