quotations about death
Here was a man who now for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death--who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is as different from what we call knowing it, as the vision of waters upon the earth is different from the delirious vision of the water which cannot be had to cool the burning tongue. When the commonplace 'We must all die' transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness 'I must die--and soon,' then death grapples us, and his fingers are cruel; afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms as our mother did, and our last moment of dim earthly discerning may be like the first.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
The dead are too much with us.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Isle of the Dead
Every deceased friend is a magnet drawing us into another world.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
To die for others is the highest purpose a person may achieve.
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN & NANCY HOLDER
Ghost Roads
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 stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Death Stands above Me
Are not the thoughts of the dying often turned towards the practical, painful, obscure, visceral aspect, towards the "seamy side" of death which is, as it happens, the side that death actually presents to them and forces them to feel, and which far more closely resembles a crushing burden, a difficulty in breathing, a destroying thirst, than the abstract idea to which we are accustomed to give the name of Death?
MARCEL PROUST
Swann's Way
I don't want to die. Damn death. Long live life!
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
Death happens but once, yet we feel it every moment of our lives; it is worse to dread it than to suffer it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
Death, vicious death,
Leave a green branch for love.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
Blood Wedding
When you're Dead ... you stay up all night long.
KELLY LINK
"The Specialist's Hat", Stranger Things Happen
It was mad, but I just couldn't shake it. I was Death, Destroyer of Life, and all I wanted was a cottage by a stream, a pot of hot soup on the stove, and someone to love me.
GEORGE PENDLE
Death: A Life
My soul defense against the natural horror which death inspires, is to love beyond it.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Thoughts", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?
PLATO
Phaedo
Death or glory, death or glory
March forever in the sound and fury
MOTORHEAD
"Death or Glory"
As soon as one is born, one starts dying.
LUIGI PIRANDELLO
Henry IV
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
That's life. Still the best alternative to death.
CODY MCFADYEN
The Face of Death
When you look at a corpse you can always sense your own breath better.
ZONA GALE
"Miggy"
In statistics, what disappears behind rows of numbers is death.
GUNTER GRASS
Crabwalk