Death Quotes

Because I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for me;The carriage held but just ourselvesAnd Immortality.We slowly drove, he knew no haste,And I had put awayMy labour, and my leisure too,For his civility.We passed the school where children played,Their lessons scarcely done;We passed the fields of gazing grain,We passed the setting sun.We paused before a house that seemedA swelling of the ground;The roof was scarcely visible,The cornice but a mound.Since then 'tis centuries; but eachFeels shorter than the dayI first surmised the horses' headsWere toward eternity.

~ Emily Dickinson

Once very near the end I said, 'If you can -- if it is allowed -- come to me when I too am on my death bed.' 'Allowed!' she said. 'Heaven would have a job to hold me; and as for Hell, I'd break it into bits.

~ C.s. Lewis

Death is not a checkmate…it is more like a carnival trick. You cannot win, no matter how you move your Queen.

~ Catherynne M. Valente

When it comes, you’ll be dreamingthat you don’t need to breathe;that breathless silence isthe music of the darkand it’s part of the rhythmto vanish like a spark.

~ Wisława Szymborska

Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain;If we perish in the seeking, why, how small a thing is death!

~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Part of this experience involves your being able to say to a person who is dying, You are loved. You are beautiful. You are like a newborn babe, going into another realm. Release now anyone, and everything, that is a burden to you. Release everything and know that you have lived your life to the fullest. There is no judgment on you. Go in peace, put a smile on your face, and release any judgments you hold. Relax, and allow your life to have meaning as you embark on the next phase of your identity.

~ Barbara Marciniak

Facing death calmly is praiseworthy only if one faces it alone. Death together is no longer death, even for unbelievers. The source of sorrows lies not in leaving life, but in leaving that which gives it meaning. When love is our whole life, what difference is there between living together and dying together ?

~ Raymond Radiguet

I've been asked by lots of people, What happens if you do kill yourself? They want to know about what it would be like for other people around you, like the person who would find your body, the other kids at school, whoever would have to clean up the blood, what your family holidays would be like.

~ Albert Borris

We live, we love, we let it go.

~ Kevin Dalton

We are tiny flames, Helikaon, and we flicker alone in the great dark for no more than a heartbeat. When we strive for wealth, glory and fame, it is meaningless. The nations we fight for will one day cease to be. Even the mountains we gaze upon will crumble to dust. To truly live we must yearn for that which does not die.

~ David Gemmell

How thin the air felt at the forest's edge, how ghostly the trees that guarded their realm.... The whole world seemed as delicate as a dandelion seed, and as fleeting.... How sad to know that the figment village of my imagination would not vanish when I ended, to understand that it was not I who had invented the moon the first time I realized how lovely it was. To admit that it was not my breath that made the winds blow.... [M]y heart, my heart knew that when I closed my eyes I invented the night sky and the stars too. Wasn't the whole dome of the sky the same shape as the inside of my skull? Didn't I create the sun and the day when I raised my eyelids every morning?

~ Martine Leavitt

My flesh winced, in cowardice, from such a death.

~ Sylvia Plath

Beastly of him to die before you realized he might be fascinating.

~ Tasha Alexander

A poet might die at twenty-one, a revolutionary or a rock star at twenty four. But after that you assume everything’s going to be all right. you’ve made it past Dead Man’s Curve and you’re out of the tunnel, cruising straight for your destination down a six lane highway whether you want it or not.

~ Haruki Murakami

Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock?

~ Cormac Mccarthy

I could kill you a thousand times over Abraham, but we would never be even. You took everything I had.

~ Christopher Buecheler

Immortality like this is about as useful as sunscreen on a submarine.

~ Elizabeth Marx

That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?

~ Alexandre Dumas

It doesn't matter how much his mother loves him, love is not enough to keep any of us alive.

~ Lauren Destefano

...In the end, there's no sort of difference between dying from ignorance and dying under the feet of thousands of men who have regained their freedom. You close your eyes, and then there's nothing anymore. And death is never difficult. It requires neither a hero nor a slave. It eats what it's served.

~ Philippe Claudel

Everything worthwhile ends. We are in the perpetual process now: creation, maturation, cessation.

~ John Logan

Time has transfigured them intoUntruth. The stone fidelityThey hardly meant has come to beTheir final blazon, and to proveOur almost-instinct almost true:What will survive of us is love.

~ Philip Larkin

Could I tell them I was sorry their loved one was dead, when he’d tried to kill me? There was no rule of etiquette for this; even my grandmother would have been stymied.

~ Charlaine Harris

ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.HAMLET The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing -GUILDENSTERN A thing my lord?HAMLET Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after!

~ William Shakespeare

There are only two things worse then an empty canvas: death and taxes.

~ Ragnar Tørnquist

Death is the force that will create your new life. It is a mechanism of transformation. Welcome it.

~ Lisa Cach

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.And when you have reached the mountaintop,then you shall begin to climb.And when the earth shal claim your limbs,then shall you truly dance.

~ Kahlil Gibran

OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death. OTHERWISE, WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR?

~ Terry Pratchett

It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.

~ Maya Angelou

Bod shrugged. So? he said. It's only death. I mean, all of my best friends are dead.

~ Neil Gaiman

Now every mortal has painand sweat is constant,but if there is anything dearer than being alive,it's dark to me.We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing(whatever it is) that glitters on the earth--we call it life. We know no other.The underworld's a blankand all the rest just fantasy.

~ Anne Carson

Of all the things I've ever done, perhaps none was more difficult than turning away from my beautiful girl and walking away, leaving her there, never to look back. But my friend Tom, my ever-faithful good friend Tom said, pointing down the hall away from Cec's room, 'Life's that way. Let's go home.'And so we did.

~ Jim Beaver

That was it. Shogo stopped breathing. The dim yellow light falling from the ceiling of the pilothouse shone on his pale face. He seemed at ease.Shogo! Shuya yelled. He still had more to say. You'll see Keiko! You'll be happy with her! You're--It was too late. Shogo couldn't hear anything anymore. But his face just looked so damned peaceful.Damn it. Shuya's lips trembled along with his words. Damn it.Holding Shogo's hands, Noriko was crying.Shuya also put his hand on Shogo's thick hand. A thought occured to him. He searched through Shogo's pockets and found the red bird call. He pressed it into Shogo's right hand and closed his hands over it so he could hold it. Shuya then finally burst into tears.

~ Koushun Takami

I've developed into quite a swan. I'm one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older - until I drop dead of beauty.

~ Rufus Wainwright

…She kissed me on my thin lips and all my words were pushed back into my mouth. “I don’t want to die,” she whispered, “but I need to lose the shackles of this multitude of hearts.

~ Andrew Davidson

I have no fear of the dead. Indeed in my own limited experience I have found them to produce in me a feeling that is quite the opposite of fear. A dead body is much more fascinating than a live one and I have learned that most corpses tell better stories. I’d had the good fortune of seeing several of them in my time.

~ Alan Bradley

La vida es mi tortura y la muerte será mi descanso.

~ William Shakespeare

The young open the paper to forget about life by reading the funny strips. The old do it to forget about death by reading other people's obits. My advice: don't open the paper and go on with your life.

~ Gabriel Bá

When it is winter and we must walk in the blizzard snow do not our fingers and toes whisper death  And when winter is at last over. . .can we not hear our bellies whisper death to us  In the dark don't we know  And when we are paralyzed by nightmares  We know what you are.  With our first cries we rail against you.  We see you in every drop of blood in every tear.

~ Martine Leavitt

Whatever distinguishes one lump of flesh from another when we're alive, we're all the same once we're dead. Just used-up shells.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky