quotations about death
I don't want to die. Damn death. Long live life!
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
Could we draw back the covering of the tomb; could we see, what those are now, who once were mortals, oh! how would it surprise and grieve us! Surprise us, to behold the prodigious transformation that has taken place on every individual; grieve us, to observe the dishonor done to our nature in general, within these subterraneous lodgments!
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Death left its old tragic heaven and became the lyrical core of man: his invisible truth, his visible secret.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
The Birth of the Clinic
Think what you like. There are people who die by remaining alive and others who gain life by dying.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
Death is the loss of everything all at once.
JULIE SALAMON
Hospital
In literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding Death has been characteristic of Christianity. Death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking an hour-glass--all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors.
ANNIE WOOD BESANT
Death--and After
When you're Dead ... you stay up all night long.
KELLY LINK
"The Specialist's Hat", Stranger Things Happen
Death is no more than a turning of us over from Time to Eternity.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Death has a hundred hands and walks by a thousand ways.
T.S. ELIOT
Murder in the Cathedral
Death tripped down the corridor, changing step, struck out here and there, danced pirouettes; often I felt his breath on my face when he was miles away; often I fell asleep and dreamed while he stood leaning over my bed.
ARTHUR KOESTLER
Dialogue with Death
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"What I Believe"
Feeling funny in my mind, Lord
I believe I'm fixing to die
Well, I don't mind dying
But I hate to leave my children crying
Well, I look over yonder to that burying ground
Look over yonder to that burying ground
Sure seems lonesome, Lord, when the sun goes down
BOB DYLAN
"Fixin' To Die"
Death is not a self-evident phenomenon. The margins between life and death are socially and culturally constructed, mobile, multiple, and open to dispute and reformulation.
MARGARET LOCK
Twice Dead
Death joins us to the great majority.
EDWARD YOUNG
The Revenge
Death and the sun can't be looked at steadily.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Every deceased friend is a magnet drawing us into another world.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Death, vicious death,
Leave a green branch for love.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
Blood Wedding
There is a strange sense of uplifting--a kind of new-found feeling of benediction--that arises in the hearts of those who lay themselves open to learn the lessons that death will teach. How many have borne witness to this, to a fulness and richness which has entered their life after the departure (it almost seems because of the departure) of those they love!
ARTHUR FOLEY WINNINGTON-INGRAM
"The Silence of the Grave", Thoughts on Love and Death
My soul defense against the natural horror which death inspires, is to love beyond it.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Thoughts", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
That's life. Still the best alternative to death.
CODY MCFADYEN
The Face of Death