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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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XXX
NOT YET RATING
▼
Harry lost any sense of where they were: Streetlights above him, yells around him, he was clinging to the sidecar for dear life. Hedwig’s cage, the Firebolt, and his rucksack slipped from beneath his knees —
“No — HEDWIG!”
The broomstick spun to earth, but he just managed to seize the strap of his rucksack and the top of the cage as the motorbike swung the right way up again. A second’s relief, and then another burst of green light. The owl screeched and fell to the floor of the cage.
“No — NO!”
The motorbike zoomed forward; Harry glimpsed hooded Death Eaters scattering as Hagrid blasted through their circle.
“Hedwig — Hedwig —”
But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage.
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Topic: Death
I'll never be ready. Yet at the same time, you always want to reach the end. You can't fly to a destination and linger in the air. I want to reach the end of this thing, and I feel terrible about it.
- Kaui Hart Hemmings
The Descendants
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Hell, I don't want to grow old at all. I never want to die.
- Kate Millett
Sita
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
My flesh winced, in cowardice, from such a death.
- Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Immortality like this is about as useful as sunscreen on a submarine.
- Elizabeth Marx
All's Fair in Vanity's War
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Death is the force that will create your new life. It is a mechanism of transformation. Welcome it.
- Lisa Cach
Wake Unto Me
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Stay," he said abruptly. "Stay, feed me. Read to me, if you like. Do not talk to me of death. Do not offer me your fear. I have fear of my own to drive me, and if my own fear is not strong enough to keep me from my duty, yours will only grieve me, girl. It will give me guilt and no rest, but it won't preserve my life.
- Michelle Sagara West
City of Night
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.
- Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
We have long become overgrown with calluses; we no longer hear people being killed. ("X")
- Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Dragon: Fifteen Stories
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
In every person, there is a doer and a devil. With every passing days, the doer dies and a devil has to rise.
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Time erodes us all.
- Meg Rosoff
What I Was
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
If you remembered somebody was as real as yourself, how could you kill anybody?
- Sena Jeter Naslund
Four Spirits
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else. Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.
- Pema Chödrön
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
After Your Death

First, I emptied the closets of your clothes,
threw out the bowl of fruit, bruised
from your touch, left empty the jars

you bought for preserves. The next morning,
birds rustled the fruit trees, and later
when I twisted a ripe fig loose from its stem,

I found it half eaten, the other side
already rotting, or—like another I plucked
and split open—being taken from the inside:

a swarm of insects hollowing it. I’m too late,
again, another space emptied by loss.
Tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill.
- Natasha Trethewey
Monument: Poems New and Selected
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
—I speak as one who plumbs
Life’s dim profound,
One who at length can sound
Clear views and certain.
But—after love what comes?
A scene that lours,
A few sad vacant hours,
And then, the Curtain.
- Thomas Hardy
Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Be gentle,
always delicate
with every soul
you meet,
for every single morning
you wake up,
there is someone
Wishing,
silently
and secretly,
that they
had not.
- Tyler Knott Gregson
Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Nobody can tell what is right and what is wrong; what is righteous and what is evil. Even if there is a god and I had his teachings right before me, I would think it through and decide if that was right or wrong myself.
- Tsugumi Ohba
Death Note, Vol. 12: Finis
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death, Philosophical, Religion
They looked to each other for support, for strength, and at times, motivation, to remember why and for whom they lived.
- Sage Steadman
Upon Destiny's Song
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
In the last moment of his life, he turned his fading "flame of life" into a huge fire that enveloped the world. I've never laughed more than on that day...!! I've never cried more than on that day... I've never drank more either..!! He was our captain... and he was a magnificent man...!!!
- Rayleigh
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Scarlet watched a leaf fall to the ground, lying dead amoung the other leaves on the forest floor. "A brief life seems pointless."
Tristan thought for a moment. "Isn't that what life is, though? A brief opportunity to exist? A short gift?
- Chelsea Fine
Anew
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Nobody wants to believe that existence carries on without at least taking a stumble from their departure of this world.
- Nenia Campbell
Terrorscape
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death, Philosophical
Oh God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of its shell if it is now doomed to crawl back -- to be sucked back -- into it?
- C.S. Lewis
A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Flowers, cold from the dew,
And autumn's approaching breath,
I pluck for the warm, luxuriant braids,
Which haven't faded yet.

In their nights, fragrantly resinous,
Entwined with delightful mystery,
They will breathe in her springlike
Extraordinary beauty.

But in a whirlwind of sound and fire,
From her shing head they will flutter
And fall—and before her
They will die, faintly fragrant still.

And, impelled by faithful longing,
My obedient gaze will feast upon them—
With a reverent hand,
Love will gather their rotting remains.
- Anna Akhmatova
The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
XXX
NOT YET RATING
▼
Harry lost any sense of where they were: Streetlights above him, yells around him, he was clinging to the sidecar for dear life. Hedwig’s cage, the Firebolt, and his rucksack slipped from beneath his knees —
“No — HEDWIG!”
The broomstick spun to earth, but he just managed to seize the strap of his rucksack and the top of the cage as the motorbike swung the right way up again. A second’s relief, and then another burst of green light. The owl screeched and fell to the floor of the cage.
“No — NO!”
The motorbike zoomed forward; Harry glimpsed hooded Death Eaters scattering as Hagrid blasted through their circle.
“Hedwig — Hedwig —”
But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage.
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Topic: Death
I'll never be ready. Yet at the same time, you always want to reach the end. You can't fly to a destination and linger in the air. I want to reach the end of this thing, and I feel terrible about it.
- Kaui Hart Hemmings
The Descendants
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Hell, I don't want to grow old at all. I never want to die.
- Kate Millett
Sita
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
My flesh winced, in cowardice, from such a death.
- Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Immortality like this is about as useful as sunscreen on a submarine.
- Elizabeth Marx
All's Fair in Vanity's War
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Death is the force that will create your new life. It is a mechanism of transformation. Welcome it.
- Lisa Cach
Wake Unto Me
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Stay," he said abruptly. "Stay, feed me. Read to me, if you like. Do not talk to me of death. Do not offer me your fear. I have fear of my own to drive me, and if my own fear is not strong enough to keep me from my duty, yours will only grieve me, girl. It will give me guilt and no rest, but it won't preserve my life.
- Michelle Sagara West
City of Night
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.
- Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
We have long become overgrown with calluses; we no longer hear people being killed. ("X")
- Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Dragon: Fifteen Stories
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
In every person, there is a doer and a devil. With every passing days, the doer dies and a devil has to rise.
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Time erodes us all.
- Meg Rosoff
What I Was
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
If you remembered somebody was as real as yourself, how could you kill anybody?
- Sena Jeter Naslund
Four Spirits
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else. Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.
- Pema Chödrön
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
After Your Death

First, I emptied the closets of your clothes,
threw out the bowl of fruit, bruised
from your touch, left empty the jars

you bought for preserves. The next morning,
birds rustled the fruit trees, and later
when I twisted a ripe fig loose from its stem,

I found it half eaten, the other side
already rotting, or—like another I plucked
and split open—being taken from the inside:

a swarm of insects hollowing it. I’m too late,
again, another space emptied by loss.
Tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill.
- Natasha Trethewey
Monument: Poems New and Selected
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
—I speak as one who plumbs
Life’s dim profound,
One who at length can sound
Clear views and certain.
But—after love what comes?
A scene that lours,
A few sad vacant hours,
And then, the Curtain.
- Thomas Hardy
Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Be gentle,
always delicate
with every soul
you meet,
for every single morning
you wake up,
there is someone
Wishing,
silently
and secretly,
that they
had not.
- Tyler Knott Gregson
Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Nobody can tell what is right and what is wrong; what is righteous and what is evil. Even if there is a god and I had his teachings right before me, I would think it through and decide if that was right or wrong myself.
- Tsugumi Ohba
Death Note, Vol. 12: Finis
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death, Philosophical, Religion
They looked to each other for support, for strength, and at times, motivation, to remember why and for whom they lived.
- Sage Steadman
Upon Destiny's Song
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
In the last moment of his life, he turned his fading "flame of life" into a huge fire that enveloped the world. I've never laughed more than on that day...!! I've never cried more than on that day... I've never drank more either..!! He was our captain... and he was a magnificent man...!!!
- Rayleigh
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Scarlet watched a leaf fall to the ground, lying dead amoung the other leaves on the forest floor. "A brief life seems pointless."
Tristan thought for a moment. "Isn't that what life is, though? A brief opportunity to exist? A short gift?
- Chelsea Fine
Anew
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Nobody wants to believe that existence carries on without at least taking a stumble from their departure of this world.
- Nenia Campbell
Terrorscape
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death, Philosophical
Oh God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of its shell if it is now doomed to crawl back -- to be sucked back -- into it?
- C.S. Lewis
A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Flowers, cold from the dew,
And autumn's approaching breath,
I pluck for the warm, luxuriant braids,
Which haven't faded yet.

In their nights, fragrantly resinous,
Entwined with delightful mystery,
They will breathe in her springlike
Extraordinary beauty.

But in a whirlwind of sound and fire,
From her shing head they will flutter
And fall—and before her
They will die, faintly fragrant still.

And, impelled by faithful longing,
My obedient gaze will feast upon them—
With a reverent hand,
Love will gather their rotting remains.
- Anna Akhmatova
The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
XXX
NOT YET RATING
▼
Harry lost any sense of where they were: Streetlights above him, yells around him, he was clinging to the sidecar for dear life. Hedwig’s cage, the Firebolt, and his rucksack slipped from beneath his knees —
“No — HEDWIG!”
The broomstick spun to earth, but he just managed to seize the strap of his rucksack and the top of the cage as the motorbike swung the right way up again. A second’s relief, and then another burst of green light. The owl screeched and fell to the floor of the cage.
“No — NO!”
The motorbike zoomed forward; Harry glimpsed hooded Death Eaters scattering as Hagrid blasted through their circle.
“Hedwig — Hedwig —”
But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage.
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Topic: Death
I'll never be ready. Yet at the same time, you always want to reach the end. You can't fly to a destination and linger in the air. I want to reach the end of this thing, and I feel terrible about it.
- Kaui Hart Hemmings
The Descendants
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Hell, I don't want to grow old at all. I never want to die.
- Kate Millett
Sita
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
My flesh winced, in cowardice, from such a death.
- Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Immortality like this is about as useful as sunscreen on a submarine.
- Elizabeth Marx
All's Fair in Vanity's War
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Death is the force that will create your new life. It is a mechanism of transformation. Welcome it.
- Lisa Cach
Wake Unto Me
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Stay," he said abruptly. "Stay, feed me. Read to me, if you like. Do not talk to me of death. Do not offer me your fear. I have fear of my own to drive me, and if my own fear is not strong enough to keep me from my duty, yours will only grieve me, girl. It will give me guilt and no rest, but it won't preserve my life.
- Michelle Sagara West
City of Night
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.
- Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
We have long become overgrown with calluses; we no longer hear people being killed. ("X")
- Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Dragon: Fifteen Stories
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
In every person, there is a doer and a devil. With every passing days, the doer dies and a devil has to rise.
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Time erodes us all.
- Meg Rosoff
What I Was
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
If you remembered somebody was as real as yourself, how could you kill anybody?
- Sena Jeter Naslund
Four Spirits
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else. Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.
- Pema Chödrön
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
After Your Death

First, I emptied the closets of your clothes,
threw out the bowl of fruit, bruised
from your touch, left empty the jars

you bought for preserves. The next morning,
birds rustled the fruit trees, and later
when I twisted a ripe fig loose from its stem,

I found it half eaten, the other side
already rotting, or—like another I plucked
and split open—being taken from the inside:

a swarm of insects hollowing it. I’m too late,
again, another space emptied by loss.
Tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill.
- Natasha Trethewey
Monument: Poems New and Selected
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
—I speak as one who plumbs
Life’s dim profound,
One who at length can sound
Clear views and certain.
But—after love what comes?
A scene that lours,
A few sad vacant hours,
And then, the Curtain.
- Thomas Hardy
Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Be gentle,
always delicate
with every soul
you meet,
for every single morning
you wake up,
there is someone
Wishing,
silently
and secretly,
that they
had not.
- Tyler Knott Gregson
Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Nobody can tell what is right and what is wrong; what is righteous and what is evil. Even if there is a god and I had his teachings right before me, I would think it through and decide if that was right or wrong myself.
- Tsugumi Ohba
Death Note, Vol. 12: Finis
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death, Philosophical, Religion
They looked to each other for support, for strength, and at times, motivation, to remember why and for whom they lived.
- Sage Steadman
Upon Destiny's Song
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
In the last moment of his life, he turned his fading "flame of life" into a huge fire that enveloped the world. I've never laughed more than on that day...!! I've never cried more than on that day... I've never drank more either..!! He was our captain... and he was a magnificent man...!!!
- Rayleigh
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Scarlet watched a leaf fall to the ground, lying dead amoung the other leaves on the forest floor. "A brief life seems pointless."
Tristan thought for a moment. "Isn't that what life is, though? A brief opportunity to exist? A short gift?
- Chelsea Fine
Anew
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Nobody wants to believe that existence carries on without at least taking a stumble from their departure of this world.
- Nenia Campbell
Terrorscape
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death, Philosophical
Oh God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of its shell if it is now doomed to crawl back -- to be sucked back -- into it?
- C.S. Lewis
A Grief Observed
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
Flowers, cold from the dew,
And autumn's approaching breath,
I pluck for the warm, luxuriant braids,
Which haven't faded yet.

In their nights, fragrantly resinous,
Entwined with delightful mystery,
They will breathe in her springlike
Extraordinary beauty.

But in a whirlwind of sound and fire,
From her shing head they will flutter
And fall—and before her
They will die, faintly fragrant still.

And, impelled by faithful longing,
My obedient gaze will feast upon them—
With a reverent hand,
Love will gather their rotting remains.
- Anna Akhmatova
The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
NOT YET RATING
▼
Topic: Death
...
114
115
116
117
118