Various forms of this quote are attributed to Poe, primarily by a title card in the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, though there is no record of his having ever said it.
Misattributed
“Sleep those tiny slices of death how i despise them”
“For little differs death and heavy sleep.”
Dal sonno alla morte è un picciol varco.
Canto IX, stanza 18 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
“Now I am an outcast. I loathe my country. The best thing for me is a drunken sleep on the beach.”
Source: Une saison en enfer; Illuminations; et autres textes
“There are so many little dyings
How do we know which one of them
is death?”
“Those swords are mine! Touch them and I’ll use ‘em to slice off your nut sack! For a coin purse!”
Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior
“I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death”
N.Y. State of Mind
On Albums, Illmatic (1994)
Vol. 2, Ch. 2: Our Relation To Ourselves http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/counsels/chapter2.html
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims
Context: Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
