Quotes about death
page 13

“He smiled despite the grief he felt at the deaths of his men; he smiled because that was what he did. That was how he proved to the Lord Ruler-and to himself-that he wasn't beaten.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

“Right," Sadie said. "And Set will just stand there calmly while I read him to death.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. (Death)”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Variant: I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty and I wonder how the same can be both.
Source: The Book Thief

“I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Wisdom, People, Age, Thinking

“You've already said you were going to kill me," Alex said, "but I didn't think that meant you were going to bore me to death.”

Anthony Horowitz book Point Blanc

Source: Point Blank

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character… Would you slow down? Or speed up?”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

“… as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn't touch.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

“We see a hearse; we think sorrow. We see a grave; we think despair. We hear of a death; we think of a loss. Not so in heaven. When heaven sees a breathless body, it sees the vacated cocoon & the liberated butterfly.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions

Thinking, Loss, Despair

“I love you. It was the tie that bound, even across the divides of death and time.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: The King

“Death didn't bother me much. Strong Christian and all that. Method of death did. Being eaten alive. One of my top three ways not to go out.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Laughing Corpse

Source: The Laughing Corpse

“A reduction of meat consumption by only 10% would result in about 12 million more tons of grain for human consumption. This additional grain could feed all of the humans across the world who starve to death each year- about 60 million people!”

Marc Bekoff (1945) American biologist

Source: Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect

“There was no point moping around when you faced imminent death.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress other engineers, and they always come with instruction booklets that are written by engineers for other engineers — which is why almost no technology ever works.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

BBC interview http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/11/20/john_cleese_die_another_day_interview.shtml on Die Another Day (20 November 2002)]

“Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.”

Isabel Allende book Paula

Source: Paula

“Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

“You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!”

Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera

Source: The Phantom of the Opera

“I do not know why the dead do not come back to life. Perhaps death is so wonderful, in ways we cannot comprehend, that they prefer it over and above their friends and loved ones, although I am inclined to doubt that be the case.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Source: Jitterbug Perfume

Love, Life, Way, Dead

“Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“There are some kinds of wounds you can get, internal injuries. You don't know what's wrong with you, but you're bleeding to death slowly inside.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“He was Death, and he'd ridden in on a pale horse…”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“District 12. Where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“Life is stronger than death.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

“I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.”

Knut Hamsun book Mysteries

Source: Mysteries

“I touched her thigh
and death smiled”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

An American Prayer (1978)

“Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.”

Atul Gawande book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Source: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

“Death is simple. Life is messy. Give me life, the more complicated the better.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

“Death isn't a tragedy to God, only to those left behind.”

Patricia Briggs book Night Broken

Source: Night Broken

“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Source: Cosmic Trigger: Die letzten Geheimnisse der Illuminaten oder An den Grenzen des erweiterten Bewusstseins

Intelligence, Thinking

“Do you know what it means to be loved by Death?… Do you know what it means to have Death know your name?”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

“People like death and mayhem.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

“Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Drake. He liked dangerous pies."
"Why did he join you?"
"Who would eat pie that could take over your life? Why risk it?"
"Focus. Why did he join you?"
"Say no to death pies. Another good motto. I'm getting a headache." p. 432”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: A World Without Heroes

“Death steals everything except our stories.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Source: In Search of Small Gods

“It's interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls.”

Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997) Czech bookwriter and writer

“This morning Jackson had told Matthew, "You mention death one more time, and I"ll knock you into next week.?"
"Already been there," Matthew had answered.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Poison Princess

“If watching television doesn't hasten death, it surely manages to make death very inviting; for television so shamelessly sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have missed something - just by staying alive.”

John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany

Source: A Prayer for Owen Meany

“We’re Nephilim. Every one of our life’s passages has some mystical component — our births, our deaths, our, marriages, everything has a ceremony and a rune. There is one as well if you wish to become someone’s parabatai. It’s no small commitment.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Life, Marriage, Birth

“Mundies die awfully easily, don't they?"
"Isabelle, you know it's bad luck to talk about death in a sickroom.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Dreams don't come true. Dreams die. Dreams get compromised. Dreams end up dealing meth in a booth at the back of the Olive Garden. Dreams choke to death on bay leaves. Dreams get spleen cancer.”

Douglas Coupland The Gum Thief

Source: The Gum Thief

“Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death… others through sheer inability to cross the street.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

The Waves (1931)

“Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.”

Edna Ferber (1885–1968) Novelist, playwright

Love, Life, Lovers

“If my mom told one more story about how cute I looked in the bathtub when I was three years old I was going to burrow into the snow and freeze myself to death.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“What do you want from me?” – Nick
“Normally, it’d be your life and your soul. Unfortunately, I can’t take either right now. Sucks to be me today.” – Death”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

“In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

“Death doesn't care about personalities - he's more interested in meeting quotas.”

Jasper Fforde book Something Rotten

Source: Something Rotten

“So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

“The Death Mist is not for helping!" Akhlys shrieked. "It shrouds mortals in misery as their souls pass into the Underworld. It is the very breath of Tartarus, of death, of despair!"
"Awesome," Percy said. "Could we get two orders of that to go?”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Soul, Help, Despair

“And than suddenly he was there, charging down the hallway like death in a cowboy duster.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

“Knowledge forbidden?
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know?
Can it be death?”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

Knowledge, Envy

“There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“This is not some silly game… This is life and death Angels and demons.”

Melissa de la Cruz (1971) American writer

Life, Angels, Game

“Thinking of death--strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off--made me feel happier than ever.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Beauty, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“People living deeply have no fear of death.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two (1934-1939)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

“Upon this crown my pledge I give,
To my last breath, I hold this choice,
I will your unjust deaths avenge,
All here who died without a voice.”

Suzanne Collins Gregor and the Marks of Secret

Source: Gregor and the Marks of Secret

“Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi. (Death will come and it will have your eyes.)”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

“Transition is always a relief. Destination means death to me. If I could figure out a way to remain forever in transition, in the disconnected and unfamiliar, I could remain in a state of perpetual freedom.”

David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992) American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and AIDS activist

Source: Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration

“Even in death may you triumphant”

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

“Death isn't funny. Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with us — us humans — death is so sad that we must laugh at it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“May you live in such a way that your death is just the beginning of your life.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make A Difference

“We rehearse for the big death through the little death of orgasm, through erotic living. Death as transfiguration”

Peter Redgrove (1932–2003) English writer

“The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

“Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

“Death wants to gank me. Must be Tuesday.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Endless Knight

“We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins.”

Tony Kushner Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

Source: Angels in America

Life, Secret, World, Time

“You know what I like about you? You have no sense. You sit here in my house, you can barely hold a spoon, and you're telling me 'no'. You'd pull on Death's whiskers if you could reach them.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“I didn't know the inner me was hungry," I said to Art.
"That's because it already starved to death.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: 20th Century Ghosts

“I often think of death.
True.
Suicide is a reasonable option.
True.
My sins are unpardonable.
I stare at the question.
My sins are unpardonable.
I stare at the question.
My sins are unpardonable.
I leave it blank.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Question, Thinking, Suicide

“We each die countless little deaths on our way to the last. We die out of shame as humiliation. We perish from despair. And, of course, we die for love.”

Clive Barker book Absolute Midnight

Source: Absolute Midnight

Love, Way, Despair

“I'd rather lose her from my life, but know she was alive and well than lose her altogether to death.”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

Source: Vampires are Forever

“I'm wishing he could see that music lives. Forever. That it's stronger than death. Stronger than time. And that its strength holds you together when nothing else can.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

“Is this guy Love or Death?" Jason growled. Cupid said.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

“… nothing broke my heart like the slow death of a shared joke that had once seemed genuinely funny.”

Curtis Sittenfeld book Prep

Source: Prep

“Speaking of death, LeBlanc boasted he could kill me in the waiting room. I broke his wrist. He wasn't impressed.”

Kelley Armstrong book Bitten

Source: Bitten

“I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

To Fanny Brawne (July 25, 1819)
Letters (1817–1820)

“Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

“I could not count the times during the average day when something would come up that I needed to tell him. This impulse did not end with his death. What ended was the possibility of response.”

Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Source: The Year of Magical Thinking

“to fight for each minute is to
fight for what is possible within
yourself,
so that your life and your death
will not be like
theirs.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“The truth can be glimpsed only through the eyes of death.”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Source: Inferno

“Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station

Star, Universe, Distant

“Who's to say that my light is better than your darkness? Who's to say death is better than your darkness? Who am I to say?”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

“Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.”

Erik H. Erikson book Childhood and Society

Childhood and Society (1950), p. 269

Life, Children, Fear

“To see the beauty of the world is to put your hands on lines that run uninterrupted through life and through death. Touching them is an act of hope, for perhaps someone on the other side, if there is another side, is touching them, too.”

Mark Helprin A Soldier of the Great War

Source: A Soldier of the Great War

Life, World, Beauty, Hope

“You can’t pay for tragedy with more tragedy, or draw life from death.” “I”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

“Winning the Games will make you famous, losing will mean death.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“There is no life without death. That is the true meaning of yin and yang”

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in sooth
The best of all were never to be born.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

“Men dislike being awakened from their death in life.”

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

“To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

“To experience commitment as the loss of options, a type of death, the death of childhood's limitless possibility, of the flattery of choice without duress-this will happen, mark me. Childhood's end.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King

Loss, Childhood

“He gave her a bright fake smile; so much of life was a putting off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing was ever lost by delay. He had a dim idea that perhaps if one delayed long enough, things were taken out of one's hands altogether by death.”

Graham Greene book The Heart of the Matter

Source: The Heart of the Matter

Life, Smile, Idea, Time

“What light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, Liberty is to the soul of man. Without it, there come suffocation, degradation and death.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Love, Soul, Light, Heart

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Misattributed

Life, Fear, Time, Depressing

“Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.”

Elie Wiesel book Day

Source: Day

“Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“Dance with me, Death, I am ready.”

Terry Goodkind book Stone of Tears

Source: Stone of Tears

“Chocolate is not a matter of life and death--it's more important than that.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: At Last

“You are mine, woman, and I am yours. Until you, my life was desolate. I existed, but I didn't truly live. Now I live, even in my death.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Night

“Death always leaves one singer to mourn.”

Katherine Anne Porter book Pale Horse, Pale Rider

Source: Pale Horse, Pale Rider

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