Quotes about the dead
page 7

“I'd killed him in the end, but revenge only makes things all better in the movies. In real life, once the villain is dead the trauma lives on inside the victims.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Source: Bullet

Life, Revenge

“To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know how to be dead.”

Milan Kundera book Immortality

Source: Immortality

“But when they were done, I wondered if there would be a next time. I felt good. I wasn’t dead, yet something was dead. Perhaps I’d managed my peculiar objective of partial suicide. I was lighter, airier than I’d been in years.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

Suicide, Time

“This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that's being dead.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

US News & World Report (27 October 1986)

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“If you’re alive, don’t move, if you’re dead, don’t worry about it.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Narcissus in Chains

Source: Narcissus in Chains

“Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.”

Richard Adams book Watership Down

Source: Watership Down

Sleep, Grass

“Let's do it. Monkeys are always funny. You pretty much can't go wrong with a monkey, right? Hi paused. Well unless that monkey wants you dead, or does needle drugs or something. Then it's wrong, and a bad monkey.”

Kathy Reichs Virals

Source: Virals

“You’re a dead man,” Kyle said. “Warren doesn’t take kindly to people who hurt me.”

Patricia Briggs book Frost Burned

Source: Frost Burned

People, Hurt

“When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“She knew words no one had ever heard of, and she used words every day that had been mainly dead or sleeping for hundreds of years.”

Mark Helprin (1947) US author, journalist, commentator

Sleep

“No, it’s not fair, but what makes earth feel like Hell is our expectation that it should feel like Heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. It won’t help the situation for you to get all upset.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Damned

Source: Damned

Feeling, Hell, Help

“Their beauty had always seemed to him like the beauty of pressed flowers-lovely, but dead.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Love, Beauty, Flowers

“anyone who has no feelings for animals has a dead heart.”

Raegan Butcher Rusty String Quartet

Source: Rusty String Quartet

Feeling, Heart, Animals

“Are you afraid of me?
Uh… yes.'
The smile stayed fixed in place. 'You should be. You locked me in a refrigerator truck with three dead people. Sooner or later I'm going to get you for it.”

Janet Evanovich book One for the Money

Source: One for the Money

People, Smile

“The dead live."
"How do they live?"
"By love.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

Love

“Try, reach, want, and you may fall. But even if you do, you might be okay anyway.
If you don't try, you save nothing, because you might as well be dead.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

“Is he dead?" he inquired. "He looks dead."
"No," snapped Maryse. "He's not dead."
"Have you checked? I could kick him if you want.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“What we have at the moment isn't as the old liturgies used to say, 'the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead,' but a vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

Source: Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Hope, Optimism

“I spent most of my youth hauling sides of beef and pork to my father's shop. Carrying you is far more enjoyable."

"How sweet," Annabelle mumbled sickly, her eyes closed. "Every woman dreams of being told that she's preferable to a dead cow.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Secrets of a Summer Night

Youth, Dreams

“What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Lie, Learning

“Trapped for days, years, centuries maybe. Dead, but not allowed to die. Alive, but as good as dead.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: Dead, but not allowed to die. Alive, but as good as dead.
Source: Mockingjay

“When trust is lost, traumatized people feel that they belong more to the dead than to the living.”

Judith Lewis Herman (1942) American psychiatrist

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

People, Feeling

“Everything rests on the poisoned wine. If it were just the queen, I could force it down her gullet, but Declan Broekhart would run me through with that damned ceremonial sword, and if his wife's stares were daggers, he'd be dead already.”

Eoin Colfer book Airman

Source: Airman

Wine

“The universe is full of dead people who lived by assumption.”

Alan Dean Foster book Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Source: Splinter of the Mind's Eye

People, Universe

“There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time. Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Star, Light, Time

“For me chivalry isn't dead; it's an involuntary reflex.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: Summer Knight

“It's music rage, which is like road rage, only more righteous. When you get road rage, a tiny part of you knows you're being a jerk, but when you get music rage, you're carrying out the will of God, and God wants these people dead”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

God, People, Music, Jerk

“Maybe it was that nearly everyone else was dead and she felt a little bit dead too, but she figured that even a vampire deserved to be saved. Maybe she ought to leave him, but she wasn't going to.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Don't look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you'll know you're dead.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Suffering

“No one is truly dead until they are no longer loved.”

Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) French writer

Source: My Fantoms

Love

“Oh, God,” Magnus said. “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Variant: Oh God.” said Magnus, “they’re dead. They’re all dead!
Source: City of Heavenly Fire

God

“I'd call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.”

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

Horse

“It wasn't even a good note. 'If you are reading this I am probably dead.' What sort of a note is that?”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Reading

“How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Soul

“I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.”

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

Food

“But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality.”

E.M. Forster book A Passage to India

Source: A Passage to India

People

“But pain… seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

Life, Pain, Question, Time

“To look upon its grass grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace.”

Washington Irving book The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Source: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Peace, Thinking, Sleep, Grass

“In my next life I want to live backwards. Start out dead and finish off as an orgasm.”

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

Life

“Come on up, boys
-I'm dead.”

Dylan Thomas book Under Milk Wood

Source: Under Milk Wood

Boy

“i was born to hustle roses down the avenue of the dead.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid - that had to mean something.”

William Goldman The Silent Gondoliers

Source: The Silent Gondoliers

Girl, Boy

“I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle, something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all some day.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Variant: I want to do something splendid... something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday.
Source: Little Women

“Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking: Well, at least I'm not dead.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Life, Lie, Thinking, Chance

“You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Variant: you are not dead, but you are not alive.
Source: Wintergirls

“… and motioned me toward a spot next to a middle-aged Moroi in a very formal and very designer black suit. The suit screamed, I'm sorry the queen is dead, and I'm going to look fashionable while showing my grief”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Age, Fashion

“She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And musick shall untune the Sky.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Grand Chorus. A Song for St. Cecilia's Day http://www.englishverse.com/poems/a_song_for_st_cecilias_day_1687 (1687) Source: The Major Works Context: So, when the last and dreadful Hour This crumbling Pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And musick shall untune the Sky.

“My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“I thought about telling him the truth: 'Oh, nothing. Just having my soul exorcised so I can roam around
purgatory, looking for the ghost of the dead cowboy who used to live in my bedroom.”

Meg Cabot book Darkest Hour

Source: Darkest Hour

Truth, Soul

“Bang! Now the animal
Is dead and dumb and done.
Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again,
Eat or sleep or drink again, oh, what fun!”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

Hi!
Source: Rhymes and Verses: Collected Poems for Young People

Drink, Sleep, Animals

“I found myself jealous of the people who wrote the books. They were dead and they were still taking up my time. Who did they think they were?”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, Books, Thinking, Time

“Walk out of this with your parents, the stones, and Darroc dead, Ms. Lane, and I‘ll give you the bloody thing.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Parent

“He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances.”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

“When I am dead, I hope it may be said:
'His sins were scarlet, But his books were read.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"On His Books"
Hilaire Belloc (1925)
Variant: When I am dead, I hope it may be said, 'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

Books, Hope, Reading

“Care for the living. I'll weep for the dead later. - Perrin Aybara”

Robert Jordan The Shadow Rising

Source: The Shadow Rising

“And in that fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

“You just don’t expect to meet dead people.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Invisible Monsters

People

“Graves are for the living, not the dead. It gives us something to concentrate on instead of the fact that our loved one is rotting under the ground.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Love

“The past is dead. Tomorrow will become whatever decision you make it. ~ Acheron.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Decision, Past

“You’re not dead,
but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl, Lia-Lia,
caught in between the worlds. You’re a ghost with a beat-
ing heart. Soon you’ll cross the border and be with me.
I’m so stoked. I miss you wicked.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Variant: You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl, Lia-Lia, caught in between the worlds. You’re a ghost with a beating heart. Soon you’ll cross the border and be with me. I’m so stoked. I miss you wicked.
Source: Wintergirls

World, Heart

“Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds & then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

People, Color, Clothes

“There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead. You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction. These people with dead children, you want to tell them, go ahead. Blame yourself. There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

Love, Children, People, Books

“If I were dead, I wouldn't be sad, and I wouldn't be glad, because I wouldn't be.”

Marcus Sedgwick (1968) British writer and illustrator

Sadness

“Mickey Cray had been out of work ever since a dead iguana fell from a palm tree and hit him on the head.”

Carl Hiaasen book Chomp

Source: Chomp

Tree

“If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

“The man may not be dead, but he was certainly stiff. And this hadto do with rigor mortis.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

“She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Love, Marriage, Making love, Dreams

“Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

“You see pictures of Buddha and he’s sitting, reclining, at peace. The Hindus have their twelve-armed elephant god, who also seems so content but not powerless. But leave it to Christians to have a dead and bloody man nailed to a cross.”

Dave Eggers book Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

Source: Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

God, Peace

“Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.”

Raymond Chandler book The Big Sleep

Source: The Big Sleep (1939), chapter 6

People, Way

“Only the Dead stay seventeen forever.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“One fine day, in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight. Back to back they faced each other. They pulled out their swords and shot one another. One deaf cop, on the beat heard the noise, and came and shot the two dead boys.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Valiant

Boy, Fight, Night

“Trapped for days, years, centuries maybe. Dead, but not allowed to die. Alive, but as good as dead. So alone that anyone, anything no matter how loathsome would be welcome.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“Conservatives want live babies so they can train them to be dead soldiers.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Baby, Training

“Guy? Mister? Mr. Goth Man, would you please wake up so I can leave? I really don't want to hang out in a closet with a dead man any longer than I have to, okay? C'mon, please, don't make this a Weekend at Bernie's thing! (Amanda)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Guy

“Only two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”

Sara Shepard Pretty Little Liars

Source: Pretty Little Liars

Secret

“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, Death, Way

“I’d heard you were dead.”
"I heard you wear a red lace corset,” I said matter-of-factly. “But I don’t believe every bit of nonsense that gets rumored about.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“Eerily, the coronation was kind of a reverse of Tatianaʹs funeral. What was the old saying? The queen is dead. Long live the queen”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“You forgot another lesson: Never turn your back until you know your enemy
is dead. Looks like we’ll have to go over the lesson again the next time
I see you—which will be soon.
Love, D.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Love, Time

“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

Death, Fear

“Don't screech like that. You'll wake the dead." - Jace - The Mortal Instruments - City Of Bones”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Variant: Don't screech like that. You'll wake the dead.
Source: City of Bones

“Clary stopped dead in her tracks. "Simon?"

"Oh, God," said Jace, sounding resigned. "And here I'd actually hoped I'd got hold of something interesting." -Clary and Jace pg. 114”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

God, Hope

“If while alive you hurt or disappoint people you love, there's no use continuing such behavior when you're dead.”

Anthony Swofford book Jarhead

Source: Jarhead

Love, People, Disappointment, Behavior

“You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Past

“Please!’
That word didn’t make sense to Nico. The Underworld had no mercy. It only had justice.
‘You’re already dead,’ Nico said. ‘You’re a ghost with no tongue, no memory. You won’t be sharing any secrets.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Secret, Justice, Sense, Memory

“I'll go sleep on the couch," James said. "No, you won't," Poppy said firmly. She flopped on the bed beside him. "You're dead tired. And I know I'm safe with you." James grinned without moving his arm. "Because I'm dead tired?”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire/Daughters of Darkness/Spellbinder

Sleep

“Because Father said clocks slay time. He said time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Variant: Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
Source: The Sound and the Fury (1929)

Life, Time

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

James Joyce book The Dead

Dubliners (1914)
Variant: His soul swooned softly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Source: "The Dead"
Context: Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Soul, Universe