quotations about death
Death is a process, not an event, despite medical and legal imperatives to give it a date and hour.
JAMES W. GREEN
Beyond the Good Death
Death fosters life that life may suckle death.
SRI AUROBINDO
Vasavadutta
Death is the greatest evil; because it cuts off hope.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
How fine is the mesh of death. You can almost see through it.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"The Present"
It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
In a study we did of bereavement, we found that rather impressive numbers of widows and widowers had not simply gone back to their pre-loss functioning, but grown. This was due to a kind of increased existential awareness that resulted from this confrontation with the death of another. And I think it brought them in touch with their own death, so they began to experience a kind of preciousness to life that comes with an experience of its transiency.
IRVIN D. YALOM
interview, Salon Magazine
The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live.
LUC DE CLAPIERS
MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Flirting with death is the spice of life.
MARGARET LOCK
Twice Dead
If thou hadst a good conscience thou wouldst not greatly fear death.
THOMAS A. KEMPIS
The Imitation of Christ
In every cradle decked with rosy wreath
Lurk germs of death.
VICTOR HUGO
"Hope"
Death ... was the only kept promise out of all life's false starts and switchbacks, all there was at the end of the dusty road.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
Death had a curious way of ennobling people. Of washing away their flaws and elevating their reputations to a new purity. Sinners became saints once their bodies were lowered into the ground.
JOANNA CAMPBELL SLAN
Paper
Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word
When the green pines feel the coming of spring.
Looking back, I sigh; looking before, I sigh again.
What is there to prize in the life's vaporous glory?
LI BAI
"The Old Dust"
The power of the dead is that we think they see us all the time. The dead have a presence. Is there a level of energy composed solely of the dead? They are also in the ground, of course, asleep and crumbling. Perhaps we are what they dream.
DON DELILLO
White Noise
There are always potential rogues who, seeing an opportunity, will flirt with death and then, at the very last moment, will be surprised to have met with it so easily.
PIERRE MAGNAN
The Messengers of Death
My only fear of death is reincarnation.
TUPAC SHAKUR
"No More Pain"
My years have limped; but I
Have tried so hard to fly!
And now, suppose Death brings
Gulls' wings
At last, for me to keep?
KARLE WILSON BAKER
"Alternatives", Burning Bush
And last of all comes death.
ANACREON
Odes
Death always leaves one singer to mourn.
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
Pale Horse
No one on his deathbed ever said, "I wish I had spent more time on my business."
PAUL E. TSONGAS
New York Times, Jan. 14, 1987