“The worst thing about death is that you once were, and now you are not.”

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Song lyrics, Motherland (2001), The Worst Thing
Variant: once I came close to that most elusive fire
burning with hopeless love and desire
but it was just about the worst thing that I could do
it was just about the worst thing I could do

How to Save Your Own Life (1977)

Source: Young Adventure (1918), The Quality of Courage

Source: 1984

Source: The Big Sleep (1939), Chapter 32, Phillip Marlowe
Context: What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep.

"Oprah Talks to Sidney Poitier", http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Oprah-Interviews-Sidney-Poitier/1 O Magazine, October 2000

Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane