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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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How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.
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She's realized the real problem with stories -- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.
- Neil Gaiman
The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
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What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination.
- Sylvia Plath
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.
- Hans Christian Andersen
The Story of a Mother
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It's all right, Tessa, you can go. We love you. You can go now.'
'Why are you saying that?'
'She might need permission to die, Cal.'
'I don't want her to. She doesn't have my permission.
- Jenny Downham
Before I Die
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The Vietnamese soldier said, “Before I spoke to her, I had given her a cooked ration of rice. Instead of her being grateful for the meal, she abused me! What gives with these Kampuchean People?”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)
- Michael G. Kramer
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Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.

But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can't avoid. I mean my own body. It had such a different importance while it was the body of H.'s lover. Now it's like an empty house.
- C.S. Lewis
A Grief Observed
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My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. some rises and falls. But that's it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I'd loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.
- Haruki Murakami
Dance Dance Dance
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Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black. She has a knife, knife, knife, stuck in her back, back, back. She cannot breathe, breathe, breathe. She cannot cry, cry, cry. Thats why she begs, begs, begs. She begs to die, die ,die..
- Laurie Faria Stolarz
White Is for Magic
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Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?"
"I guess it depends on how you die.
- Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
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I'm so sorry, Henri," I whisper in his ear. I close my eyes. "I love you. I wouldn't have missed a second of it, either. Not for anything," I whisper. "I'm going to take you back yet. Somehow I am going to get you back to Lorien. We always joked about it but you were my father, the best father I could have ever asked for. I'll never forget you, not for a minute for as long as I live. I love you, Henri. I always did.
- Pittacus Lore
I Am Number Four
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Um..." Hazel faltered. "You mean you won't... you're not going to-"
"Claim your life?" Thantos asked. "Well, let's see..."
He pulled a pure-black iPad from thin air. Death, tapped the screen a few times, and all Frank could think was: Please don't let there be an app for reaping souls.
"I don't see you on the list," Thantos said. "Pluto gives me specific orders for escaped souls, you see. For some reason, he has not issued a warrant for yours. Perhaps he feels your life is not finished, or it could be n oversight. If you'd like me to call and ask-"
"No!" Hazel yelped. "That's okay."
"Are you sure?" Death asked helpfully. "I have video-conferencing enabled. I have his Skype address here somewhere...
- Rick Riordan
The Son of Neptune
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Trust is a strange bedfellow.
- March Lions
The Last Sunset
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Outside, beyond the vast red bricked labyrinth of Kremlin walls, a humid night ensnarled the Soviet capital in its spell. Yet here in the womb-like private cinema Josef Stalin sat, eyes transfixed on the screen, as Johnny Weissmuller arced through a canopy of trees boldly screaming his signature jungle call.
- KGE Konkel
Who Has Buried the Dead?: From Stalin to Putin … The last great secret of World War Two
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Soldiers live. He dies and not you, and you feel guilty, because you're glad he died, and not you. Soldiers live, and wonder why.
- Glen Cook
Soldiers Live
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He is sorry-
For everything-
For Prentisstown-
For Viola-
For Ben-
For every failure and every wrong-
For letting his pa down-
And he's looking up at me-
And he's begging me-
He's begging me-
Like I'm the only one who can forgive him-
Like it's only me who's got the power-
Todd?-
Please-
And all I can say is "Davy-"
And the fright and the terror in his Noise is too much-
It's too much-
And then it stops.
Davy slumps, eyes still open, eyes still staring back at me, eyes still asking (I swear) for me to forgive him.
And he lies there, still.
Davy Prentiss is dead.
- Patrick Ness
The Ask and the Answer
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;
- William Cullen Bryant
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Let the hounds give chase. I do not fear death, because I command it.
- Leigh Bardugo
Rule of Wolves
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Jon Snow, is this a proper castle now? Not just a tower?”

“It is.” Jon took her hand.

“Good,” she whispered. “I wanted t’ see one proper castle, before … before I …”

“You’ll see hundred castles. The battle’s done. Maester Aemon will see to you. You’re kissed by fire, remember? Lucky. It will take more than an arrow to kill you. Aemon will draw it out and patch you up, and we’ll get milk of the poppy for the pain.”

She just smiled at that. “D’you remember that cave? We should have stayed in that cave. I told you so.”

“We’ll go back to the cave,” he said.” You’re not going to die, Ygritte. You’re not.”

“Oh.” Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she sighed, dying.
- George R.R. Martin
A Storm of Swords
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some fail to bear in mind that everyone is sentenced to death. Death is a treacherous virus that strikes randomly. The only truth is that nobody is going to make it out alive. We are all living on probation and our expiry date is indefinite. ( “Living on probation” )
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for.
- Vladimir Nabokov
Speak, Memory
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his word, though he can move my every inmost part - yet nothing in the outer world is stirred. thus by existence tortured and oppressed I crave for death, I long for rest.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.
- Ally Condie
Reached
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?
- Deborah Curtis
Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She's realized the real problem with stories -- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.
- Neil Gaiman
The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination.
- Sylvia Plath
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.
- Hans Christian Andersen
The Story of a Mother
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's all right, Tessa, you can go. We love you. You can go now.'
'Why are you saying that?'
'She might need permission to die, Cal.'
'I don't want her to. She doesn't have my permission.
- Jenny Downham
Before I Die
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The Vietnamese soldier said, “Before I spoke to her, I had given her a cooked ration of rice. Instead of her being grateful for the meal, she abused me! What gives with these Kampuchean People?”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)
- Michael G. Kramer
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.

But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can't avoid. I mean my own body. It had such a different importance while it was the body of H.'s lover. Now it's like an empty house.
- C.S. Lewis
A Grief Observed
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. some rises and falls. But that's it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I'd loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.
- Haruki Murakami
Dance Dance Dance
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black. She has a knife, knife, knife, stuck in her back, back, back. She cannot breathe, breathe, breathe. She cannot cry, cry, cry. Thats why she begs, begs, begs. She begs to die, die ,die..
- Laurie Faria Stolarz
White Is for Magic
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?"
"I guess it depends on how you die.
- Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I'm so sorry, Henri," I whisper in his ear. I close my eyes. "I love you. I wouldn't have missed a second of it, either. Not for anything," I whisper. "I'm going to take you back yet. Somehow I am going to get you back to Lorien. We always joked about it but you were my father, the best father I could have ever asked for. I'll never forget you, not for a minute for as long as I live. I love you, Henri. I always did.
- Pittacus Lore
I Am Number Four
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Um..." Hazel faltered. "You mean you won't... you're not going to-"
"Claim your life?" Thantos asked. "Well, let's see..."
He pulled a pure-black iPad from thin air. Death, tapped the screen a few times, and all Frank could think was: Please don't let there be an app for reaping souls.
"I don't see you on the list," Thantos said. "Pluto gives me specific orders for escaped souls, you see. For some reason, he has not issued a warrant for yours. Perhaps he feels your life is not finished, or it could be n oversight. If you'd like me to call and ask-"
"No!" Hazel yelped. "That's okay."
"Are you sure?" Death asked helpfully. "I have video-conferencing enabled. I have his Skype address here somewhere...
- Rick Riordan
The Son of Neptune
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Trust is a strange bedfellow.
- March Lions
The Last Sunset
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Outside, beyond the vast red bricked labyrinth of Kremlin walls, a humid night ensnarled the Soviet capital in its spell. Yet here in the womb-like private cinema Josef Stalin sat, eyes transfixed on the screen, as Johnny Weissmuller arced through a canopy of trees boldly screaming his signature jungle call.
- KGE Konkel
Who Has Buried the Dead?: From Stalin to Putin … The last great secret of World War Two
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Soldiers live. He dies and not you, and you feel guilty, because you're glad he died, and not you. Soldiers live, and wonder why.
- Glen Cook
Soldiers Live
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He is sorry-
For everything-
For Prentisstown-
For Viola-
For Ben-
For every failure and every wrong-
For letting his pa down-
And he's looking up at me-
And he's begging me-
He's begging me-
Like I'm the only one who can forgive him-
Like it's only me who's got the power-
Todd?-
Please-
And all I can say is "Davy-"
And the fright and the terror in his Noise is too much-
It's too much-
And then it stops.
Davy slumps, eyes still open, eyes still staring back at me, eyes still asking (I swear) for me to forgive him.
And he lies there, still.
Davy Prentiss is dead.
- Patrick Ness
The Ask and the Answer
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;
- William Cullen Bryant
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Let the hounds give chase. I do not fear death, because I command it.
- Leigh Bardugo
Rule of Wolves
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Jon Snow, is this a proper castle now? Not just a tower?”

“It is.” Jon took her hand.

“Good,” she whispered. “I wanted t’ see one proper castle, before … before I …”

“You’ll see hundred castles. The battle’s done. Maester Aemon will see to you. You’re kissed by fire, remember? Lucky. It will take more than an arrow to kill you. Aemon will draw it out and patch you up, and we’ll get milk of the poppy for the pain.”

She just smiled at that. “D’you remember that cave? We should have stayed in that cave. I told you so.”

“We’ll go back to the cave,” he said.” You’re not going to die, Ygritte. You’re not.”

“Oh.” Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she sighed, dying.
- George R.R. Martin
A Storm of Swords
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some fail to bear in mind that everyone is sentenced to death. Death is a treacherous virus that strikes randomly. The only truth is that nobody is going to make it out alive. We are all living on probation and our expiry date is indefinite. ( “Living on probation” )
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for.
- Vladimir Nabokov
Speak, Memory
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his word, though he can move my every inmost part - yet nothing in the outer world is stirred. thus by existence tortured and oppressed I crave for death, I long for rest.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.
- Ally Condie
Reached
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?
- Deborah Curtis
Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She's realized the real problem with stories -- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.
- Neil Gaiman
The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination.
- Sylvia Plath
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.
- Hans Christian Andersen
The Story of a Mother
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's all right, Tessa, you can go. We love you. You can go now.'
'Why are you saying that?'
'She might need permission to die, Cal.'
'I don't want her to. She doesn't have my permission.
- Jenny Downham
Before I Die
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The Vietnamese soldier said, “Before I spoke to her, I had given her a cooked ration of rice. Instead of her being grateful for the meal, she abused me! What gives with these Kampuchean People?”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)
- Michael G. Kramer
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.

But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can't avoid. I mean my own body. It had such a different importance while it was the body of H.'s lover. Now it's like an empty house.
- C.S. Lewis
A Grief Observed
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. some rises and falls. But that's it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I'd loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.
- Haruki Murakami
Dance Dance Dance
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black. She has a knife, knife, knife, stuck in her back, back, back. She cannot breathe, breathe, breathe. She cannot cry, cry, cry. Thats why she begs, begs, begs. She begs to die, die ,die..
- Laurie Faria Stolarz
White Is for Magic
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?"
"I guess it depends on how you die.
- Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I'm so sorry, Henri," I whisper in his ear. I close my eyes. "I love you. I wouldn't have missed a second of it, either. Not for anything," I whisper. "I'm going to take you back yet. Somehow I am going to get you back to Lorien. We always joked about it but you were my father, the best father I could have ever asked for. I'll never forget you, not for a minute for as long as I live. I love you, Henri. I always did.
- Pittacus Lore
I Am Number Four
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Um..." Hazel faltered. "You mean you won't... you're not going to-"
"Claim your life?" Thantos asked. "Well, let's see..."
He pulled a pure-black iPad from thin air. Death, tapped the screen a few times, and all Frank could think was: Please don't let there be an app for reaping souls.
"I don't see you on the list," Thantos said. "Pluto gives me specific orders for escaped souls, you see. For some reason, he has not issued a warrant for yours. Perhaps he feels your life is not finished, or it could be n oversight. If you'd like me to call and ask-"
"No!" Hazel yelped. "That's okay."
"Are you sure?" Death asked helpfully. "I have video-conferencing enabled. I have his Skype address here somewhere...
- Rick Riordan
The Son of Neptune
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Trust is a strange bedfellow.
- March Lions
The Last Sunset
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Outside, beyond the vast red bricked labyrinth of Kremlin walls, a humid night ensnarled the Soviet capital in its spell. Yet here in the womb-like private cinema Josef Stalin sat, eyes transfixed on the screen, as Johnny Weissmuller arced through a canopy of trees boldly screaming his signature jungle call.
- KGE Konkel
Who Has Buried the Dead?: From Stalin to Putin … The last great secret of World War Two
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Soldiers live. He dies and not you, and you feel guilty, because you're glad he died, and not you. Soldiers live, and wonder why.
- Glen Cook
Soldiers Live
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He is sorry-
For everything-
For Prentisstown-
For Viola-
For Ben-
For every failure and every wrong-
For letting his pa down-
And he's looking up at me-
And he's begging me-
He's begging me-
Like I'm the only one who can forgive him-
Like it's only me who's got the power-
Todd?-
Please-
And all I can say is "Davy-"
And the fright and the terror in his Noise is too much-
It's too much-
And then it stops.
Davy slumps, eyes still open, eyes still staring back at me, eyes still asking (I swear) for me to forgive him.
And he lies there, still.
Davy Prentiss is dead.
- Patrick Ness
The Ask and the Answer
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;
- William Cullen Bryant
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Let the hounds give chase. I do not fear death, because I command it.
- Leigh Bardugo
Rule of Wolves
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Jon Snow, is this a proper castle now? Not just a tower?”

“It is.” Jon took her hand.

“Good,” she whispered. “I wanted t’ see one proper castle, before … before I …”

“You’ll see hundred castles. The battle’s done. Maester Aemon will see to you. You’re kissed by fire, remember? Lucky. It will take more than an arrow to kill you. Aemon will draw it out and patch you up, and we’ll get milk of the poppy for the pain.”

She just smiled at that. “D’you remember that cave? We should have stayed in that cave. I told you so.”

“We’ll go back to the cave,” he said.” You’re not going to die, Ygritte. You’re not.”

“Oh.” Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she sighed, dying.
- George R.R. Martin
A Storm of Swords
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some fail to bear in mind that everyone is sentenced to death. Death is a treacherous virus that strikes randomly. The only truth is that nobody is going to make it out alive. We are all living on probation and our expiry date is indefinite. ( “Living on probation” )
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for.
- Vladimir Nabokov
Speak, Memory
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his word, though he can move my every inmost part - yet nothing in the outer world is stirred. thus by existence tortured and oppressed I crave for death, I long for rest.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.
- Ally Condie
Reached
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?
- Deborah Curtis
Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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