“And so I set these things down before the onset of the first of a thousand small physical degradations as, in a still-distant suburb, Death strides whistling towards me.”

— Barry Humphries

My Life as Me: A Memoir (closing line)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "And so I set these things down before the onset of the first of a thousand small physical degradations as, in a still-d…" by Barry Humphries?

Barry Humphries photo

Barry Humphries4

Australian comedian and actor 1934

Related quotes

“At first it upset me to realize how many people are, at heart, selfish. Now I take that in stride, but people's loneliness still gets to me.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: Just One Wish

“I said to Mauve: Do you approve of my coming here for a month or so and troubling you for some advice now and then, after that time I will have over come the first 'petites miseres' of painting... Well, Mauve at once set me down before a still life of a pair of old wooden shoes and some other objects, and so I could set to work.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in December 1881; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 29 (letter 162) <br class="br">1880s, 1881

“The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same.
Before the onset of death, why should man expect to be free of grief?”

Ghalib (1797–1869) Urdu-Persian poet

“I remembered Albany […] as just another down-on-its-luck small American city that had sacrificed its vitality to a whirring ring of homogenous suburbs.”

James Howard Kunstler book World Made By Hand

Source: World Made By Hand (2008), Chapter 29, p. 140

“This swirl of stars,' Draconus suddenly said, 'marks the plunge of light into darkness. These stars, they are distant suns, shihing their light down upon distant, unknown worlds. Worlds, perhaps, little different from this one. Or vastly different. It hardly matters. Each star swirls its path towards the centre, and at that centre is death - the death of light, the death of time itself.”

Steven Erikson book Forge of Darkness

Forge of Darkness (2013)

“Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Pt. 1
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)

“It's strange to be so physically close to someone who's so distant”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“I regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash — and it may be well that we become so hardened.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

Letter to his wife (July 1864)
1860s, 1864

“There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Resignation

Resignation, st. 5.

“Everywhere — all over Africa and South America … you see these suburbs springing up. They represent the optimum of what people want. There's a certain sort of logic leading towards these immaculate suburbs. And they're terrifying, because they are the death of the soul … This is the prison this planet is being turned into.”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

Interview (30 October 1982) in Re/Search no. 8/9 (1984)

Related topics