quotations about death
Dead man, dead man
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind
Dust upon your eyes
BOB DYLAN
"Dead Man, Dead Man"
The cure for death is not being born.
K. J. PARKER
Evil for Evil
Mark, how the ready hands of Death prepare:
His bow is bent, and he hath notch'd his dart;
He aims, he levels at thy slumb'ring heart:
The wound is posting, O be wise, beware.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
To conquer death you only have to die.
ALANE FERGUSON
The Angel of Death
Even if those who take their own lives feel they have no choice--indeed, they often tragically believe their family and friends will be better off without them--the death rarely appears inevitable to those left behind. Feelings of anger and guilt and abandonment invade them, as if love should or could have prevented what happened. Survivors relive, over and over, the last days and months, even years, before the suicide, seeing now the signs that were missed, which they believe they should have recognized.
SUSAN STERLING
"The Quilt People"
One day the ordinariness will be terminally punctuated by the extraordinary full stop of death.
GLEN DUNCAN
I, Lucifer
Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.
J. D. SALINGER
The Catcher in the Rye
Whither canst thou carry us, O death, from the presence of that God, whose loving-kindness is better than life? When, with thy trident, thou shalt break the pitcher of this mortal frame; the deathless soul is not like water spilt upon the ground; for the pitcher being broken at the fountain, it runs to its original, and can be gathered up again.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
Select Essays
For life be, after all, only a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin', and death be all that we can rightly depend on.
BRAM STOKER
Dracula
The laws of Pluto's kingdom know small difference between king and cobbler, manager and call-boy; and, if haply your dates of life were conterminant, you are quietly taking your passage, cheek by cheek (O ignoble levelling of Death) with the shade of some recently departed candle-snuffer.
CHARLES LAMB
"To the Shade of Elliston", Elia and the Last Essays of Elia
All are stoics in the grave.
ANACREON
Ode IV, Odes
Death is the last intimate thing we ever do.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Obsidian Butterfly
For soon, very soon do men forget
Their friends upon whom Death's seal is set.
ISAAC MCLELLAN
"The Last Night of the Year"
It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
WOODY ALLEN
Death: A Comedy in One Act
Shun death, is my advice.
ROBERT BROWNING
"Arcades Ambo"
Death is the only sovereign whom no partiality can warp, and no price corrupt.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.
JAMES JOYCE
"The Dead", Dubliners
All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Death in the Afternoon
Death is the end of those who have done nothing to cause their names to live after them.
XENOPHON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Death! the deep, sublime and unsubdued fiat!
The licensed liberator of imprisoned souls!
The conqueror of conquerors! th' inexorable,
Unfathomed and unfathomable fate! Arch foe,
And dread antagonist of life! Its armed and fierce
Invader, horror, and dismay! whose naked sword,
In trembling balance hung, is over all its joys,
And banquets of delight, ready to pierce the heart
That with fond ardour beats! Oh! who can turn its point?
Or its swift aim arrest?
C. B. LANGSTON
"Death"