“Tahiti is very far away, and I knew that I should never see it again. A chapter of my life was closed, and I felt a little nearer to inevitable death.”
Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 58, p. 213
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W. Somerset Maugham 158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer 1874–1965Related quotes
“If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.”
Final lines of his Richard Dimbleby lecture Shaking Hands With Death on euthanasia and assisted suicide, quoted in "Terry Pratchett: my case for a euthanasia tribunal" in The Guardian (2 February 2010) http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/02/terry-pratchett-assisted-suicide-tribunal
General sources
Context: I dare say that quite a few people have contemplated death for reasons that much later seemed to them to be quite minor. If we are to live in a world where a socially acceptable "early death" can be allowed, it must be allowed as a result of careful consideration.
Let us consider me as a test case. As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.
The Things They Carried (1990), On the Rainy River
Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 13 (p. 115)
A Long Way Down (2005)
Page 145
2000s, (2008)
Her last letter to Episcopalian Bishop Phillips Brooks, just prior to his death on 23 January (17 January 1893), in Ch. 12 : Last Years.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
Quoted in: Arts/Canada, Vol. 23 (1966), p. 46