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QUOTES ABOUT DEATH

Death is one of the few experiences that unites every human life, yet it remains deeply personal and profoundly mysterious. Across cultures, generations, and beliefs, writers, philosophers, and artists have tried to capture its meaning in words. The following quotes explore death from many angles—grief and acceptance, fear and peace, endings and new beginnings.   ◀ Back
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NOT YET RATED ▼
Did she say anything before she died?" he asked.
"Yes," the surgeon said. "She said, 'Forgive him'"
"Forgive him?" my father asked.
"I think she was referring to the drunk driver who killed her."
Wow.
My grandmother's last act on earth was a call for forgiveness, love and tolerance.
She wanted us to forgive Gerald, the dumb-ass Spokane Indian alcoholic who ran her over and killed her.
I think My Dad wanted to go find Gerald and beat him to death.
I think my mother would have helped him.
I think I would have helped him, too.
But my grandmother wanted us to forgive her murderer.
Even dead, she was a better person than us.
- Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night.
- George R.R. Martin
A Dance with Dragons
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
War is not just the business of death, it is the antitheses of life.
- joss whedon ( Fray)
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Here are the things girls die of: hunger, disease, accidents, childbirth, and violence. It takes more than heartache to kill a girl. Girls are tough as rocks.
- Jennifer Donnelly
Stepsister
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
She died in my arms, saying, "I don't want to die." That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.
- Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
And the thing about trying to cheat death is that, in the end, you still lose.
- Robyn Schneider
Extraordinary Means
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
When you divide death by life you find a circle.
- Colum McCann
Apeirogon
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end.
CLAUDIUS Alas, alas.
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I got out on the street and started crying the kind of hysterical tears made justifiable only by turning off one’s cell phone, putting it to the ear, and pretending to be told of a death in the family.
- Sloane Crosley
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
The Jetavana Temple bells
ring the passing of all things.
Twinned sala trees, white in full flower,
declare the great man's certain fall.
The arrogant do not long endure:
They are like a dream one night in spring.
The bold and brave perish in the end:
They are as dust before the wind.
- Royall Tyler
The Tale of the Heike
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Some people simply bury their heads in the sand and refuse to think about the sorrow of the world, but this is an unwise course, because, if we are entirely unprepared, the tragedy of life can be devastating.
- Karen Armstrong
Buddha
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Our immortality comes through our children and their children. Through our roots and branches. The family is immortality. And Hitler has destroyed not just branches and roots, but entire family trees, forests. All of them, gone.
- Amy Harmon
From Sand and Ash
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
For my part I have no joy in tears after dinnertime. There will always be a new dawn tomorrow. Yet I can have no objection to tears for any mortal who dies and goes to his destiny. And this is the only consolation we wretched mortals can give, to cut our hair and let the tears roll down our faces.
- Homer
The Odyssey
Topic: Death, Hope
NOT YET RATED ▼
The dead has only one place to go… up. Wherever you bury them, they will go the same way, up
- Abdul Sattar Edhi
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Colder by the hour, more dead with every breath.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
When I am dying, I should like my life taken out under general anaesthetic, exactly as if it were a diseased appendix.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.
- Barbara Kingsolver
Animal Dreams
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Think. In a minute from now you could be saying, I risked death. I threw for life, and I won life. It is a very wonderful feeling. To have survived.
- John Fowles
The Magus
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
You may remember that on earth—though of course we never confessed it—the death of anyone we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain satisfaction at being finally done with them.
- George Bernard Shaw
Man and Superman
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.

--from "Insomniac", written April 1961
- Sylvia Plath
The Collected Poems
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
But hey, if there’s one bright side to your dying, it’s that you aren’t around to tell me things I don’t like hearing. I’m sorry. That was a dickhead thing to say. I need a condom for my mouth.
- Adam Silvera
History Is All You Left Me
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
But that's the thing with death. The whisper of it descent travels fast and wide, and people must've know I'd become a corpse because nobody even came to view the body.
- Gayle Forman
Where She Went
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Dare my guilty heart admit the horrible acknowledgement that I love you still?
- Charlotte Dacre
Zofloya
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
What matters most, is not how my end happens, or if it happens now. What I care about in this instant, is that she knows how much I love her—that I lived long enough to have her love me back.
- Emm Cole
Keeping Merminia
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Did she say anything before she died?" he asked.
"Yes," the surgeon said. "She said, 'Forgive him'"
"Forgive him?" my father asked.
"I think she was referring to the drunk driver who killed her."
Wow.
My grandmother's last act on earth was a call for forgiveness, love and tolerance.
She wanted us to forgive Gerald, the dumb-ass Spokane Indian alcoholic who ran her over and killed her.
I think My Dad wanted to go find Gerald and beat him to death.
I think my mother would have helped him.
I think I would have helped him, too.
But my grandmother wanted us to forgive her murderer.
Even dead, she was a better person than us.
- Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night.
- George R.R. Martin
A Dance with Dragons
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
War is not just the business of death, it is the antitheses of life.
- joss whedon ( Fray)
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Here are the things girls die of: hunger, disease, accidents, childbirth, and violence. It takes more than heartache to kill a girl. Girls are tough as rocks.
- Jennifer Donnelly
Stepsister
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
She died in my arms, saying, "I don't want to die." That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.
- Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
And the thing about trying to cheat death is that, in the end, you still lose.
- Robyn Schneider
Extraordinary Means
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
When you divide death by life you find a circle.
- Colum McCann
Apeirogon
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end.
CLAUDIUS Alas, alas.
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I got out on the street and started crying the kind of hysterical tears made justifiable only by turning off one’s cell phone, putting it to the ear, and pretending to be told of a death in the family.
- Sloane Crosley
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
The Jetavana Temple bells
ring the passing of all things.
Twinned sala trees, white in full flower,
declare the great man's certain fall.
The arrogant do not long endure:
They are like a dream one night in spring.
The bold and brave perish in the end:
They are as dust before the wind.
- Royall Tyler
The Tale of the Heike
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Some people simply bury their heads in the sand and refuse to think about the sorrow of the world, but this is an unwise course, because, if we are entirely unprepared, the tragedy of life can be devastating.
- Karen Armstrong
Buddha
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Our immortality comes through our children and their children. Through our roots and branches. The family is immortality. And Hitler has destroyed not just branches and roots, but entire family trees, forests. All of them, gone.
- Amy Harmon
From Sand and Ash
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
For my part I have no joy in tears after dinnertime. There will always be a new dawn tomorrow. Yet I can have no objection to tears for any mortal who dies and goes to his destiny. And this is the only consolation we wretched mortals can give, to cut our hair and let the tears roll down our faces.
- Homer
The Odyssey
Topic: Death, Hope
NOT YET RATED ▼
The dead has only one place to go… up. Wherever you bury them, they will go the same way, up
- Abdul Sattar Edhi
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Colder by the hour, more dead with every breath.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
When I am dying, I should like my life taken out under general anaesthetic, exactly as if it were a diseased appendix.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.
- Barbara Kingsolver
Animal Dreams
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Think. In a minute from now you could be saying, I risked death. I threw for life, and I won life. It is a very wonderful feeling. To have survived.
- John Fowles
The Magus
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
You may remember that on earth—though of course we never confessed it—the death of anyone we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain satisfaction at being finally done with them.
- George Bernard Shaw
Man and Superman
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.

--from "Insomniac", written April 1961
- Sylvia Plath
The Collected Poems
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
But hey, if there’s one bright side to your dying, it’s that you aren’t around to tell me things I don’t like hearing. I’m sorry. That was a dickhead thing to say. I need a condom for my mouth.
- Adam Silvera
History Is All You Left Me
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
But that's the thing with death. The whisper of it descent travels fast and wide, and people must've know I'd become a corpse because nobody even came to view the body.
- Gayle Forman
Where She Went
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Dare my guilty heart admit the horrible acknowledgement that I love you still?
- Charlotte Dacre
Zofloya
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
What matters most, is not how my end happens, or if it happens now. What I care about in this instant, is that she knows how much I love her—that I lived long enough to have her love me back.
- Emm Cole
Keeping Merminia
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Did she say anything before she died?" he asked.
"Yes," the surgeon said. "She said, 'Forgive him'"
"Forgive him?" my father asked.
"I think she was referring to the drunk driver who killed her."
Wow.
My grandmother's last act on earth was a call for forgiveness, love and tolerance.
She wanted us to forgive Gerald, the dumb-ass Spokane Indian alcoholic who ran her over and killed her.
I think My Dad wanted to go find Gerald and beat him to death.
I think my mother would have helped him.
I think I would have helped him, too.
But my grandmother wanted us to forgive her murderer.
Even dead, she was a better person than us.
- Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night.
- George R.R. Martin
A Dance with Dragons
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
War is not just the business of death, it is the antitheses of life.
- joss whedon ( Fray)
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Here are the things girls die of: hunger, disease, accidents, childbirth, and violence. It takes more than heartache to kill a girl. Girls are tough as rocks.
- Jennifer Donnelly
Stepsister
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
She died in my arms, saying, "I don't want to die." That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.
- Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
And the thing about trying to cheat death is that, in the end, you still lose.
- Robyn Schneider
Extraordinary Means
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
When you divide death by life you find a circle.
- Colum McCann
Apeirogon
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end.
CLAUDIUS Alas, alas.
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I got out on the street and started crying the kind of hysterical tears made justifiable only by turning off one’s cell phone, putting it to the ear, and pretending to be told of a death in the family.
- Sloane Crosley
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
The Jetavana Temple bells
ring the passing of all things.
Twinned sala trees, white in full flower,
declare the great man's certain fall.
The arrogant do not long endure:
They are like a dream one night in spring.
The bold and brave perish in the end:
They are as dust before the wind.
- Royall Tyler
The Tale of the Heike
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Some people simply bury their heads in the sand and refuse to think about the sorrow of the world, but this is an unwise course, because, if we are entirely unprepared, the tragedy of life can be devastating.
- Karen Armstrong
Buddha
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Our immortality comes through our children and their children. Through our roots and branches. The family is immortality. And Hitler has destroyed not just branches and roots, but entire family trees, forests. All of them, gone.
- Amy Harmon
From Sand and Ash
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
For my part I have no joy in tears after dinnertime. There will always be a new dawn tomorrow. Yet I can have no objection to tears for any mortal who dies and goes to his destiny. And this is the only consolation we wretched mortals can give, to cut our hair and let the tears roll down our faces.
- Homer
The Odyssey
Topic: Death, Hope
NOT YET RATED ▼
The dead has only one place to go… up. Wherever you bury them, they will go the same way, up
- Abdul Sattar Edhi
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Colder by the hour, more dead with every breath.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
When I am dying, I should like my life taken out under general anaesthetic, exactly as if it were a diseased appendix.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.
- Barbara Kingsolver
Animal Dreams
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Think. In a minute from now you could be saying, I risked death. I threw for life, and I won life. It is a very wonderful feeling. To have survived.
- John Fowles
The Magus
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
You may remember that on earth—though of course we never confessed it—the death of anyone we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain satisfaction at being finally done with them.
- George Bernard Shaw
Man and Superman
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.

--from "Insomniac", written April 1961
- Sylvia Plath
The Collected Poems
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
But hey, if there’s one bright side to your dying, it’s that you aren’t around to tell me things I don’t like hearing. I’m sorry. That was a dickhead thing to say. I need a condom for my mouth.
- Adam Silvera
History Is All You Left Me
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
But that's the thing with death. The whisper of it descent travels fast and wide, and people must've know I'd become a corpse because nobody even came to view the body.
- Gayle Forman
Where She Went
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Dare my guilty heart admit the horrible acknowledgement that I love you still?
- Charlotte Dacre
Zofloya
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
What matters most, is not how my end happens, or if it happens now. What I care about in this instant, is that she knows how much I love her—that I lived long enough to have her love me back.
- Emm Cole
Keeping Merminia
Topic: Death
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100
101
102
103
104
 		...