Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
A. Sachs
When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I'll have no ego1 to injure.
Aaron McGruder, Boondocks, 07-04-04
Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.
Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC), Agamemnon
There is some comfort in dying surrounded by one's children.
Ann Radcliffe (1764 - 1823), The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1764
We do not die because we have to die; we die because one day, and not so long ago, our consciousness was forced to deem it necessary.
Antonin Artaud (1896 - 1948)
Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate2 life.
Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1956), The Mother, 1932
For certain is death for the born
And certain is birth for the dead;
Therefore over the inevitable3
Thou shouldst not grieve.
Bhagavad Gita (250 BC - 250 AD), Chapter 2
He not busy being born is busy dying.
Bob Dylan (1941 - )
I'd rather get my brains blown out in the wild than wait in terror at the slaughterhouse.
Craig Volk, Northern Exposure, A-Hunting We Will Go, 1991
The killing4 was the best part. It was the dying I couldn't take.
Craig Volk, Northern Exposure, A-Hunting We Will Go, 1991
Be open to your dreams, people. Embrace that distant shore. Because our mortal journey is over all too soon.
David Assael, Northern Exposure, It Happened in Juneau, 1992
A man should not leave this earth with unfinished business. He should live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. He should ask each morning, am I prepared to lift-off?
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, All is Vanity, 1991
Death is the enemy. I spent 10 years of my life singlemindedly studying, practicing, fighting hand to hand in close quarters to defeat the enemy, to send him back bloodied5 and humble6 and I am not going to roll over and surrender.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, First Snow, 1993
I am going to concentrate on what's important in life. I'm going to strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I'm going to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting angry at you or anybody else, I'll see death and I'll remember.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Do The Right Thing, 1992
It's no accident that the church and the graveyard7 stand side by side. The city of the dead sleeps encircled by the city of the living.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Lost and Found, 1992
If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask8 in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think "How lucky are the dead.
Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)
I'm afraid I'm being an awful nuisance.
Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964), Her last words, as quoted in The Last Years of a Rebel : A Memoir9 of Edith Sitwell by Elizabeth Salter, 1967
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent10 Philosophers
I hope the leaving is joyful11; and I hope never to return.
Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)
There's a strange sort of quiet when you're dying. It's as if you're in a glass room, and the walls keep getting thicker and thicker.
Gabrielle Zevin, Love Is Hell: Fan Fictions, 2008
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.
George Burns (1896 - 1996)
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval12.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), Soliloquies in England, 1922, "War Shrines13"
Pale Death with impartial14 tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
Horace (65 BC - 8 BC), Odes
Death can sneak15 up on you like a silent kitten, surprising you with it's touch and you have a right to act surprised. Other times death stomps16 in the front door, unwanted and unannounced, and makes it's noisy way to your seat on the sofa.
Hugh Elliott, Bible Versus17, 11-27-08
I am not dying, not anymore than any of us are at any moment. We run, hopefully as fast as we can, and then everyone must stop. We can only choose how we handle the race.
Hugh Elliott, Standing18 Room Only weblog comments, 06-11-04
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
I can’t talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician19, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities20 are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get. But, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity21. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.
John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012
If the inevitability22 of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it.
John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012
If you were to go [to the Rijksmuseum], and hopefully someday you will, you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You'd see Jesus on the cross, and you'd see a dude getting stabbed in the neck, and you'd see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs23. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody biting it from the plague or smallpox24 or yellow fever or whatever, because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.
John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012
