“I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.”
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
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Emil M. Cioran 531
Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911–1995Related quotes

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss
Context: I will not say that the more or less poetical and unphilosophical doctrines that I am about to set forth are those which make me live; but I will venture to say that it is my longing to live and to live for ever that inspires these doctrines within me. And if by means of them I succeed in strengthening and sustaining this same longing in another, perhaps when it is all but dead, then I shall have performed a man's work, and above all, I shall have lived. In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself — that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny shall have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life — life will be wrested from me.

Pages 196–97. Fall of 1966. Satin has dropped out of SUNY and is sitting in his girlfriend's apartment in Manhattan. The application is for Canadian immigrant status. Keith, a supportive college professor, is seen by Satin as a plastic sellout.
Confessions of a Young Exile (1976)

Reported in Ellis Cose, " Justice: Still Keeping Score http://web.archive.org/web/20070605123712/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18248548/site/newsweek/page/2/", Newsweek (April 30, 2007).
1990s
MTV.com Jack Talks About His Addiction and Recovery

“To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.”
Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4

Si je me tue ce ne sera pas pour me détruire, mais pour me reconstituer, le suicide ne sera pour moi qu’un moyen de me reconquérir violemment, de faire brutalement irruption dans mon être, de devancer l’avance incertaine de Dieu. Par le suicide, je réintroduis mon dessin dans la nature, je donne pour la première fois aux choses la forme de ma volonté.
“On Suicide,” no. 1, Le Disque Vert (1925).