DEATH QUOTES XXII

quotations about death

Nowadays, we have technology that's improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now -- who knows if they'll ever make it to the market -- that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine, you fast-forward to ten years down the line and you've given a patient whose heart has just stopped this amazing drug, and actually what it does is it slows everything down so that the things that would've happened over an hour, now happen over two days. As medicine progresses, we will end up with lots and lots of ethical questions.

SAM PARNIA

interview, Time, Sep. 18, 2008


Death doesn't exist. It never did, it never will. But we've drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we've got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing.

RAY BRADBURY

Something Wicked This Way Comes


Whether or not enlightenment is possible at the moment of death, the practices that prepare one for this possibility also bring one closer to the bone of life.

JOAN HALIFAX

Being with Dying


Alone in a room
needless I sit
I close my eyes
and try to forget
Death is calling
get in line

JAY REATARD

"Death Is Forming", Blood Visions


There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.

ISAAC ASIMOV

I, Asimov


There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"The Reaper and the Flowers"


For though Death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality, and that is recompence enough for suffering of it.

WILLIAM PENN

Some Fruits of Solitude


If death turned out to be a lack of being rather than a lack of consciousness, well, then, that sucked.

LINDA HOWARD

Death Angel


Living, the nearest claim them; but the dear
Great dead belong to any humble heart.

KARLE WILSON BAKER

"W. V. M.", Blue Smoke


Despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind.

IRVIN D. YALOM

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death


The gate of death is never at rest.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims


When bones and flesh have finished their business together,
we lay them carefully, in positions they're willing to keep,
and cover them over.
Their eyes and ours won't meet anymore. We hope.

SARAH LINDSAY

"Shanidar, Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower


The dying need but little, dear,
A glass of water's all,
A flower's unobtrusive face
To punctuate the wall,
A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret
And certainty that one
No color in the rainbow
Perceive, when you are gone.

EMILY DICKINSON

"The Dying need but little, Dear"


It seemeth such a little way to me
Across to that strange country -- the Beyond;
And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
The home of those of whom I am so fond,
They make it seem familiar and most dear,
As journeying friends bring distant regions near.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"Beyond"


On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Fight Club


I don't know what's waiting for us when we die--something better, something worse. I only know I'm not ready to find out yet.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Onion Girl


People living deeply have no fear of death.

ANAIS NIN

The Diary of Anais Nin


Death, with funereal shades in vain surrounds me,
My reason through his darkness seeth light:
'Tis the last step which brings me close to Thee:
'Tis the veil falling, 'twixt Thy face and mine.

ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE

"Prayer", Poetical Meditations


Man dies. Come from darkness, into darkness he returns, and is reabsorbed, without a trace left, into the illimitable void of time.

LEONID ANDREYEV

The Life of Man


Death's a fable. Did not Heaven inspire your equal Elements with living Fire blown from the Spring of Life? Is not that breath Immortal? Come; ye are as free from death as He that made ye: Can the flames expire which he kindled?

FRANCIS QUARLES

Emblems