“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die.”
As quoted in "Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'" by Ian Sample, in The Guardian (15 May 2011) http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven
Context: I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first... I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
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Stephen Hawking 122
British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942–2018Related quotes
“I'm not afraid of life and I'm not afraid of death: Dying's the bore.”
Statement at age 80 in The New York Times (3 April 1970)
“I'm afraid to live and afraid to die.”
Source: Go Ask Alice
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
“Do you have any coffee?'…'It stunts my growth, and I'm afraid of death.”
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
As quoted in "Christmas with Christopher Hitchens", by Gregg LaGambina, The A.V. Club (20 December 2007) http://www.avclub.com/article/christmas-with-christopher-hitchens-14189
2000s, 2007
“I'm going to put death in all their food and watch them die.”
Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
as quoted by Kenneth Chang and Megan Specia in: [8 October 2019, Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded for Studies of Earth's Place in the Universe, NY Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/science/nobel-physics.html]