Quotes about death
page 11

“Lots of death, huh? Personally, I'm trying to avoid lots of death, but you guys have fun!”

Source: The House of Hades

“Those who say they would rather fight to the death than be raped are fools. I would rather be raped a thousand times. You do what you have to.”

Alice Sebold (1963) American writer

Fools, Time, Fight

“Each moment is the fruit of forty thousand years. The minute-winning days, like flies, buzz home to death, and every moment is a window on all time.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Source: Look Homeward, Angel

Home, Time

“It is natural to believe in God when you're alone-- quite alone, in the night, thinking about death.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

God, Nature, Thinking, Night

“The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth,--
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Love, Heart, Housing

“The death of dogma is the birth of morality.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

As quoted in Faith Or Fact (1897) by Henry Moorehouse Taber, p. 86

Birth

“Do you have a death wish?" he asked. Will grinned at him.
I'm just relying on your judgment," he replied. "I can't keep track of everything in my head.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Battle for Skandia

“Then, Holden, the little Fang gang kid, came out of nowhere with an apparent death wish. He raced directly toward the maniac with the gun shrieking something that sounded like”

James Patterson (1947) American author

“It’s not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It’s part of the deal we made.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Life, Nature, Parting

“But in the end it wasn't up to me. The bigs things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we're born.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Love, Birth

“Death left its old tragic heaven and became the lyrical core of man: his invisible truth, his visible secret.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Source: The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception

Truth, Secret

“Do you want to know something about tyrants? When faced with death, they weep and they beg just like the rest of us.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

“The relativism which is not willing to speak about truth but only about ‘what is true for me’ is an evasion of the serious business of living. It is the mark of a tragic loss of nerve in our contemporary culture. It is a preliminary symptom of death.”

Lesslie Newbigin (1909–1998) Christian missionary

Source: The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Truth, Business, Loss

“It is said that in death, all things become clear.”

Dan Brown book Digital Fortress

Source: Digital Fortress

“For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Love

“Death never comes at thetime, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.”

Christopher Pike book The Last Vampire

Source: The Last Vampire

“… I have always lived on contrasts! To me the only death is monotony. Beware of monotony; it's the mother of all the deadly sins.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

“Death is contagious; it is contracted the moment we are conceived.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

“People have hope because they cannot see Death standing behind them.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

People, Hope

“This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Love

“Shri Ramakrishna use to say, "As Long as I Live, so long do I learn". That man or that society which has nothing to learn is already in the jaws of death.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Learning

“Suicides? Heart attacks? The papers didn't seem interested. The world was full of ways to die, too many to cover. Newsworthy deaths had to be exceptional. Most people go unobserved.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

People, World, Way, Suicide

“Bad divorce?" Hardy asked, his gaze falling to my hands. I realized I was clutching my purse in a death grip.

“No, the divorce was great,” I said. “It was the marriage that sucked.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Blue-Eyed Devil

Marriage

“Keeping vigil over her are two monsters of very different breeds but monster just the same.
Death on her left.
Devil on her right.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

“Death, especially violent death, will turn the meanest bastard in the world into a nice guy. Why is that?”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Laughing Corpse

Source: The Laughing Corpse

World, Guy

“Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're always looking towards the top and you feel happy, but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death at the end of it all. It's slow going up and quick going down.”

Guy De Maupassant Bel-Ami

Source: Bel-Ami

Life, Happiness, Feeling

“Death is finished, he said to himself. It is no more!”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Death of Ivan Ilych

“Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them.
Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

Source: The Bonehunters

Life, God, Peace, Understanding

“I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one puts up in order to play the game of life.”

Jean Giraudoux Amphitryon 38

Source: Amphitryon 38

Life, Game

“Life is here, death is over there. I am here, not over there.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Life

“You only delay your death.

"Delaying death is one of my favorite hobbies.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Variant: Delaying death is one of my favorite hobbies
Source: The Mark of Athena

“We don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Fear

“To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Incubus Dreams

Source: Incubus Dreams

Happiness

“He bit the inside of his cheek, Death purring wildy. The pleasure of her touch, even one so innocent, rocked him to the core.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Kiss

Pleasure

“Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: Война и мир

Hurt

“In other words, crew deaths are a feature, not a bug," Cassaway said, dryly.”

John Scalzi book Redshirts

Source: Redshirts

“Bye-bye. I'm off on a journey to the real world. 'Cause within this meta-reality what'sis this - my death.”

Natsuo Kirino book Real World

Source: Real World

World, Reality

“The hard thing about death is that nothing ever changes. The hard thing about life is that nothing stays the same.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: J is for Judgment

Life, Change

“I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon (1966)

Life

“Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Tagline on the back cover
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games (2008)

Hunger, Game

“They're on their way to the foreign-language wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke to death on too much American.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Way, Time

“We think of mortality so little these days…
I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones.
Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I:
As I am so will you be…”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Thinking

“They knew that love snatched in the face of danger and death was doubly sweet for the strange excitement that went with it.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Love

“Death, but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

“Women are impossible, witches are worse, and women who are powerful witches are going to be the death of me.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Seeker

Women

“All that is not God is death.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Source: Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III

God

“Death is the only god that comes when you call.”

Roger Zelazny book Frost & Fire

24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai (1985) - Review of 24 views, with images http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/gallery/hokusai/24views.htm <br class="br">Source: Frost & Fire

God

“Birth is okay and death is okay, if we know that they are only concepts in our mind. Reality transcends both birth and death.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

Birth, Reality

“The rose petal floats on water. The kingfisher flashes above the pond. Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death.”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

al'Lan Mandragoran
(15 January 1990)
Source: The Eye of the World

Life, Beauty, Water

“Death, jewelry, or magic; it sounded like Valentine's Day.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

“I will tell you what war is. War is a psychosis caused by an inability to see relationships. Our relationship with our fellowmen. Our relationship with our economic and historical situation. And above all our relationship to nothingness, to death.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

War

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Life, Peace

“The purpose of life is to familiarize oneself with this after-death body so that the act of dying will not create confusion in the psyche.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Life

“Twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death”

Cressida Cowell book How to Train Your Dragon

Source: How to Train Your Dragon

“We are all resigned to death: it's life we aren't resigned to.”

Graham Greene book The Heart of the Matter

Source: The Heart of the Matter

Life

“If I'd known how wrong I was - if I'd had any idea of the awful night that lay ahead - I'd have run after him and never returned to that disgusting circus of blood, that revolting circus of death.”

Darren Shan (1972) Irish writer of English-language fiction under pen name, real name Darren O'Shaughnessy

Idea, Night

“Not only are selves conditional but they die. Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead. So why, one could say, be afraid of death, when death comes all the time?”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Self-Consciousness

Time, Personality, Dead

“and every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.”

Khaled Hosseini (1965) novelist

God, Fear

“This is a great fact: strength is life; weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery, weakness is death.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Life

“Maybe we're standing like coins on the edge?"
Allie considered this. "Meaning?"
"Meaning, we might be able to shake things up a little, and find a way to come up heads."
"Or tails," suggested Allie.
"What are youabout?" said Lief.
"Life and death.”

Neal Shusterman book Everlost

Source: Everlost

Life, Way

“There's a moment when love makes you believe in death for the first time. You recognize the one whose loss, even contemplated, you'll carry forever, like a sleeping child. All grief, anyone's grief… is the weight of a sleeping child.”

Anne Michaels book Fugitive Pieces

Source: Fugitive Pieces

Love, Sleep, Loss, Time

“The absence of pain means death, so when something no longer bothers you, you've died to that thing.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Pain

“There’s a big difference between death threats and love letters–even if the person writing the death threats still claims to actually love you. Of course, considering I once tried to kill someone I loved, maybe I had no right to judge.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Love, Personality

“Death! Strange that there should be such a word, and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Beauty, Hope, Forgetting

“Applaud my friends, the comedy is over…”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

on his death bed
Original: Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est.

“You had to risk your life to get love. You had to get right to the edge of death to ever be saved.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Love, Life

“The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.”

Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark

Source: Schindler's List

“You know what's funny about death? I mean other than absolutely nothing at all? You'd think we could remember finding out we weren't immortal. Sometimes I see children sobbing airports and I think, "Aww. They've just been told.”

Carrie Fisher book Wishful Drinking

Source: Wishful Drinking

Children, Thinking

“It was common enough, to see so much death and want a child. Common, therefore human, and he wanted it all the more. When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, a family line, connection.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Life, Family, Dreams, Housing

“Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

“If it means my death, I don't care, because even death will be a sort of freedom.”

Catherine Fisher book Incarceron

Source: Incarceron

Freedom

“People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Wall and Piece (2005)
Source: Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

War, People

“Death was no less a miracle than birth.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

Birth

“Death is just a new beginning…at least in my religion. And extreme inebriation seriously helps. (Syn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Religion, Help

“Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: Life's Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life

Life

“It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death: I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Source: The End of the Affair

Love

“They say even death can't cure an idiot.
-Ririn”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

“Give me B movies or give me death!”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

“I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and knows that love is as strong as death, and be on my side forever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Love, Strong

“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death”

John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

Stanza 6
Poems (1820), Ode to a Nightingale
Source: The Complete Poems
Context: Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain —
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Love, Time