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
In so many senseless deaths, beauty is to blame.
That cake tasted good. But the cake in the garbage tasted better. It was the best cake I ever ate.
- Loretta Ellsworth
In a Heartbeat
Trying to show that you have mental illness to somebody who’s never had it is like trying to describe a new color to the colorblind
- Simmy Kors
The Zenas Cure
I wonder why the dead can't talk, look at all the crimes we'd solve if the damn dead would just Ouija board us our answers, or tell all those weird psychic people who killed 'em.
- Vera Jane Cook
Pleasant Day
The Angel of Death is always a young person, or a group of young people, you'll begin seeing them left and right soon.
- Benjamin R. Smith
But before you start pointing fingers, let me ask you: is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like that?
Is what I did really so much worse than what anybody else does?
Is it really so much worse than what you do?
Think about it.
She'd made life poignant for the Irish. The terror she inspired gave peace its serenity; the pain she caused gave health its lustre; her failure to love made me grateful for my ability to do so, and I realized, far too late, that though I never did or could have loved her as she might have wished, I should have loved her more.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.
- William Penn
More Fruits of Solitude: Being the Second Part of Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life.
Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.
- Anita Diamant
The Red Tent
O my love, my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
You've got to think of the fine times you had with your mate, not the moment of his perishin'. Every tear you shed now only wets his windin' sheet and disturbs his rest
Vivo sin vivir en mí... muero porque no muero. (I live without really being alive... I die because I am not dying.)
- Santa Teresa de Jesús
She glanced around at the tombstones. “You’re surrounded by death here. Way too depressing. You really might want to think about getting another job.”
“You see death and sadness in these sunken patches of dirt, I see lives lived fully and the good deeds of past generations influencing the future ones.
- David Baldacci
The Collectors
the wages
of dying is love.
- Galway Kinnell
A New Selected Poems
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
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
Life's That Way
You smile upon your friend to-day,
To-day his ills are over;
You hearken to the lover's say,
And happy is the lover.
'Tis late to hearken, late to smile,
But better late than never:
I shall have lived a little while
Before I die for ever.
- A.E. Housman
A Shropshire Lad
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.
..the nuclear family from across the street, which, as a result of decay, truly did have 2.5 kids;
- Robin Becker
Brains: A Darkly Humorous Zombie Fantasy – The Sentient Professor's Memoir
The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her.
We do not play on Graves—
Because there isn't Room—
Besides—it isn't even—it slants
And People come—
And put a Flower on it—
And hang their faces so—
We're fearing that their Hearts will drop—
And crush our pretty play—
And so we move as far
As Enemies—away—
Just looking round to see how far
It is—Occasionally—
If I could make a dream real, I would not kill anything unless it could never be changed at heart.
- Robert Fanney
The War of Mists
All great conversions are born from the sudden revelation of life's meaninglessness. Nothing could be more moving or more impressive than this sudden apprehension of the void of existence.
- Emil M. Cioran
Tears and Saints
There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.
- Stevie Smith
In so many senseless deaths, beauty is to blame.
That cake tasted good. But the cake in the garbage tasted better. It was the best cake I ever ate.
- Loretta Ellsworth
In a Heartbeat
Trying to show that you have mental illness to somebody who’s never had it is like trying to describe a new color to the colorblind
- Simmy Kors
The Zenas Cure
I wonder why the dead can't talk, look at all the crimes we'd solve if the damn dead would just Ouija board us our answers, or tell all those weird psychic people who killed 'em.
- Vera Jane Cook
Pleasant Day
The Angel of Death is always a young person, or a group of young people, you'll begin seeing them left and right soon.
- Benjamin R. Smith
But before you start pointing fingers, let me ask you: is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like that?
Is what I did really so much worse than what anybody else does?
Is it really so much worse than what you do?
Think about it.
She'd made life poignant for the Irish. The terror she inspired gave peace its serenity; the pain she caused gave health its lustre; her failure to love made me grateful for my ability to do so, and I realized, far too late, that though I never did or could have loved her as she might have wished, I should have loved her more.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.
- William Penn
More Fruits of Solitude: Being the Second Part of Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life.
Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.
- Anita Diamant
The Red Tent
O my love, my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
You've got to think of the fine times you had with your mate, not the moment of his perishin'. Every tear you shed now only wets his windin' sheet and disturbs his rest
Vivo sin vivir en mí... muero porque no muero. (I live without really being alive... I die because I am not dying.)
- Santa Teresa de Jesús
She glanced around at the tombstones. “You’re surrounded by death here. Way too depressing. You really might want to think about getting another job.”
“You see death and sadness in these sunken patches of dirt, I see lives lived fully and the good deeds of past generations influencing the future ones.
- David Baldacci
The Collectors
the wages
of dying is love.
- Galway Kinnell
A New Selected Poems
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
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
Life's That Way
You smile upon your friend to-day,
To-day his ills are over;
You hearken to the lover's say,
And happy is the lover.
'Tis late to hearken, late to smile,
But better late than never:
I shall have lived a little while
Before I die for ever.
- A.E. Housman
A Shropshire Lad
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.
..the nuclear family from across the street, which, as a result of decay, truly did have 2.5 kids;
- Robin Becker
Brains: A Darkly Humorous Zombie Fantasy – The Sentient Professor's Memoir
The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her.
We do not play on Graves—
Because there isn't Room—
Besides—it isn't even—it slants
And People come—
And put a Flower on it—
And hang their faces so—
We're fearing that their Hearts will drop—
And crush our pretty play—
And so we move as far
As Enemies—away—
Just looking round to see how far
It is—Occasionally—
If I could make a dream real, I would not kill anything unless it could never be changed at heart.
- Robert Fanney
The War of Mists
All great conversions are born from the sudden revelation of life's meaninglessness. Nothing could be more moving or more impressive than this sudden apprehension of the void of existence.
- Emil M. Cioran
Tears and Saints
There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.
- Stevie Smith
In so many senseless deaths, beauty is to blame.
That cake tasted good. But the cake in the garbage tasted better. It was the best cake I ever ate.
- Loretta Ellsworth
In a Heartbeat
Trying to show that you have mental illness to somebody who’s never had it is like trying to describe a new color to the colorblind
- Simmy Kors
The Zenas Cure
I wonder why the dead can't talk, look at all the crimes we'd solve if the damn dead would just Ouija board us our answers, or tell all those weird psychic people who killed 'em.
- Vera Jane Cook
Pleasant Day
The Angel of Death is always a young person, or a group of young people, you'll begin seeing them left and right soon.
- Benjamin R. Smith
But before you start pointing fingers, let me ask you: is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like that?
Is what I did really so much worse than what anybody else does?
Is it really so much worse than what you do?
Think about it.
She'd made life poignant for the Irish. The terror she inspired gave peace its serenity; the pain she caused gave health its lustre; her failure to love made me grateful for my ability to do so, and I realized, far too late, that though I never did or could have loved her as she might have wished, I should have loved her more.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.
- William Penn
More Fruits of Solitude: Being the Second Part of Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life.
Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.
- Anita Diamant
The Red Tent
O my love, my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
You've got to think of the fine times you had with your mate, not the moment of his perishin'. Every tear you shed now only wets his windin' sheet and disturbs his rest
Vivo sin vivir en mí... muero porque no muero. (I live without really being alive... I die because I am not dying.)
- Santa Teresa de Jesús
She glanced around at the tombstones. “You’re surrounded by death here. Way too depressing. You really might want to think about getting another job.”
“You see death and sadness in these sunken patches of dirt, I see lives lived fully and the good deeds of past generations influencing the future ones.
- David Baldacci
The Collectors
the wages
of dying is love.
- Galway Kinnell
A New Selected Poems
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
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
Life's That Way
You smile upon your friend to-day,
To-day his ills are over;
You hearken to the lover's say,
And happy is the lover.
'Tis late to hearken, late to smile,
But better late than never:
I shall have lived a little while
Before I die for ever.
- A.E. Housman
A Shropshire Lad
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.
..the nuclear family from across the street, which, as a result of decay, truly did have 2.5 kids;
- Robin Becker
Brains: A Darkly Humorous Zombie Fantasy – The Sentient Professor's Memoir
The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her.
We do not play on Graves—
Because there isn't Room—
Besides—it isn't even—it slants
And People come—
And put a Flower on it—
And hang their faces so—
We're fearing that their Hearts will drop—
And crush our pretty play—
And so we move as far
As Enemies—away—
Just looking round to see how far
It is—Occasionally—
If I could make a dream real, I would not kill anything unless it could never be changed at heart.
- Robert Fanney
The War of Mists
All great conversions are born from the sudden revelation of life's meaninglessness. Nothing could be more moving or more impressive than this sudden apprehension of the void of existence.
- Emil M. Cioran
Tears and Saints
There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.
- Stevie Smith
