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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 ▼
He had no conscious knowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed the instinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the very essence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, the one culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him, about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything.
- Jack London
White Fang
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots.
- Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
WHEN SOMEBODY GOES AWAY THERE'S THINGS YOU WANT TO TELL THEM. WHEN SOMEBODY DIES MAYBE THAT'S THE WORST THING. YOU WANT TO TELL THEM THINGS THAT HAPPEN AFTER.
- Louise Fitzhugh
Harriet the Spy
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
You’ve thrown down the gauntlet. You’ve brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living.
But… If I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist… then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Then on your tombstone, where you only get a little bit of space to sum up your life, some wax-faced creep chisels a set of meaningless numbers instead of poetry or a secret love or the name of your favorite candy.

In the end, all you get is a few words.
- Scott Nicholson
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I will see you in the stars.
- Amie Kaufman
Aurora's End
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death... . I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness.
- Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
Topic: Death, Religion
NOT YET RATED ▼
My sister, Judy, has always said that she would like to lie in state, propped up in her coffin with her eyes blared wide open, face fixed in a big grin, and have a taped greeting for all her mourners. Something real upbeat and, well, live-sounding, like: 'He-e-e-ey!Cuteshoestellyomamahi!
- Jill Conner Browne
The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
It's peculiar to me,' she said, 'that everybody pays so much attention to living and so little to dying. Why are these high-powered scientists always screwing around trying to prolong life instead of finding pleasant ways to end it? There must be a hell of a lot of people in the world like me - who want to die but haven't got the guts -
- Horace McCoy
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Time has always been the greatest ally to Truth, because Time eventually relieves and reveals all.
- Suzy Kassem
Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
We're in the Maker's keeping. Even if we die trying, death is just another way out. But you? You'll just turn to dust.
- Andrew Peterson
The Warden and the Wolf King
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life—achieving a sense of peace within oneself.
- Oliver Sacks
Gratitude
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious
- Yann Martel
Life of Pi
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell them for a dollar
They're worth so much more after I'm a goner
And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'
Funny when you're dead how people start listenin
- Kimberly Perry
If I Die Young: Piano/Vocal/Guitar
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
It was all very strange, Mr. Gray thought, as he wiped the coffee canister clean with a sponge. Very, very mysterious. You were born; you lived a whole life; and at the end, you wound up in a coffee canister.

"Ah, well," he said out loud quietly. "That's just the way things are. Life's a funny business." Death, he supposed, was the punch line.
- Lauren Oliver
Liesl & Po
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
That is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when we're old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later we'll lose everyone we love. We're never the same. But somehow we're all right. We go on.
- Dean Koontz
Winter Moon
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
If you can overcome love, you can overcome fear. If you can overcome fear, you can overcome death.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
If that’s the case, I understand why emotions are hard for you. You’ve numbed yourself to make room for the grief you carry.
- Brent Jones
The Fifteenth of June
Topic: Death, Hope, Relationships
NOT YET RATED ▼
Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty.

Cento volte ho impugnato una lama per conficcarmela nel cuore. Si dice di una nobile razza i cavalli,che quando si sentono accaldati e affaticati, si aprono istintivamente una vena, per respirare più liberamente. Spesso anche io vorrei aprirmi una vena che mi desse libertà eterna.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
They suffered with his death and she - she suffered with their reaction to it.
- Haidji
SG - Suicide Game
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Death is a state of mind---many people on Earth spend their entire lives dead.
- Gabrielle Zevin
Elsewhere
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Think about that for a moment. They died for you. Now take a good look at the life you're living and tell me: Did they do the right thing?
- Mira Grant
Feed
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Love doesn't always mean rings and veils and walks down the aisle.
Sometimes love means broken windows and broken hearts,
and not being able to fix either.
And sometimes love means telling you,
there's no such thing as time in Heaven so don't rush to meet me.
Stay a while, and pick, girl, the roses.
- Jennifer Gooch Hummer
Girl Unmoored
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I will miss it so,” she said beside him. “This hell of a place, I will miss it so much. This fat body, walking mud puddle, deceived by everything, this impossible, ruinous accident of a world, these people who would truly rather hurt one another than eat—oh, there is nothing, nothing, nothing I would not do to stay here ten minutes longer. Oh, I will leave claw marks, I will drag mountains and forests away under my fingernails when I am dragged off. Such a stupid way to feel. I will be all dirty from clutching at this stupid planet, and the gods will laugh at me.
- Peter S. Beagle
The Folk of the Air
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
He had no conscious knowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed the instinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the very essence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, the one culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him, about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything.
- Jack London
White Fang
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots.
- Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
WHEN SOMEBODY GOES AWAY THERE'S THINGS YOU WANT TO TELL THEM. WHEN SOMEBODY DIES MAYBE THAT'S THE WORST THING. YOU WANT TO TELL THEM THINGS THAT HAPPEN AFTER.
- Louise Fitzhugh
Harriet the Spy
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
You’ve thrown down the gauntlet. You’ve brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living.
But… If I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist… then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Then on your tombstone, where you only get a little bit of space to sum up your life, some wax-faced creep chisels a set of meaningless numbers instead of poetry or a secret love or the name of your favorite candy.

In the end, all you get is a few words.
- Scott Nicholson
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I will see you in the stars.
- Amie Kaufman
Aurora's End
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death... . I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness.
- Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
Topic: Death, Religion
NOT YET RATED ▼
My sister, Judy, has always said that she would like to lie in state, propped up in her coffin with her eyes blared wide open, face fixed in a big grin, and have a taped greeting for all her mourners. Something real upbeat and, well, live-sounding, like: 'He-e-e-ey!Cuteshoestellyomamahi!
- Jill Conner Browne
The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
It's peculiar to me,' she said, 'that everybody pays so much attention to living and so little to dying. Why are these high-powered scientists always screwing around trying to prolong life instead of finding pleasant ways to end it? There must be a hell of a lot of people in the world like me - who want to die but haven't got the guts -
- Horace McCoy
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Time has always been the greatest ally to Truth, because Time eventually relieves and reveals all.
- Suzy Kassem
Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
We're in the Maker's keeping. Even if we die trying, death is just another way out. But you? You'll just turn to dust.
- Andrew Peterson
The Warden and the Wolf King
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life—achieving a sense of peace within oneself.
- Oliver Sacks
Gratitude
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious
- Yann Martel
Life of Pi
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell them for a dollar
They're worth so much more after I'm a goner
And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'
Funny when you're dead how people start listenin
- Kimberly Perry
If I Die Young: Piano/Vocal/Guitar
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
It was all very strange, Mr. Gray thought, as he wiped the coffee canister clean with a sponge. Very, very mysterious. You were born; you lived a whole life; and at the end, you wound up in a coffee canister.

"Ah, well," he said out loud quietly. "That's just the way things are. Life's a funny business." Death, he supposed, was the punch line.
- Lauren Oliver
Liesl & Po
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
That is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when we're old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later we'll lose everyone we love. We're never the same. But somehow we're all right. We go on.
- Dean Koontz
Winter Moon
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
If you can overcome love, you can overcome fear. If you can overcome fear, you can overcome death.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
If that’s the case, I understand why emotions are hard for you. You’ve numbed yourself to make room for the grief you carry.
- Brent Jones
The Fifteenth of June
Topic: Death, Hope, Relationships
NOT YET RATED ▼
Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty.

Cento volte ho impugnato una lama per conficcarmela nel cuore. Si dice di una nobile razza i cavalli,che quando si sentono accaldati e affaticati, si aprono istintivamente una vena, per respirare più liberamente. Spesso anche io vorrei aprirmi una vena che mi desse libertà eterna.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
They suffered with his death and she - she suffered with their reaction to it.
- Haidji
SG - Suicide Game
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Death is a state of mind---many people on Earth spend their entire lives dead.
- Gabrielle Zevin
Elsewhere
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Think about that for a moment. They died for you. Now take a good look at the life you're living and tell me: Did they do the right thing?
- Mira Grant
Feed
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Love doesn't always mean rings and veils and walks down the aisle.
Sometimes love means broken windows and broken hearts,
and not being able to fix either.
And sometimes love means telling you,
there's no such thing as time in Heaven so don't rush to meet me.
Stay a while, and pick, girl, the roses.
- Jennifer Gooch Hummer
Girl Unmoored
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I will miss it so,” she said beside him. “This hell of a place, I will miss it so much. This fat body, walking mud puddle, deceived by everything, this impossible, ruinous accident of a world, these people who would truly rather hurt one another than eat—oh, there is nothing, nothing, nothing I would not do to stay here ten minutes longer. Oh, I will leave claw marks, I will drag mountains and forests away under my fingernails when I am dragged off. Such a stupid way to feel. I will be all dirty from clutching at this stupid planet, and the gods will laugh at me.
- Peter S. Beagle
The Folk of the Air
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
He had no conscious knowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed the instinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the very essence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, the one culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him, about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything.
- Jack London
White Fang
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots.
- Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
WHEN SOMEBODY GOES AWAY THERE'S THINGS YOU WANT TO TELL THEM. WHEN SOMEBODY DIES MAYBE THAT'S THE WORST THING. YOU WANT TO TELL THEM THINGS THAT HAPPEN AFTER.
- Louise Fitzhugh
Harriet the Spy
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
You’ve thrown down the gauntlet. You’ve brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living.
But… If I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist… then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Then on your tombstone, where you only get a little bit of space to sum up your life, some wax-faced creep chisels a set of meaningless numbers instead of poetry or a secret love or the name of your favorite candy.

In the end, all you get is a few words.
- Scott Nicholson
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I will see you in the stars.
- Amie Kaufman
Aurora's End
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death... . I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness.
- Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
Topic: Death, Religion
NOT YET RATED ▼
My sister, Judy, has always said that she would like to lie in state, propped up in her coffin with her eyes blared wide open, face fixed in a big grin, and have a taped greeting for all her mourners. Something real upbeat and, well, live-sounding, like: 'He-e-e-ey!Cuteshoestellyomamahi!
- Jill Conner Browne
The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
It's peculiar to me,' she said, 'that everybody pays so much attention to living and so little to dying. Why are these high-powered scientists always screwing around trying to prolong life instead of finding pleasant ways to end it? There must be a hell of a lot of people in the world like me - who want to die but haven't got the guts -
- Horace McCoy
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Time has always been the greatest ally to Truth, because Time eventually relieves and reveals all.
- Suzy Kassem
Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
We're in the Maker's keeping. Even if we die trying, death is just another way out. But you? You'll just turn to dust.
- Andrew Peterson
The Warden and the Wolf King
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life—achieving a sense of peace within oneself.
- Oliver Sacks
Gratitude
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious
- Yann Martel
Life of Pi
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell them for a dollar
They're worth so much more after I'm a goner
And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'
Funny when you're dead how people start listenin
- Kimberly Perry
If I Die Young: Piano/Vocal/Guitar
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
It was all very strange, Mr. Gray thought, as he wiped the coffee canister clean with a sponge. Very, very mysterious. You were born; you lived a whole life; and at the end, you wound up in a coffee canister.

"Ah, well," he said out loud quietly. "That's just the way things are. Life's a funny business." Death, he supposed, was the punch line.
- Lauren Oliver
Liesl & Po
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
That is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when we're old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later we'll lose everyone we love. We're never the same. But somehow we're all right. We go on.
- Dean Koontz
Winter Moon
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
If you can overcome love, you can overcome fear. If you can overcome fear, you can overcome death.
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
If that’s the case, I understand why emotions are hard for you. You’ve numbed yourself to make room for the grief you carry.
- Brent Jones
The Fifteenth of June
Topic: Death, Hope, Relationships
NOT YET RATED ▼
Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty.

Cento volte ho impugnato una lama per conficcarmela nel cuore. Si dice di una nobile razza i cavalli,che quando si sentono accaldati e affaticati, si aprono istintivamente una vena, per respirare più liberamente. Spesso anche io vorrei aprirmi una vena che mi desse libertà eterna.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
They suffered with his death and she - she suffered with their reaction to it.
- Haidji
SG - Suicide Game
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Death is a state of mind---many people on Earth spend their entire lives dead.
- Gabrielle Zevin
Elsewhere
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Think about that for a moment. They died for you. Now take a good look at the life you're living and tell me: Did they do the right thing?
- Mira Grant
Feed
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
Love doesn't always mean rings and veils and walks down the aisle.
Sometimes love means broken windows and broken hearts,
and not being able to fix either.
And sometimes love means telling you,
there's no such thing as time in Heaven so don't rush to meet me.
Stay a while, and pick, girl, the roses.
- Jennifer Gooch Hummer
Girl Unmoored
Topic: Death
NOT YET RATED ▼
I will miss it so,” she said beside him. “This hell of a place, I will miss it so much. This fat body, walking mud puddle, deceived by everything, this impossible, ruinous accident of a world, these people who would truly rather hurt one another than eat—oh, there is nothing, nothing, nothing I would not do to stay here ten minutes longer. Oh, I will leave claw marks, I will drag mountains and forests away under my fingernails when I am dragged off. Such a stupid way to feel. I will be all dirty from clutching at this stupid planet, and the gods will laugh at me.
- Peter S. Beagle
The Folk of the Air
Topic: Death
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102
103
104
105
106
 		...