“Except for the young or very happy, I can't say I am sorry for any one who dies.”

Letter to Mrs. Bryan Waller Procter (26 November 1856), from The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, ed. Edgar F. Harden [Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994, ISBN 9780824036461], vol. 1, p. 763.

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William Makepeace Thackeray 69
novelist 1811–1863

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