TOPICS
SPEAKERS
HOME
BROWSE TOPICS
BROWSE SPEAKERS

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
...
35
36
37
38
39
 		...
Something has spoken to me in the night...and told me that I shall die, I know not where. Saying: "[Death is] to lose the earth you know for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.
- Thomas Wolfe
You Can't Go Home Again
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.
- Clarence Darrow
The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.
- J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean
But I shall be good health to you nonetheless
And filter and fibre your blood.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.
- Tom Stoppard
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Things change after you die, though, I guess because dying is the loneliest thing you can do.
- Lauren Oliver
Before I Fall
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If the truth shall kill them, let them die.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How terrible," said Eragon, "to die alone, separate even from the one who is closest to you."

Everyone dies alone, Eragon. Whether you are a king on a battlefield or a lowly peasant lying in bed among your family, no one can accompany you into the void.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He shoved her aside and forced his sword, to the hilt, straight through James’s torso.
- Gabriel F.W. Koch
Steel Blood
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
That is death - shifting from "is" to "was.
- Veronica Roth
Divergent
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Do you know why hurricanes have names instead of numbers? To keep the killing personal. No one cares about a bunch of people killed by a number. '200 Dead as Number Three Slams Ashore' is not nearly as interesting a headline as 'Charlie kills 200.' Death is much more satisfying and entertaining if you personalize it.

Me, I'm still waitin' for Hurricane Ed. Old Ed wouldn't hurt ya, would he? Sounds kinda friendly. 'Hell no, we ain't evacuatin'. Ed's comin'!
- George Carlin
Brain Droppings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He hoped wherever he was going that there'd still be the sun and the moon and the stars. He'd spent a majority of his life with his head turned down. It seemed only fair that eternity would allow him to raise his face toward the sky.
- T.J. Klune
Under the Whispering Door
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And in what fairy tale would John ever be any sane person's idea of Prince Charming anyway? He was the opposite of charming. More like Prince Terrifying.
- Meg Cabot
Abandon
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some things are private. Some things needed to be said, even when the person who needed to hear them couldn’t hear anything. Ever again.
- Rachel Vincent
Alpha
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Remember me, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. Don't let me go.
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Shadow of the Wind
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
... just because [butterflies'] lives were short didn't mean they were tragic... See, they have a beautiful life.
- Lisa Genova
Still Alice
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul,
that soft summer morning
round a turning in the path,
the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones,
its legs in the air like a woman in need
burning its wedding poisons
like a fountain with its rhythmic sobs,
I could hear it clearly flowing with a long murmuring sound,
but I touch my body in vain to find the wound.
I am the vampire of my own heart,
one of the great outcasts condemned to eternal laughter
who can no longer smile.
Am I dead?
I must be dead.
- Charles Baudelaire
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths.
- George R.R. Martin
A Dance with Dragons
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nox didn’t say a word. He waited, counting the seconds in his mind. Sometimes you counted bullets and sometimes you counted time. Either one could kill you.
- Dean F. Wilson
Rustkiller
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is.
- Donna Tartt
The Goldfinch
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Stay with me to-night; you must see me die. I have long had the taste of death on my tongue, I smell death, and who will stand by my Constanze, if you do not stay?
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Something has spoken to me in the night...and told me that I shall die, I know not where. Saying: "[Death is] to lose the earth you know for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.
- Thomas Wolfe
You Can't Go Home Again
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.
- Clarence Darrow
The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.
- J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean
But I shall be good health to you nonetheless
And filter and fibre your blood.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.
- Tom Stoppard
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Things change after you die, though, I guess because dying is the loneliest thing you can do.
- Lauren Oliver
Before I Fall
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If the truth shall kill them, let them die.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How terrible," said Eragon, "to die alone, separate even from the one who is closest to you."

Everyone dies alone, Eragon. Whether you are a king on a battlefield or a lowly peasant lying in bed among your family, no one can accompany you into the void.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He shoved her aside and forced his sword, to the hilt, straight through James’s torso.
- Gabriel F.W. Koch
Steel Blood
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
That is death - shifting from "is" to "was.
- Veronica Roth
Divergent
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Do you know why hurricanes have names instead of numbers? To keep the killing personal. No one cares about a bunch of people killed by a number. '200 Dead as Number Three Slams Ashore' is not nearly as interesting a headline as 'Charlie kills 200.' Death is much more satisfying and entertaining if you personalize it.

Me, I'm still waitin' for Hurricane Ed. Old Ed wouldn't hurt ya, would he? Sounds kinda friendly. 'Hell no, we ain't evacuatin'. Ed's comin'!
- George Carlin
Brain Droppings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He hoped wherever he was going that there'd still be the sun and the moon and the stars. He'd spent a majority of his life with his head turned down. It seemed only fair that eternity would allow him to raise his face toward the sky.
- T.J. Klune
Under the Whispering Door
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And in what fairy tale would John ever be any sane person's idea of Prince Charming anyway? He was the opposite of charming. More like Prince Terrifying.
- Meg Cabot
Abandon
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some things are private. Some things needed to be said, even when the person who needed to hear them couldn’t hear anything. Ever again.
- Rachel Vincent
Alpha
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Remember me, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. Don't let me go.
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Shadow of the Wind
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
... just because [butterflies'] lives were short didn't mean they were tragic... See, they have a beautiful life.
- Lisa Genova
Still Alice
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul,
that soft summer morning
round a turning in the path,
the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones,
its legs in the air like a woman in need
burning its wedding poisons
like a fountain with its rhythmic sobs,
I could hear it clearly flowing with a long murmuring sound,
but I touch my body in vain to find the wound.
I am the vampire of my own heart,
one of the great outcasts condemned to eternal laughter
who can no longer smile.
Am I dead?
I must be dead.
- Charles Baudelaire
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths.
- George R.R. Martin
A Dance with Dragons
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nox didn’t say a word. He waited, counting the seconds in his mind. Sometimes you counted bullets and sometimes you counted time. Either one could kill you.
- Dean F. Wilson
Rustkiller
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is.
- Donna Tartt
The Goldfinch
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Stay with me to-night; you must see me die. I have long had the taste of death on my tongue, I smell death, and who will stand by my Constanze, if you do not stay?
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Something has spoken to me in the night...and told me that I shall die, I know not where. Saying: "[Death is] to lose the earth you know for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.
- Thomas Wolfe
You Can't Go Home Again
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.
- Clarence Darrow
The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.
- J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean
But I shall be good health to you nonetheless
And filter and fibre your blood.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.
- Tom Stoppard
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Things change after you die, though, I guess because dying is the loneliest thing you can do.
- Lauren Oliver
Before I Fall
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If the truth shall kill them, let them die.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How terrible," said Eragon, "to die alone, separate even from the one who is closest to you."

Everyone dies alone, Eragon. Whether you are a king on a battlefield or a lowly peasant lying in bed among your family, no one can accompany you into the void.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He shoved her aside and forced his sword, to the hilt, straight through James’s torso.
- Gabriel F.W. Koch
Steel Blood
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
That is death - shifting from "is" to "was.
- Veronica Roth
Divergent
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Do you know why hurricanes have names instead of numbers? To keep the killing personal. No one cares about a bunch of people killed by a number. '200 Dead as Number Three Slams Ashore' is not nearly as interesting a headline as 'Charlie kills 200.' Death is much more satisfying and entertaining if you personalize it.

Me, I'm still waitin' for Hurricane Ed. Old Ed wouldn't hurt ya, would he? Sounds kinda friendly. 'Hell no, we ain't evacuatin'. Ed's comin'!
- George Carlin
Brain Droppings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He hoped wherever he was going that there'd still be the sun and the moon and the stars. He'd spent a majority of his life with his head turned down. It seemed only fair that eternity would allow him to raise his face toward the sky.
- T.J. Klune
Under the Whispering Door
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And in what fairy tale would John ever be any sane person's idea of Prince Charming anyway? He was the opposite of charming. More like Prince Terrifying.
- Meg Cabot
Abandon
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Some things are private. Some things needed to be said, even when the person who needed to hear them couldn’t hear anything. Ever again.
- Rachel Vincent
Alpha
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Remember me, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. Don't let me go.
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Shadow of the Wind
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
... just because [butterflies'] lives were short didn't mean they were tragic... See, they have a beautiful life.
- Lisa Genova
Still Alice
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul,
that soft summer morning
round a turning in the path,
the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones,
its legs in the air like a woman in need
burning its wedding poisons
like a fountain with its rhythmic sobs,
I could hear it clearly flowing with a long murmuring sound,
but I touch my body in vain to find the wound.
I am the vampire of my own heart,
one of the great outcasts condemned to eternal laughter
who can no longer smile.
Am I dead?
I must be dead.
- Charles Baudelaire
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths.
- George R.R. Martin
A Dance with Dragons
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nox didn’t say a word. He waited, counting the seconds in his mind. Sometimes you counted bullets and sometimes you counted time. Either one could kill you.
- Dean F. Wilson
Rustkiller
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is.
- Donna Tartt
The Goldfinch
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Stay with me to-night; you must see me die. I have long had the taste of death on my tongue, I smell death, and who will stand by my Constanze, if you do not stay?
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
...
35
36
37
38
39
 		...