“See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was.”

“I don’t know why I told this story. I could just as well have told another. Perhaps some other time I’ll be able to tell another. Living souls, you will see how alike they are.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

“I did not know it was possible to be so miserable and live but I am told that this is a common experience.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

“I told you I wanted to live in a world in which the antidote to shame is not honor, but honesty.”

Maggie Nelson (1973) American writer

“When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I 'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“[…] You see, you are an optimist and live on hope. I am a pessimist and live on experience.”

Malcolm Bradbury (1932–2000) English author and academic

“I told [the Commonwealth Commissioners] I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars… I told them I was come into the covenant of peace which was before wars and strife were.”

George Fox (1624–1691) English Dissenter and founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

“I am accused of having told thirty million French people, proletarians like me, that they had the right to live.”

Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) French socialist and political activist

“I mean some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

“If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody.”

James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room