A man begins dying at
the moment of his birth. Most people live in denial of Death's patient
courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of
him sitting bedside.
DEAN KOONTZ, The Husband
- A couch of thorns, or an embroidered bed,
- Are matters of indifference to the dead.
THEOGNIS OF MEGARA, "Sumptuous Obsequies"
- He that abideth when he might depart
- From this world hath no wisdom in his heart.
FERDOWSI, Shahnameh
- 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"
Taunting Death ... means pitting oneself against a wily enemy who cannot lose.
J. K. ROWLING, The Tales of Beedle the Bard
When a house has just
lost its soul, a stricken silence falls over the sudden emptiness that
no one will fill again. And all the noises that may be made later in
that house will be like a scandalous din, ugly echoes from one room to
another, from one corridor to another, sharp and discordant as if the
walls are no longer able to absorb any music once the source of harmony
has been taken away. But this strange detail about the power of death
can only be picked up by ears that are very attentive to the smallest
murmurs of life. Rational people go through these empty spaces with the
serenity of a lawyer, and their indulgent smiles categorise you if you
decide to point out in their presence that there is something lacking in
the atmosphere.
PIERRE, MAGNAN, The Messengers of Death
Death aims only once, but never misses.
EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims
How surely are the
dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of
dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do
not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it.
CORMAC MCCARTHY, Suttree
- For death is but a passing phase of Life;
- A change of dress, a disrobing;
- A birth into the unborn again;
- A commencing where we ended;
- A starting where we stopped to rest;
- A crossroad of Eternity;
- A giving up of something, to possess all things.
- The end of the unreal, the beginning of the real.
EDWIN LEIBFREED, "The Song of the Soul"
Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul.
E. H. CHAPIN, Living Words
Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.
GEO
RGE ELIOT, Adam Bede
How dreadful is the
prospect of death, at the remotest distance! how the smallest
apprehensions of it can pall the most gay, airy, and brisk spirits! even
I, who thought I could have been merry in sight of my coffin, and drink
a health with the sexton in my own grave, now tremble at the least
envoy of the king of terrors. To see but the shaking of my glass makes
me turn pale ... all the jollity of my humour and conversation is turned
on a sudden into chagrin and melancholy, black as despair, and gloomy
as the grave.
WELLINS CALCOTT, Thoughts Moral and Divine
Death is the condition of higher and more fruitful life.
E. H. CHAPIN, Living Words
Funerals all over the
world everywhere every minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload
doublequick. Thousands every hour. Too many in the world.
JAMES JOYCE, Ulysses
The great thing about the dead, they make space.
JOHN UPDIKE, Rabbit is Rich
We are mere notes in a piece of music played by the angel Death--heard and lost.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought
Being dead will be no
different from being unborn -- I shall be just as I was in the time of
William the Conqueror or the dinosaurs or the trilobites. There is
nothing to fear in that.
RICHARD DAWKINS, The God Delusion
Dying was just an extended version of Ash Wednesday.
DON DELILLO, Underworld
What does thou ail, O
mortal man, or to what purpose is to spend thy life in groans and
complaints, under the apprehensions of Death? Where are thy past years
and pleasures? Are they not vanish'd and lost in the flux of time, as if
thou hadst put water into a sieve? Bethink thyself then of retreat, and
leave the world with the same content and satisfaction as a well
satisfied guest rises from an agreeable feast.
WELLINS CALCOTT, Thoughts Moral and Divine
All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY, Death in the Afternoon
Better to live or die, once and for all, than die by inches.
HOMER, The Iliad
No one wants to die.
Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And
yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.
And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single
best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old
to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too
long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.
Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
STEVE JOBS, Commencement address at Stanford University, Jun. 12, 2005
Death is the dropping of the flower, that the fruit may swell.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
- Dead man, dead man
- When will you arise?
- Cobwebs in your mind
- Dust upon your eyes
BOB DYLAN, "Dead Man, Dead Man"
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
Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.
ALBERT CAMUS, The Stranger
Some people die, others just run out of fuel.
CARMEN BOULLOSA, Cleopatra Dismounts
When I read obituaries
I always note the age of the deceased. Automatically I relate this
figure to my own age. Four years to go, I think. Nine more years. Two
years and I'm dead. The power of numbers is never more evident than when
we use them to speculate on the time of our dying.
DON DELILLO, White Noise
When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection; thine own is open at thy feet.
AMBROSE BIERCE, "Epigrams of a Cynic"
Death ... was the only kept promise out of all life's false starts and switchbacks, all there was at the end of the dusty road.
WILLIAM GAY, Provinces of Night
In the end, living is
defined by dying. Bookended by oblivion, we are caught in the vice of
terror, squeezed to bursting by the approaching end.
BERNARD BECKETT, Genesis
How fine is the mesh of death. You can almost see through it.
JANE HIRSHFIELD, "The Present"
- A man's life breath cannot come back again--
- no raiders in force, no trading brings it back,
- once it slips through a man's clenched teeth.
HOMER, The Iliad
