Quotes about death
page 17

“Flaws would not only bring death but, far worse, humiliation.”

Source: The Princess Bride

“There in that pool stained with green blood, he had learned two things: one was that all the pain stopped when you stopped fighting death; and the other was that as long as you could still hear your heart beating, you had to keep fighting back.”

Ryū Murakami book Coin Locker Babies

Source: Coin Locker Babies

Pain, Learning, Heart, Fight

“The birth of the mind is the death of the senses”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Birth, Sense

“I am sustained by the certainty that life has meaning… as does death.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Life

“Immortality,' said Crake, ' is a concept. If you take 'mortality' as being, not death, but the foreknowledge of it and the fear of it, then 'immortality' is the absence of such fear. Babies are immortal. Edit out the fear, and you'll be…”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Fear, Baby

“It's so trendy, almost bleeding to death. All the cool girls are doing it.”

Francine Pascal Fearless

Source: Fearless

Girl

“We study there a lot because… what other choice does society give us, right? It's Starbucks or death, sometimes.”

Maureen Johnson book Let It Snow

Source: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Study

“It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that is purloined.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Life, Memory

“It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.
For every one of us, living in this world
means waiting for our end. Let whoever can
win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,
that will be his best and only bulwark.”

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer

Source: Beowulf

World, Waiting

“If aught must be lost, ‘twill be my honor for yours. If one must be forsaken, ‘twill be my soul for yours. Should death come anon, ‘twill be my life for yours. I am Given.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Kiss of the Highlander

Life, Soul

“Let us be separated by wars and pestilence, death, madness but not by the passing of time.”

Mario Puzo book Fools Die

Source: Fools Die

War, Time, Madness

“Doesn't our knowledge of death make life more precious?'

What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious quivering thing”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

Source: White Noise

Life, Fear, Knowledge

“Because you aren't who you think you are. You aren't what everyone else believes. You might have delivered countless deaths but you love more fiercely than anyone I've ever known.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Passion

Love, Thinking

“I know the place.
It is true.
Everything we do
Corrects the space
Between death and me
And you.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

“Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Paris Review interview (1958)

Pleasure

“The death of God left the angels in a strange position.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

God, Angels

“Please give me fifty more years of work and fun, then an instant death when I'm sleeping.”

John Grisham book The Rainmaker

Source: The Rainmaker

Sleep

“Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Sabriel

“We are frightfully concerned with our own deaths, sometimes so much so that we forget the real purpose of our lives”

Brian L. Weiss

Source: Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives

Forgetting

“It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden (1952)
Context: When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.
Context: In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

Pleasure, World

“Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Sleep

“The fear of death is the beginning of slavery.”

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

Source: The Golden Apple

Fear

“The corner of his mouth quirked up suddenly.
“What?” Clary demanded. “Is something funny?”
“ ‘Flying death turtle’?” he said. “Only you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Flying

“Conrad placed on the title page an epigraph taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene:

"Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please"

This also became Conrad's epitaph.”

Joseph Conrad book The Rover

Source: The Rover

Life, Sleep, Sea

“In three days," he continued, "I will be your husband. I will take a solemn vow to protect you until death do us part. Do you understand what that means?"
"You'll save me from marauding minotaurs?”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton

Understanding, Parting

“And how do I know that the hate of death is not like a man who has lost his home when young and does not know where his home is to return to?”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

Hate, Home

“If I can't joke about imminent death, then I might as well just resign.”

James A. Owen The Search for the Red Dragon

Source: The Search for the Red Dragon

“… to be injured on this tundra would lead to a quick and painful death—or at the very least abject humiliation before the popping flashes of the tourist season's tail end, which was slightly less painful than a painful death, but lasted longer.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Atlantis Complex

Pain, Season

“The death penalty can be tolerated only by extreme statist reactionaries who demand a state that is so powerful that it has the right to kill.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Penalty

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)
Context: A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be changed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Money

“Suppose death had a heart to love and to release you, to whom would he turn this passion, would you chose a person from the crowd there. A person to suffer as you suffer.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Love, Suffering, Passion, Heart

“Love. It's so close to hate, it's almost indistinguishable. But this is how it was for the two of them. Love and hate. Life and death. Joy and anguish.”

Melissa de la Cruz book Revelations

Source: Revelations

Love, Life, Hate, Joy

“I swear that woman had a previous career as a death-hunter selling tragic ballads down around the Seven Dials," said Will. "And I do wish she wouldn't sing about poisoning just after we've eaten.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Singing

“I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away - I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Art

“There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Hate, World, Forgetting

“All ends are temporary and all life is born from death.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Evil Thirst

Life

“I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.”

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

March, 1933 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ps_DtS_PFb4C&q=%22I+postpone+death+by+living+by+suffering+by+error+by+risking+by+giving+by+losing%22&pg=PT203#v=onepage <br class="br">Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Error, Suffering

“A leader leads,” Ragnar said, “and you can’t ask men to risk death if you’re not willing to risk it yourself.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

Men

“Death,—a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 28
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

Way, Sense

“Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

"Stairway to Heaven," Thinking in Pictures (1995), p. 202.
Source: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
Context: Most people don't realize that the slaughter plant is much gentler than nature. Animals in the wild die from starvation, predators, or exposure. If I had a choice, I would rather go through a slaughter system than have my guts ripped out by coyotes or lions while I was still conscious. Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.

People, Birth, Nature

“How does he do it? Live. With the fear of death every day. I don't fear death as much as I fear the thought of living.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Fear

“‎All my stupid little thoughts beget stupid little thoughts, rampantly speculating every possible outcome of every possible situation until they're all done to death and none of them could ever be true.”

Bryan Lee O'Malley book Lost at Sea

Source: Lost at Sea

Stupidity

“The trickster, the riddler, the keeper of balance, he of the many faces who finds life in death and who fears no evil; he who walks through doors.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

Life, Fear, Evil

“Nothing like ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Time, Fight, Flying

“I will guard you from Death, for I have no fear of him.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Fear

“Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Source: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Life

“We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

"The Meaning of Life: The Big Picture", Life Magazine (December 1988)
Interviews
Context: For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stonewritten. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

War, Drink, Beer

“Like death, his father's presence was cold and often callous, but it was real -- brutally honest, inescapably dependable.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Dependency

“Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Love

“She closed her eyes; and in the sweet slumber lying
her spirit tiptoed from its lodging place.
It's folly to shrink in fear, if this is dying;
for death looked lovely in her face.”

Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) Italian scholar and poet

Love, Fear, Lying

“After your death, you will be what you were before your birth.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Birth

“They all deserve to die.
Even you, Mrs. Lovett
Even I.

Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief
For the rest of us death would be relief.”

Stephen Sondheim (1930) American composer and lyricist

Source: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

“I only suggest to you: Will you dwell on killing this man? You wish for revenge? If you do, he has already killed you by slow poison. So, let it go. Why waste your time? His life will see to his death.”

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

Source: The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio

Life, Revenge, Time

“Live you can evade; death you cannot.”

Dean Koontz book Brother Odd

Brother Odd

“Next time you wish to feed me poison, warn me first," Loor demanded. (The Merchant of Death)”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Time

“An awareness of death encourages us to live more intensely.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Women, Sport, Football

“Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, 'Did you bring joy?' The second was, 'Did you find joy?”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Question, Joy

“There was a basket at her feet. She reached into it and lifted out the head of a young woman, a marquise. She wore Bourbon white to her death, but wears the tricolor now - white cheeks, blue lips, red dripping from her neck. Long live the revolution.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

“True courage, in the face of almost certain death, is the rarest quality on earth.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Black Blood

Courage

“In the face of such hopelessness as our eventual, unavoidable death, there is little sense in not at least trying to accomplish all of your wildest dreams in life.”

Kevin Smith (1970) American screenwriter, actor, film producer, public speaker and director

Source: Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good

Life, Dreams, Sense

“There are certain kinds of deaths that one should not be expected to re-live, certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of the link inside you.”

Jeff VanderMeer book Annihilation

Source: Annihilation

Feeling

“I have always been afraid… Always been pretending to follow you closely, alwyas been pretending to sharpen my teeth, when the truth is, I am… scared to death just treading on your shadow.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Truth

“Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Source: Jitterbug Perfume

“I could have fixed almost everything else, but death defeated me every time.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Time

“Death is an ascension to a better library.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

“The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Time

“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

“Fate intervened. Some of us, that day, she led inexorably through the gates of death. Some of us, innocent and unsuspecting, took, unwillingly, that one last step to oblivion. Some of us took very little sugar.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Fate

“people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

People, Sadness

“There is a fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration; there are daily small deaths.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

Sleep, Time

“Oh, we do not understand death, we never understand it; creatures are only truly dead when everyone else has died who knew them.”

Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931) Austrian writer

Source: Selected Short Fiction

Understanding, Dead

“What I've learned is that there is nothing in this life that does not fail to disappoint us, even our own deaths.”

Joe Meno book The Boy Detective Fails

Source: The Boy Detective Fails

Life, Disappointment, Learning

“Truth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

Source: The Man in the High Castle

Truth

“That's the question, isn't it?" you said one night. "Does death bring freedom, or is it the end of freedom?”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

Question, Freedom, Night

“What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

“Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

“I read that speaking in front of a crowd is the number-one fear in America. I found that amazing. Number two was death. Number two! That means that, if you're ever at a funeral, you'd rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

I'm Telling You for the Last Time (1998)

Fear, Reading

“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.”

John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

Stanza 6
Poems (1820), Ode to a Nightingale
Source: Complete Poems and Selected Letters

Love, Pain, Art, Soul

“Where there's life, death is inevitable. Dying's easy; it's living that's hard. The harder it gets, the stronger the will to live. And the greater the fear of death, the greater the struggle to keep on living.”

Mo Yan book Big Breasts and Wide Hips

Source: Big Breasts and Wide Hips (1996)

Life, Fear

“Truly, everything in this world depended on time. Time ripened all. If you had time, you succeeded in working the human mud internally and turning it into spirit. Then you did not fear death. If you did not have time, you perished.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Last Temptation of Christ

Source: The Last Temptation of Christ

World, Fear, Time, Dependency

“We received our colouring from the Norsemen, hairy savages who hacked their gods to pieces and hung the flesh from trees. We are the ones who sacked Rome. Fear only feeble old age and death in bed. Don't forget who you are.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

God, Age, Fear, Tree

“Let me give you free advice, kid. Whenever something is coming for you, snap its neck or double tap. Never, ever hesitate. It’s infinitely better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.” – Death”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

“The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death.”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Life

“Love without risk is an impossibility, like war without death.”

Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher

Source: In Praise of Love

Love, War

“The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Religion, Idea

“Death cures all ills. Well, most of them.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Narcissus in Chains

Source: Narcissus in Chains

“The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Depuis le jour de ma naissance, ma mort s'est mise en marche. Elle marche à ma rencontre, sans se presser.
"Postambule" in La Fin du Potomac (1939); later published in Collected Works Vol. 2 (1947)

Birth