Death And Dying Quotes

Verily, there is no dishonor in death at the hands of a far superior enemy.

~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Life and death is a matter of destiny, just like day and night is the law of the universe. Chuang Tzu

~ Sung Yee Poon

This StoneHe went looking for a roadthat doesn't lead to death.He went looking for that roadand found it.It was a stone road.He walked that roadthat doesn't lead to death.He walked on it awhilebefore he stopped,having turned to stone.Now he stands there on that roadthat doesn't lead to deathnot going anywhere.He can't dance.from his eyes stones fall.The rainbow people pass himcrossing that road, long-legged, light-stepping,going from the Four Housesto the dancing in the Five Houses.They pick up his tears.This stone is a tearfrom his eye, this stonegiven me on the mountainby one who died before my birth,this stone, this stone.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

In the natural course of events, the period when death is taking over a body is fairly brief. My grandfather (who had no medication) had about a fortnight of this period in his life. Today it can drag on for months or years.

~ Jennifer Worth

The dying need only a hand to hold and a quiet in which to make their departure.

~ Jennifer Worth

To be present at the time of death can be one of the most important moments in life. To see those last, awesome minutes of transition from life into death can only be described as a spiritual experience. And then afterwards, when the body lies still, one gets the strange feeling that the person has simply gone away, as though he has said, ‘I’m just going into the other room. I’ll leave that thing there while I’m gone; I won’t be needing it.’ It’s a very odd experience – the body is there, but the person has gone. No one would say, ‘I am a body’; we say, ‘I have a body’. So what, therefore, is the ‘I’? The ‘I’ or perhaps ‘me’ has just stepped into the other room. It is a strange feeling, and I can’t describe it in any other way. Another thing that is strange is that the body left behind looks smaller, quite a lot smaller, than the living person. The face looks the same, but calm and relaxed, wrinkles and worry lines are smoothed, and a feeling of serenity pervades the entire room. But the person, the ‘I’, has gone. It also greatly helps the process of mourning to see the body after death, and preferably to assist in the laying out. Nurses used to do the job when I was young girl, and we always asked the relatives if they wanted to help. Nurses don’t do it any more, but anyone can ask.

~ Jennifer Worth

Handling a dead body is not a repugnant or frightening experience and, somehow, it helps to accept the fact that the soul of that person has gone if you treat the body with reverence and respect before it is finally disposed of by cremation or burial.

~ Jennifer Worth

It is well nigh impossible to talk to anyone about death, I find. Most people seem deeply embarrassed. It is like when I was a girl and nobody could talk about sex. We all did it, but nobody talked about it! We have now grown out of that silly taboo, and we must grow out of our inhibitions surrounding death. They have arisen largely because so few people see death any more, even though it is quite obviously in our midst. A cultural change must come, a new atmosphere of freedom, which will only happen if we open our closed minds.

~ Jennifer Worth

There is not a single dying human being who does not yearn for love, touch, understanding, and whose heart does not break from the withdrawal of those who should be drawing near.

~ Jennifer Worth

My thoughts are with you all. Forever conscious of the vast, absurd universe and writing my eternal story I shall remain dead, but dreaming.

~ A.p. Sweet

In a strange way, I envied the quality of Morrie's time even as I lamented its diminishing supply. Why did we bother with all the distractions we did?

~ Mitch Albom

An African who loses the ability to die with dignity is a lost man.

~ Henning Mankell

I believe that the world is dying, not just me. And fantasy will save no one. The deathly unreality of Utopia, the merchandizing of Utopia is wicked, deadly reality.

~ Harold Brodkey

If you’ve never been close to death, life probably seems pretty solid. The truth is, it can be destroyed in an instant, like a photograph. One moment your world is slick and shiny. But then the Universe crumples everything into a ball. And even if you don’t get crushed, if you fight to straighten things out, your life will never be the same again.

~ Paula Stokes

Welcome to Irkalla, the Land of the Dead,” the woman said. “I am Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld.

~ Alan Kinross

And do you know the story about Haydn’s head? They cut it away from the still-warm cadaver so some insane scientist could take apart the brain and pinpoint the location of musical genius. And the Einstein Story? He’d carefully written his will with instructions to cremate him. They followed his orders, but his disciple, ever loyal and devoted, refused to live without the master’s gaze on him. Before the cremation, he took the eyes of the cadaver and put them in a bottle of alcohol to keep them watching him until the moment he should die himself. That’s why I said that the crematory fire is the only way our bodies can escape them. It’s the only absolute death. And I don’t want any other. Jean-Marc, I want an absolute death.

~ Milan Kundera

Death peeked around corners; it winked at her in the mirror then vanished; it hummed along with the radio and then faded away. It wheedled into her mind and her words, leaving a humid vapor around her heart and a thick fuzzy taste on her tongue.

~ Brandy Heineman

Some deaths were long, the decay so gradual the rotted end was nothing more than a sigh disappearing in the wind.Others were quick, the abrupt cut of a life in mid-phrase leaving unanswered questions lingering like an unresolved harmony.

~ Emma Raveling

it is sad to fill a grave with a person full of potential yet completely emptied of anymore possibility to try it once again.

~ Johnnie Dent Jr.

Death is the great incorruptible corruptor

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

[Charlie is dying:]After what seemed a long while, but hadn’t been, Marsh gave Paulette’s hand a warm and caring squeeze. “They’re here for him,” she said.But their heavenly visitors didn’t take him right away. They had to make room for the chaos of modern medical urgencies. To get out of the way of well-trained professionals who had dedicated their lives to holding back Heaven.Choppers are just as noisy and turbulent as we imagine them to be. One tore in over the hills and shattered every bit of peace Charlie otherwise could have lost himself into.In an instant the Med-Evac team was all over him. In the midst of that blatant orchestrated chaos Paulette fought to find her peace, and to hold him inside it.“Hang on, buddy,” techs kept telling him. “Don’t go leaving us now. You just hang in there.”But they didn’t understand, Paulette thought. It was his time.The chopper made a horrible racket carrying him off. Marsh, Paulette, and Ailana held their peace as its winds whipped their world into a froth.Harve’s face twisted with something that might conceivably have been rage.Then, all of a sudden, the birds sang, as though someone had given them a cue. “So that’s what it’s like,” Marsha said, very softly.“The afterlife.“My God, it’s so beautiful.

~ Edward Fahey

Life is an endless circle within God. From before birth to beyond the transition called death, I am filled with life. My soul wears this earth garment I call my body, which I cherish and care for. When I finally lay it down, my soul continues to live, always in God’s care and keeping.

~ Daily Word

I've adopted the guideline of Warren Buffett's partner, Charlie Munger, who says I wanna know where I'll be when I die - so I never go there.

~ Tom Brokaw

Thus spake brave Horatius, the captain of the gate. To all men upon this Earth, death cometh soon or late. And what better way to die, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of ones' fathers, and the temples of ones' G/Ds? For the tender mother, who dandled him to rest. And for the wife, who nurses his baby at her breast. And for the holy maidens, who feed the eternal flame. To save them from false sextus, that wrought the deed of shame. Lay down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may. I, with two more at either side, shall hold the foe in play. In Yon straight path a thousand may well be stop by three. Now who will stand on either hand and hold the bridge with me?

~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

I don't want to die, Buddy.' She put her head on his chest. 'I know this cancer probably won't kill me. But I think about dying all the time. I dream about it. What do you think? Do I get to see Pat on the other side, or do I just lie there in the dirt forever?'...Buddy wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. 'I think dead is dead,' he said softly, near her ear. 'But that's not so bad. I think of it as following. Following the rest of them...My mother and father. Your sister. Your mom. But not just them. All of them. All of us. People...Maybe it's just a way to feel less lonesome about the whole thing, but I think of dying as a path we all go down separately at first, but eventually, together.

~ Anita Diamant

No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.

~ Socrates

Top question of the dying: What made me sick?

~ Steven Magee

They say you fly when you die.Basically, when you die, your spirit leaves your body. Actually, at first you can see all your life, like, reflected in a magic mirror. Then you start floating like a ghost. You can see anything happening around you, you can hear everything, but you can’t communicate with the world of the living.Then you see these lights, all these different lights, of all different colors. These lights are the doors that pull you into other planes of existence, but most people actually like this world so much that they don’t want to be taken away… So the whole thing turns into a bad trip and the only way out is to get reincarnated.It’s funny you know, DMT only lasts for six minutes but it really seems like eternity. It’s the same chemical that your brain receives when you die. It’s a little bit like, dying would be the ultimate trip.

~ Gaspar Noé

Have you ever taken yourself a bit too seriously, thinking that who you are is actually defined by what you look like, how much talent you have (or don't have), how well known you are (or aren't), or how much money you have (or don't have)? Those are all garments and labels you wear during the course of your stay here on this planet, but it's not who you are. At the end of the day, when it's all said and done, you will turn all of that back in just like a car you had on lease.

~ Dennis Merritt Jones

If nothing else, they died fast and they were warm. The boy from the plane, I thought. The one with the teddy bear. Where was Rudy's confort? Where was someone to alleviate this robbery of his life? Who was there to soothe him as life's rug was snatched from under his sleeping feet?

~ Markus Zusak

Everyone dies. That is a universal constant. The only variable is how one dies.

~ Chris De Pavilly

I have no interest in dying.But I have to. I have to care one day about things that don't matter to me.

~ Noah Cicero

A girl about her own age reached out and took hold of her hand. The girl was tall and thin. She had long black hair streaked with red, and the whites of her green eyes stood out against the black coal dust that covered her face. Her blue and white dress hung in tatters, and was blackened by coal dust and smeared with blood. The girl smiled and Rosie could see that in her other hand she was holding her red umbrella.

~ Denny Taylor

Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, Or all the elements by scruples, I know not, Nor greatly care. - Shoot. Shoot!Of all deaths, the violent death is best;For from ourselves it steals ourselves so fast,The pain, once apprehended, is quite past.

~ John Webster

While death is sadly inevitable, our grief will soon pass like a swallowed penny through one’s bowels.Painful change just takes time.

~ Jessica Watts

Love doesn’t die with death. Love is like liquid; when it pours out, it seeps into others’ lives. Love changes form and shape. Love gets into everything. Death doesn’t conquer all; love does. Love wins every single time. Love wins by lasting through death. Love wins by loving more, loving again, loving without fear.

~ Kate O'neill

Dave learned that Death is the opposite of peace: it’s struggle, it’s ugly, it’s horrific, it’s dirty. And ultimately, Death is emptiness.

~ Emily Bleeker

Like I said, Kenzie. Everything ends. I’m not afraid to die,” you say with a wan smile. “I just hope I’m smart enough to stay dead.

~ Victoria Schwab

Is this what it's like? he wondered. When you're about to die? One hand stretched back to someone who cares for you, the other reaching for a place you can't see.

~ Rich Shapero

It's not that people don't know when they'll die. It's that they don't seem to know they'll die.

~ Raheel Farooq