Blood Meridian (1985)
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 4.
Leader of Indonesian Jama'a Islamiyya Abu Bakr Al-Ba'shir: I Support Bombings in America, But Not in the Muslim World, MEMRI, October 26, 2007 http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1598.htm,
“To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.”
Variant: It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.
Source: Les Misérables
The Dublin Nation, Sept. 28, 1844, Vol. ii. p. 809, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
From Nothing Personal, a collaboration with the photographer Richard Avedon (1964). Baldwin's text for the volume can be found " here https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=cibs".
Context: One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found - and it is found in terrible places. … For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
“I'll tell you one thing, though. It's a terrible thing to be a disappointment to a good woman.”
