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
XXX
The many sorrows of our recent history suggest that we humans have a learning disability.
XXX
poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you
Do not use life to give life to death. Do not use death to bring death to life.
- Zhuangzi
The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu
To philosophise is to learn how to die.
- Michael de Montaigne
When the star dies,
Its eye closes; tired of watching,
It flies back to its first bright dream.
However cozy things seemed, the facts of life were the same. You couldn't escape death: It would get us all in the end.
Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!
- Walter Scott
XXX
Kill you all!" The clown was laughing and screaming. "Try to stop me and I'll kill you all! Drive you crazy and then kill you all! You can't stop me!
And then we ease him out of that worn-out body with a kiss, and he's gone like a whisper, the easiest breath.
- Mark Doty
Dance, my darling dance! If you dance then death can't catch you! Nothing bad can touch you! Dance!
- Jackie French
Lady Dance
- had a million things to do today; death would have to wait, -
(The Tin Star)
- J.L. Langley
It’s quite simple. Death isn’t what we think it is. It isn’t life which ends but time which stops.
- Henri Riviere
How heavy a body that has been traversed by death is, life is light, there's no need to let anyone make it heavy for us
- Elena Ferrante
The Days of Abandonment
The stillness and stasis of bed are the perfect opposite of travel: inertia is what I've come to consider the default mode, existentially and electronically speaking. Bed, its utter inactivity, offers a glimpse of eternity, without the drawback of being dead.
- Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Not Now, Voyager: A Memoir
I don't think that science and the paranormal have to be at war; in fact, it's crucial that they work together. It seems naïve to believe that the world is exactly as it seems.
- Chelsie Shakespeare
The Pull
When we see death, we see disaster. When Jesus sees death, he sees deliverance!
When (The World According To) Garp was published, people who’d lost children wrote to me. ‘’I lost one, too,’’ they told me. I confessed to them that I hadn’t lost any children. I’m just a father with a good imagination. In my imagination, I lose my children every day. (afterword)
The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower—suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.
- Katherine Hepburn - Stage Door (1937)
Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.
- Richard Adams
Watership Down
If you don't fear death, then let Kieran meet it.
In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with our eyes closed, and all our stories end the same way, too, with all of us uttering some last words—or perhaps someone else’s—before slipping back into darkness as our series of unfortunate events comes to an end.
I don't say goodbye very easily, Anna. Not gracefully or prettily.Goodbye tears your heart out and leaves it a feast for carrion birds who happen by.
Is there life before death? That’s chalked up
In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup,
We hug our little destiny again.
I didn't tell her that death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time.
XXX
The many sorrows of our recent history suggest that we humans have a learning disability.
XXX
poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you
Do not use life to give life to death. Do not use death to bring death to life.
- Zhuangzi
The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu
To philosophise is to learn how to die.
- Michael de Montaigne
When the star dies,
Its eye closes; tired of watching,
It flies back to its first bright dream.
However cozy things seemed, the facts of life were the same. You couldn't escape death: It would get us all in the end.
Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!
- Walter Scott
XXX
Kill you all!" The clown was laughing and screaming. "Try to stop me and I'll kill you all! Drive you crazy and then kill you all! You can't stop me!
And then we ease him out of that worn-out body with a kiss, and he's gone like a whisper, the easiest breath.
- Mark Doty
Dance, my darling dance! If you dance then death can't catch you! Nothing bad can touch you! Dance!
- Jackie French
Lady Dance
- had a million things to do today; death would have to wait, -
(The Tin Star)
- J.L. Langley
It’s quite simple. Death isn’t what we think it is. It isn’t life which ends but time which stops.
- Henri Riviere
How heavy a body that has been traversed by death is, life is light, there's no need to let anyone make it heavy for us
- Elena Ferrante
The Days of Abandonment
The stillness and stasis of bed are the perfect opposite of travel: inertia is what I've come to consider the default mode, existentially and electronically speaking. Bed, its utter inactivity, offers a glimpse of eternity, without the drawback of being dead.
- Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Not Now, Voyager: A Memoir
I don't think that science and the paranormal have to be at war; in fact, it's crucial that they work together. It seems naïve to believe that the world is exactly as it seems.
- Chelsie Shakespeare
The Pull
When we see death, we see disaster. When Jesus sees death, he sees deliverance!
When (The World According To) Garp was published, people who’d lost children wrote to me. ‘’I lost one, too,’’ they told me. I confessed to them that I hadn’t lost any children. I’m just a father with a good imagination. In my imagination, I lose my children every day. (afterword)
The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower—suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.
- Katherine Hepburn - Stage Door (1937)
Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.
- Richard Adams
Watership Down
If you don't fear death, then let Kieran meet it.
In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with our eyes closed, and all our stories end the same way, too, with all of us uttering some last words—or perhaps someone else’s—before slipping back into darkness as our series of unfortunate events comes to an end.
I don't say goodbye very easily, Anna. Not gracefully or prettily.Goodbye tears your heart out and leaves it a feast for carrion birds who happen by.
Is there life before death? That’s chalked up
In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup,
We hug our little destiny again.
I didn't tell her that death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time.
XXX
The many sorrows of our recent history suggest that we humans have a learning disability.
XXX
poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you
Do not use life to give life to death. Do not use death to bring death to life.
- Zhuangzi
The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu
To philosophise is to learn how to die.
- Michael de Montaigne
When the star dies,
Its eye closes; tired of watching,
It flies back to its first bright dream.
However cozy things seemed, the facts of life were the same. You couldn't escape death: It would get us all in the end.
Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!
- Walter Scott
XXX
Kill you all!" The clown was laughing and screaming. "Try to stop me and I'll kill you all! Drive you crazy and then kill you all! You can't stop me!
And then we ease him out of that worn-out body with a kiss, and he's gone like a whisper, the easiest breath.
- Mark Doty
Dance, my darling dance! If you dance then death can't catch you! Nothing bad can touch you! Dance!
- Jackie French
Lady Dance
- had a million things to do today; death would have to wait, -
(The Tin Star)
- J.L. Langley
It’s quite simple. Death isn’t what we think it is. It isn’t life which ends but time which stops.
- Henri Riviere
How heavy a body that has been traversed by death is, life is light, there's no need to let anyone make it heavy for us
- Elena Ferrante
The Days of Abandonment
The stillness and stasis of bed are the perfect opposite of travel: inertia is what I've come to consider the default mode, existentially and electronically speaking. Bed, its utter inactivity, offers a glimpse of eternity, without the drawback of being dead.
- Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Not Now, Voyager: A Memoir
I don't think that science and the paranormal have to be at war; in fact, it's crucial that they work together. It seems naïve to believe that the world is exactly as it seems.
- Chelsie Shakespeare
The Pull
When we see death, we see disaster. When Jesus sees death, he sees deliverance!
When (The World According To) Garp was published, people who’d lost children wrote to me. ‘’I lost one, too,’’ they told me. I confessed to them that I hadn’t lost any children. I’m just a father with a good imagination. In my imagination, I lose my children every day. (afterword)
The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower—suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.
- Katherine Hepburn - Stage Door (1937)
Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.
- Richard Adams
Watership Down
If you don't fear death, then let Kieran meet it.
In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with our eyes closed, and all our stories end the same way, too, with all of us uttering some last words—or perhaps someone else’s—before slipping back into darkness as our series of unfortunate events comes to an end.
I don't say goodbye very easily, Anna. Not gracefully or prettily.Goodbye tears your heart out and leaves it a feast for carrion birds who happen by.
Is there life before death? That’s chalked up
In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
Coherent miseries, a bite and a sup,
We hug our little destiny again.
I didn't tell her that death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time.
