Vol. XI, p. 242
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works
Context: When death comes, it does not ask your permission; it comes and takes you; it destroys you on the spot. In the same way, can you totally drop hate, envy, pride of possession, attachment to beliefs, to opinions, to ideas, to a particular way of thinking? Can you drop all that in an instant? There is no “how to drop it”, because that is only another form of continuity. To drop opinion, belief, attachment, greed, or envy is to die — to die every day, every moment. If there is the coming to an end of all ambition from moment to moment, then you will know the extraordinary state of being nothing, of coming to the abyss of an eternal movement, as it were, and dropping over the edge — which is death. I want to know all about death, because death may be reality; it may be what we call God — that most extraordinary something that lives and moves and yet has no beginning and no end.
“Don't ask permission. If it does not work, you can apologize later.”
“Death is the only god that comes when you call.”
24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai (1985) - Review of 24 views, with images http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/gallery/hokusai/24views.htm
Source: Frost & Fire
Source: Cibola Burn (2014), Chapter 48 (p. 491)
“Things happen to you they happen. They dont ask first. They dont require your permission.”
Source: No Country for Old Men
“Someone dying asks if there is life after death. Yes, comes the answer, only not yours.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 101.
Book Two, Part II “The Water”, Chapter 1 (p. 170)
The Birthgrave (1975)
