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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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There is just as much beauty in birth as there is in death, and it changes our lives just the same. They both add things to us and take things away." Pg. 155 Undone
- Brooke Taylor
Undone
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I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.
- Suzanne Finnamore
Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But my point, you see is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself.
- Tom Rachman
The Imperfectionists
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Who shall tell the lady's grief
When her Cat was past relief?
Who shall number the hot tears
Shed o'er her, beloved for years?
Who shall say the dark dismay
Which her dying caused that day?
- Christina Rossetti
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Discipline

I am old and I have had
more than my share of good and bad.

I've had love and sorrow, seen sudden death
and been left alone and of love bereft.

I thought I would never love again
and I thought my life was grief and pain.

The edge between life and death was thin,
but then I discovered discipline.

I learned to smile when I felt sad,
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more
for the world about me than before.

I began to forget the "Me" and "I"
and joined in life as it rolled by:
this may not mean sheer ecstasy
but is better by far than "I" and "Me.
- Meryl Gordon
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There was not an inch of solid ground anywhere in the world for me to call my own. I didn't belong anywhere. Had I disappeared, no one would have noticed.
- Leigh Hershkovich
Shattered Illusions
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.
- Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Chosen
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die.
- Meriwether Lewis
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How do you measure the life of one person against the greater good? Can it ever be the right thing to sacrifice an innocent person? And how do you know what the greater good really is?
- Amy Engel
The Book of Ivy
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Little Prince
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Like dew I was born
Like dew I vanish
..and all that I have ever done
Is but a dream
Within a dream
- James Clavell
Shōgun, Volume 1
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
No popularity exists when tragedy strikes. All that's left are human hearts and love and ache. We all love each other, deep down, and when we see another soul in pain we can't help but hurt too.
- Maya Van Wagenen
Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She has the mysterious solitude of ambiguous states; she hovers in a no-man’s land between life and death, sleeping and waking.
- Angela Carter
The Lady of the House of Love
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The emotional element which gives an obsessive value to communal existence is death.
- Georges Bataille
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I mean, I really do think that love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. But I also have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
- William Goldman
The Princess Bride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "anything dead coming back to life hurts.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.
- Lafcadio Hearn
Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Tirelessly they flew on and on, and tirelessly she kept pace. She felt a fierce joy possessing her, that she could command these immortal presences. And she rejoiced in her blood and flesh, in the rough pine bark she felt next to her skin, in the beat of her heart and the life of all her senses, and in the hunger she was feeling now, and in the presence of her sweet-voiced bluethroat dæmon, and in the earth below her and the lives of every creature, plant and animal both; and she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.
- Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But those who believe that flowers grow in vases don't understand anything about literature. The library has now become her first-aid kit, and she's going to give the children a little of the medicine that helped her recover her smile when she thought she'd lost it forever.
- Antonio Iturbe
La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Life is a long agonized illness only curable by death.
- Spike Milligan
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You were disrespectful to a god I follow,” Eufame said to Bonnyman. “I would protect him—”
“With your life,” Bonnyman said before Eufame could continue. “Guess what, ghost, you are already dead.”
“As are you, zombie” Eufame said.
- Frank Lambert
Xyz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The fear of death haunted me for a year. I cried whenever anyone dropped a glass or broke a picture. But even then that passed, I was left with a sadness that couldn't be rubbed off. It wasn't that something had happened. It was worse: I'd become aware of what had been with me all along without my notice. I dragged this new awareness around like a stone tied to my ankle. Wherever I went, it followed. I used to make up little sad songs in my head. I eulogized the falling leaves. I imagined my death in a hundred different ways, but the funeral was always the same: from somewhere in my imagination, out rolled a red carpet. Because after every secret death I died, my greatness was always discovered.
- Nicole Krauss
The History of Love
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Be who you are, even if it kills you.

It will. Over and over again.
Even as you live.

Break my heart, why don't you?
- Joy Harjo
An American Sunrise
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is just as much beauty in birth as there is in death, and it changes our lives just the same. They both add things to us and take things away." Pg. 155 Undone
- Brooke Taylor
Undone
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.
- Suzanne Finnamore
Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But my point, you see is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself.
- Tom Rachman
The Imperfectionists
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Who shall tell the lady's grief
When her Cat was past relief?
Who shall number the hot tears
Shed o'er her, beloved for years?
Who shall say the dark dismay
Which her dying caused that day?
- Christina Rossetti
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Discipline

I am old and I have had
more than my share of good and bad.

I've had love and sorrow, seen sudden death
and been left alone and of love bereft.

I thought I would never love again
and I thought my life was grief and pain.

The edge between life and death was thin,
but then I discovered discipline.

I learned to smile when I felt sad,
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more
for the world about me than before.

I began to forget the "Me" and "I"
and joined in life as it rolled by:
this may not mean sheer ecstasy
but is better by far than "I" and "Me.
- Meryl Gordon
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There was not an inch of solid ground anywhere in the world for me to call my own. I didn't belong anywhere. Had I disappeared, no one would have noticed.
- Leigh Hershkovich
Shattered Illusions
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.
- Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Chosen
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die.
- Meriwether Lewis
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How do you measure the life of one person against the greater good? Can it ever be the right thing to sacrifice an innocent person? And how do you know what the greater good really is?
- Amy Engel
The Book of Ivy
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Little Prince
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Like dew I was born
Like dew I vanish
..and all that I have ever done
Is but a dream
Within a dream
- James Clavell
Shōgun, Volume 1
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
No popularity exists when tragedy strikes. All that's left are human hearts and love and ache. We all love each other, deep down, and when we see another soul in pain we can't help but hurt too.
- Maya Van Wagenen
Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She has the mysterious solitude of ambiguous states; she hovers in a no-man’s land between life and death, sleeping and waking.
- Angela Carter
The Lady of the House of Love
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The emotional element which gives an obsessive value to communal existence is death.
- Georges Bataille
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I mean, I really do think that love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. But I also have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
- William Goldman
The Princess Bride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "anything dead coming back to life hurts.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.
- Lafcadio Hearn
Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Tirelessly they flew on and on, and tirelessly she kept pace. She felt a fierce joy possessing her, that she could command these immortal presences. And she rejoiced in her blood and flesh, in the rough pine bark she felt next to her skin, in the beat of her heart and the life of all her senses, and in the hunger she was feeling now, and in the presence of her sweet-voiced bluethroat dæmon, and in the earth below her and the lives of every creature, plant and animal both; and she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.
- Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But those who believe that flowers grow in vases don't understand anything about literature. The library has now become her first-aid kit, and she's going to give the children a little of the medicine that helped her recover her smile when she thought she'd lost it forever.
- Antonio Iturbe
La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Life is a long agonized illness only curable by death.
- Spike Milligan
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You were disrespectful to a god I follow,” Eufame said to Bonnyman. “I would protect him—”
“With your life,” Bonnyman said before Eufame could continue. “Guess what, ghost, you are already dead.”
“As are you, zombie” Eufame said.
- Frank Lambert
Xyz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The fear of death haunted me for a year. I cried whenever anyone dropped a glass or broke a picture. But even then that passed, I was left with a sadness that couldn't be rubbed off. It wasn't that something had happened. It was worse: I'd become aware of what had been with me all along without my notice. I dragged this new awareness around like a stone tied to my ankle. Wherever I went, it followed. I used to make up little sad songs in my head. I eulogized the falling leaves. I imagined my death in a hundred different ways, but the funeral was always the same: from somewhere in my imagination, out rolled a red carpet. Because after every secret death I died, my greatness was always discovered.
- Nicole Krauss
The History of Love
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Be who you are, even if it kills you.

It will. Over and over again.
Even as you live.

Break my heart, why don't you?
- Joy Harjo
An American Sunrise
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There is just as much beauty in birth as there is in death, and it changes our lives just the same. They both add things to us and take things away." Pg. 155 Undone
- Brooke Taylor
Undone
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.
- Suzanne Finnamore
Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But my point, you see is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself.
- Tom Rachman
The Imperfectionists
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Who shall tell the lady's grief
When her Cat was past relief?
Who shall number the hot tears
Shed o'er her, beloved for years?
Who shall say the dark dismay
Which her dying caused that day?
- Christina Rossetti
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Discipline

I am old and I have had
more than my share of good and bad.

I've had love and sorrow, seen sudden death
and been left alone and of love bereft.

I thought I would never love again
and I thought my life was grief and pain.

The edge between life and death was thin,
but then I discovered discipline.

I learned to smile when I felt sad,
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more
for the world about me than before.

I began to forget the "Me" and "I"
and joined in life as it rolled by:
this may not mean sheer ecstasy
but is better by far than "I" and "Me.
- Meryl Gordon
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There was not an inch of solid ground anywhere in the world for me to call my own. I didn't belong anywhere. Had I disappeared, no one would have noticed.
- Leigh Hershkovich
Shattered Illusions
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.
- Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Chosen
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die.
- Meriwether Lewis
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How do you measure the life of one person against the greater good? Can it ever be the right thing to sacrifice an innocent person? And how do you know what the greater good really is?
- Amy Engel
The Book of Ivy
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Little Prince
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Like dew I was born
Like dew I vanish
..and all that I have ever done
Is but a dream
Within a dream
- James Clavell
Shōgun, Volume 1
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
No popularity exists when tragedy strikes. All that's left are human hearts and love and ache. We all love each other, deep down, and when we see another soul in pain we can't help but hurt too.
- Maya Van Wagenen
Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She has the mysterious solitude of ambiguous states; she hovers in a no-man’s land between life and death, sleeping and waking.
- Angela Carter
The Lady of the House of Love
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The emotional element which gives an obsessive value to communal existence is death.
- Georges Bataille
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I mean, I really do think that love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. But I also have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
- William Goldman
The Princess Bride
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "anything dead coming back to life hurts.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.
- Lafcadio Hearn
Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Tirelessly they flew on and on, and tirelessly she kept pace. She felt a fierce joy possessing her, that she could command these immortal presences. And she rejoiced in her blood and flesh, in the rough pine bark she felt next to her skin, in the beat of her heart and the life of all her senses, and in the hunger she was feeling now, and in the presence of her sweet-voiced bluethroat dæmon, and in the earth below her and the lives of every creature, plant and animal both; and she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.
- Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But those who believe that flowers grow in vases don't understand anything about literature. The library has now become her first-aid kit, and she's going to give the children a little of the medicine that helped her recover her smile when she thought she'd lost it forever.
- Antonio Iturbe
La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Life is a long agonized illness only curable by death.
- Spike Milligan
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You were disrespectful to a god I follow,” Eufame said to Bonnyman. “I would protect him—”
“With your life,” Bonnyman said before Eufame could continue. “Guess what, ghost, you are already dead.”
“As are you, zombie” Eufame said.
- Frank Lambert
Xyz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The fear of death haunted me for a year. I cried whenever anyone dropped a glass or broke a picture. But even then that passed, I was left with a sadness that couldn't be rubbed off. It wasn't that something had happened. It was worse: I'd become aware of what had been with me all along without my notice. I dragged this new awareness around like a stone tied to my ankle. Wherever I went, it followed. I used to make up little sad songs in my head. I eulogized the falling leaves. I imagined my death in a hundred different ways, but the funeral was always the same: from somewhere in my imagination, out rolled a red carpet. Because after every secret death I died, my greatness was always discovered.
- Nicole Krauss
The History of Love
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Be who you are, even if it kills you.

It will. Over and over again.
Even as you live.

Break my heart, why don't you?
- Joy Harjo
An American Sunrise
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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53
54
55
56
57
...