Quotes about die
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“Pretty words, as pretty women, wrinkle up and die.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“They say when you're about to die, you see your entire life flash before your eyes.
They lied.
The only thing Nick Gautier could see flashing was Kyrian Hunter's vampire fangs.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

Life

“He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

Sleep, Dance

“Froi saw the foolishness of dreamers, and he decided he'd like to die so foolish. With a dream in his heart about the possibilities, rather than a chain of hopelessness.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

Dreams, Heart

“If you're afraid to die, you're afraid to live. You can't have one without the other.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain —
To thy high requiem become a sod.”

John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

Stanza 6
Poems (1820), Ode to a Nightingale
Source: Complete Poems and Selected Letters

Love, Death, Pain, Art

“Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it's social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Support, Sister, Dependency

“Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Love, Fish, Time, Dead

“We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skill… we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.”

Esther Forbes book Johnny Tremain

Source: Johnny Tremain

Fight

“Let me not die unremembered”

Aaron Dembski-Bowden

“Evil doesn't die. It never dies. It just takes on a new face, a new name. Just because we've been touched by it once, it doesn't mean we're immune to ever being hurt again. Lightning can strike twice.”

Tess Gerritsen book The Surgeon

Source: The Surgeon

Evil, Hurt

“Whoa!" she says as I plow into her. " What are you DOING? Get off me!" I hang on tight. "Can't a girl just hug her big sister?" She stops fighting me. "Are you dying? Am I dying? Did Grandma die? I laugh. "No one died." "Then get off!”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: 11 Birthdays

Girl, Sister, Grandma, Fight

“Love cannot thrive simply by being offered. Sooner or later it must be accepted and reciprocated. It must be seen for what it is and nourished according to its needs, or it will die.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: Winter's Child: A Retelling of The Snow Queen

Love

“I want to live," he said, "So I have to die.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

“It's not your job to die for your Pack! It's your job to make the other bastards die for theirs.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an enchanted life.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Life, War, Sport

“Old pain doesn't completely die. Time may soothe it, stoke over it until it looks like it has healed, but it never dies properly. It stays with you, it lives in the cracks of your soul, waiting for moments when you feel true pain”

Dorothy Koomson (1971) British writer

Source: Goodnight, Beautiful

Pain, Feeling, Soul, Time

“You are freakishly tall, aren’t you? (Tory)
For a woman wanting my help you are ever determined to insult me. Should I make this as painless as possible and leave now before the die-painfully-you-asshole-prick stuff starts again? (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Help

“To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, Soul

“…deep-diving love, a love that excavates you. It’s something you have to have before you die in order to have lived.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

Love

“She [Melanie] is the only dream I ever had that lived and breathed and did not die in the face of reality.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Dreams, Reality

“Religion humanizes this universe, makes us feel important and loved. We are not animals governed by uncontrollable drives, animals that die for no apparent reason, but creatures made in the image of supreme being”

Robert Greene book The Art of Seduction

Source: The Art of Seduction

Love, Religion, Feeling, Universe

“I don’t want to die,” A. J. says after a bit. “I just find it difficult to be here all the time.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Time

“I'll be fine, they tell me. I won't die. It'll just hurt a lot.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Hurt

“No one knows better than I do how far heaven is, but I also know all the shortcuts. The secret is to die, when you want to, and not when He proposes. Or else to force Him to take you before your time.”

Juan Rulfo book Pedro Páramo

Source: Pedro Páramo

Secret, Time

“Love is not a candle burning down. Life is. And love and life are not the same or else Love, having choice, nobody would ever die.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

Love, Life

“You will die a worse death if you do not leave my domain,” a voice thundered down from the third story of the old tenement. “I am a servant of the Sacred Fire, the wielder of the flame of Arnor—”
“So I should call you Gandalf?”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Death's Mistress

Death

“So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly?' I asked.
He looked at me as if I were stupid.
'You die, of course. That's what deadly means.”

Douglas Adams book Last Chance to See

Source: Last Chance to See

Stupidity

“I feel ill,” he announced. “I’m going to bed, where I may die.” He tottered piteously to the stairs. “Bury me beside Mrs. Pentstemmon,” he croaked as he went up then to bed.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Feeling

“People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It'shard.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

People, Forgiveness

“Yeah, but I don’t want to be in pain, and I definitely don’t want to suffer.” – Nick
“Well…The only way to avoid them is to die.” – Death
“Okay, let’s change the topic now. Oh, look! A chicken.” – Nick”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

Death, Pain, Way, Suffering

“When they die no one will ever know that once they lived.”

Sidney Sheldon book The Other Side of Me

Source: The Other Side of Me

“The scariest thing in the world is thinking someone you love is going to die.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Love, World, Thinking

“If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the up button.”

Sam Levenson (1911–1980) American journalist

Funny

“By morning she was dead. She had not died of starvation or committed suicide by any conventional means. She had simply willed herself to die, and being a strong-willed woman, she had succeeded. She had missed dying on her birthday by two days.”

John Berendt Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Source: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Birthday, Suicide, Strong, Dead

“What does he say?' he asked.
'He’s very sad,’ Úrsula answered, ‘because he thinks that you’re going to die.'
'Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sadness, Smile, Thinking, Personality

“Everything is true,' he said. 'Everything anybody has ever thought.'

'Will you be all right?'

'I'll be all right,' he said, and thought, And I'm going to die. Both those are true, too.”

Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Source: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“You're all the world to me. Whenever i can't see you… I die a little.”

Yasmina Khadra (1955) Algerian writer

Source: The Attack

World

“I wonder where we go when we die?”
“…Pittsburgh?”
“You mean if we’re good or if we’re bad?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“I said he kissed me. Really kissed me. It rocked me to my soul. It was brutal. It was brilliant. It was horrible. I thought I was going to die.”

Margaret Way (1900) Australian romance fiction writer

Source: Genni's Dilemma

Soul, Kiss

“Be compassionate," Morrie whispered. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place."

He took a breath, then added his mantra: "Love each other or die.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Love, World, Learning

“We have in fact only two certainties in this world—that we are not everything and that we will die. To be conscious of not being everything, as one is of being mortal, is nothing. But if we are without a narcotic, an unbreathable void reveals itself. I wanted to be everything, so that falling into this void, I might summon my courage and say to myself: “I am ashamed of having wanted to be everything, for I see now that it was to sleep.” From that moment begins a singular experience. The mind moves in a strange world where anguish and ecstasy coexist.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: L’Expérience Intérieure (1943), p. xxxii

World, Courage, Sleep

“if it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

Source: The Collected Stories

Life, Truth, Past

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees (2002)

“At least the statue didn’t rumble, “DIE, UNBELIEVERS!” and zap the mortals to dust. Reyna had once dealt with a statue of the goddess Diana like that. It hadn’t been her most relaxing day.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“If they killed him tonight, at least he would die alive.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“He would work through the night and sleep until lunch. There wasn't really much else to do. Make something, and die.”

Ian McEwan book Amsterdam

Source: Amsterdam

Sleep, Night

“I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Death

“Imagine being sentient but not alive. Seeing and even knowing, but not alive. Just looking out. Recognizing but not being alive. A person can die and still go on. Sometimes what looks out at you from a person's eyes maybe died back in childhood.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly

Imagination, Childhood, Personality

“You cannot die nor can I.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Lectures on Bhagavad Gita

“How can he do this? If you were mine, I would fight to keep you. I would die, before I let you go.”

Juliet Marillier book Daughter of the Forest

Source: Daughter of the Forest

Fight

“If suddenly you do not exist,
If suddenly you are not living,
I shall go on living.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall go on living.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

“When it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees (2002)

Time

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

George S. McGovern (1922–2012) American politician, Congressman, senator, Democratic presidential candidate

Men, War, Dreams

“Only.. I want to do die as myself”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“Revenge. They took too much. You give up and die, or learn how to take back.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Revenge, Learning

“I mean, we're all going to die. We know that on an intellectual level. We figure it out when we're still fairly young, and it scares us so badly that we convince ourselves we're immortal for more than a decade afterwards.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

“Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: The Infernal Devices, Clockwork Princess (2013), p. 539, spoken by Will
reference to quote from Clockwork Angel
Context: I recall what you said to me once, that words have the power to change us. Your words have changed me, Tess; they have made me a better man than I would have been otherwise. Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die.

Life, Books, Reading

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

Justin Cronin The Passage

Source: The Passage Trilogy, The Passage (2010)

World

“It is a horrible, terrible thing, the worst thing, to watch somebody you love die right in front of you and not be able to do nothing about it.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Love

“I have the impression that if he didn't complicate his life so needlessly, he would die of boredom.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

Life

“In my view, suicide is not really a wish for life to end.'
What is it then?'
It is the only way a powerless person can find to make everybody else look away from his shame. The wish is not to die, but to hide.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Shadow

Source: Ender's Shadow

Life, Way, Suicide, Personality

“Achilles’ eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. “I wish he had let you all die.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Dead

“I just wanted them to die," said Poison. "They didn't have to make such a drama about it.”

Chris Wooding book Poison

Source: Poison

“Until you have done something for humanity,” wrote the great American educator Horace Mann, “you should be ashamed to die.”

Christopher Hitchens Mortality

Source: Mortality

Education

“If you ever manage to become perfect, you have to die instantly before you ruin things for everyone else.”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

Perfection

“It's the same with men as with horses and dogs, nothing wants to die.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Men, Dogs, Horse

“Let me die the moment my love dies.
Let me not outlive my own capacity to love.
Let me die still loving, and so, never die.”

Mary Zimmerman Metamorphoses

Source: Metamorphoses

Love

“I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Love, People, Cry

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: Word-work is sublime... because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference — the way in which we are like no other life.
We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

Life