“Ravens are the birds I'll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black light of their limber intelligence. If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens.”

—  Louise Erdrich

Source: The Painted Drum

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Ravens are the birds I'll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black…" by Louise Erdrich?
Louise Erdrich photo
Louise Erdrich25
writer from the United States 1954

Related quotes

“When I die
let the black rag fly
raven falling
from the sky.”

George Woodcock (1912–1995) Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic

"Black Flag" in Collected Poems (1983)

Courtney Love photo

“Asphyxiate all your pain away
Don't try to win; it will only end in disgrace
Translucetize the cold light of day
It's glorious, its terrible, God I need it
It's beautiful, it's ravenous; I'll just feed it
Coil down to your black dark decay
And I will dig my own grave now
I'm miss begotten
I am the last one you save here
It's all gone rotten”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

"Nobody's Daughter"
Song lyrics, Nobody's Daughter (2010)

Halldór Laxness photo

“The raven is the bird of all the gods. It was the bird of Odin and the bird of Jesus Christ. It will also be the bird of the god Skandilán, who has yet to be born. Whomever the raven rends attains salvation.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

the poet at the Ölfus River
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part I: Iceland's Bell

Swami Vivekananda photo

“When we have become free, we need not go mad and throw up society and rush off to die in the forest or the cave; we shall remain where we were, only we shall understand the whole thing.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

Chuck Palahniuk photo

“In light this bright, after so long in the dark, everything we can see is only black and white. Only glaring
shape-outlines we have to blink against.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

Sufjan Stevens photo

“When I die, when I die, I'll rot.
But when I live, but when I live,
I'll give it all I've got.”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Age of Adz"
Lyrics, The Age of Adz (2010)

Menotti Lerro photo

“We were born as a blank page and we will die as a black page.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Si nasce come una pagina bianca e si muore come una pagina nera.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo

“Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

The monster to Robert Walton
Frankenstein (1818)
Context: Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?

Robert Jordan photo

“The only way to live is to die. I must die. I deserve only death.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)

Related topics