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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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And death doesn't wait for you when your rested and ready. It sneaks up on you when your exhausted and hungry and cold and so scared you can't even see straight
- Lili St. Crow
Betrayals
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After us they'll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they'll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, "Oh! Life is so hard!" and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.
- Anton Chekhov
Three Sisters: A Translation of the Play
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Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.
- Algernon Charles Swinburne
Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon
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Where music thundered let the mind be still,
Where the will triumphed let there be no will,
What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.
- May Sarton
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
THERE IS NO JUSTICE" said Death "JUST ME
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all.
- William Butler Yeats
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There are undoubtedly advantages to being dead, said Julius.
- Jonas Jonasson
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't care if the New York Times writes an obituary for me. I just want you to write one. ... You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you, but that's an insult to me. I know about you.
- John Green
The Fault in Our Stars
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The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.
- Jostein Gaarder
The Orange Girl
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Death often is the point of life's joke.
- Vladimir Nabokov
Laughter in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there left but repetition and diminishment? Who wants to go on living? The eccentric, the religious, the artistic (sometimes); those with a false sense of their own worth. Soft cheeses collapse; firm cheeses indurate. Both go mouldy.
- Julian Barnes
Flaubert's Parrot
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> Why does everything that lives have to die?
< So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours forever, is never precious.
- Chaim Potok
My Name Is Asher Lev
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
War is like night, she said. It covers everything.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You think you know death, but you don't, not until you've seen it, really seen it... And it gets under your skin and lives inside you.

You also think you know life, stand on the edge of things and what you go by but you're not living it, not really, you're just a tourist, a ghost, then you see it, really see it, it gets under your skin and lives inside you, and there's no escape, there's nothing to be done, and you know what? it's good, it's a good thing.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about it.
- Jack O'Connell
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
A choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. I am the forest's conscience, but remember, the forest eats itself and lives forever.
- Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The doorways into hell are mostly inside the mind.
- Frank Lambert
Xyz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What a thing to acknowledge in your heart! To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures to people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing-I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.
- Yann Martel
Life of Pi
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Suicide is an attack on society--an attack on its omnipotence, on its denial of death, and on its own despair.
- Robert E. Neale
The Art of Dying
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.
- Margaret Atwood
The Year of the Flood
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Thank God,
my name isn’t in the list of those
who died or were
killed yesterday!
- Suman Pokhrel
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
So," he asked. "How's death?"
"Hard," she said. "It just keeps going.
- Neil Gaiman
American Gods
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Girls are always saying things like, “I’m so unhappy that I’m going to overdose on aspirin,” but they’d be awfully surprised if they succeeded. They have no intention of dying. At the first sight of blood, they panic.
- Rachel Klein
The Moth Diaries
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You can’t live your life thinking death is going to come all the time. You have to live life and if it comes, then we can only hope we were able to do all the things we wanted. He has to want to do something. Everyone does.
- Shelena Shorts
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You think just knowing about death will keep you from dying?
- Richard Bachman
The Long Walk
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And death doesn't wait for you when your rested and ready. It sneaks up on you when your exhausted and hungry and cold and so scared you can't even see straight
- Lili St. Crow
Betrayals
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
After us they'll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they'll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, "Oh! Life is so hard!" and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.
- Anton Chekhov
Three Sisters: A Translation of the Play
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.
- Algernon Charles Swinburne
Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Where music thundered let the mind be still,
Where the will triumphed let there be no will,
What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.
- May Sarton
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
THERE IS NO JUSTICE" said Death "JUST ME
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all.
- William Butler Yeats
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There are undoubtedly advantages to being dead, said Julius.
- Jonas Jonasson
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't care if the New York Times writes an obituary for me. I just want you to write one. ... You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you, but that's an insult to me. I know about you.
- John Green
The Fault in Our Stars
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.
- Jostein Gaarder
The Orange Girl
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Death often is the point of life's joke.
- Vladimir Nabokov
Laughter in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there left but repetition and diminishment? Who wants to go on living? The eccentric, the religious, the artistic (sometimes); those with a false sense of their own worth. Soft cheeses collapse; firm cheeses indurate. Both go mouldy.
- Julian Barnes
Flaubert's Parrot
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
> Why does everything that lives have to die?
< So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours forever, is never precious.
- Chaim Potok
My Name Is Asher Lev
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
War is like night, she said. It covers everything.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You think you know death, but you don't, not until you've seen it, really seen it... And it gets under your skin and lives inside you.

You also think you know life, stand on the edge of things and what you go by but you're not living it, not really, you're just a tourist, a ghost, then you see it, really see it, it gets under your skin and lives inside you, and there's no escape, there's nothing to be done, and you know what? it's good, it's a good thing.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about it.
- Jack O'Connell
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
A choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. I am the forest's conscience, but remember, the forest eats itself and lives forever.
- Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The doorways into hell are mostly inside the mind.
- Frank Lambert
Xyz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What a thing to acknowledge in your heart! To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures to people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing-I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.
- Yann Martel
Life of Pi
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Suicide is an attack on society--an attack on its omnipotence, on its denial of death, and on its own despair.
- Robert E. Neale
The Art of Dying
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.
- Margaret Atwood
The Year of the Flood
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Thank God,
my name isn’t in the list of those
who died or were
killed yesterday!
- Suman Pokhrel
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
So," he asked. "How's death?"
"Hard," she said. "It just keeps going.
- Neil Gaiman
American Gods
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Girls are always saying things like, “I’m so unhappy that I’m going to overdose on aspirin,” but they’d be awfully surprised if they succeeded. They have no intention of dying. At the first sight of blood, they panic.
- Rachel Klein
The Moth Diaries
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You can’t live your life thinking death is going to come all the time. You have to live life and if it comes, then we can only hope we were able to do all the things we wanted. He has to want to do something. Everyone does.
- Shelena Shorts
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You think just knowing about death will keep you from dying?
- Richard Bachman
The Long Walk
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And death doesn't wait for you when your rested and ready. It sneaks up on you when your exhausted and hungry and cold and so scared you can't even see straight
- Lili St. Crow
Betrayals
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
After us they'll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they'll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, "Oh! Life is so hard!" and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.
- Anton Chekhov
Three Sisters: A Translation of the Play
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.
- Algernon Charles Swinburne
Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Where music thundered let the mind be still,
Where the will triumphed let there be no will,
What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.
- May Sarton
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
THERE IS NO JUSTICE" said Death "JUST ME
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all.
- William Butler Yeats
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There are undoubtedly advantages to being dead, said Julius.
- Jonas Jonasson
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't care if the New York Times writes an obituary for me. I just want you to write one. ... You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you, but that's an insult to me. I know about you.
- John Green
The Fault in Our Stars
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.
- Jostein Gaarder
The Orange Girl
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Death often is the point of life's joke.
- Vladimir Nabokov
Laughter in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there left but repetition and diminishment? Who wants to go on living? The eccentric, the religious, the artistic (sometimes); those with a false sense of their own worth. Soft cheeses collapse; firm cheeses indurate. Both go mouldy.
- Julian Barnes
Flaubert's Parrot
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
> Why does everything that lives have to die?
< So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours forever, is never precious.
- Chaim Potok
My Name Is Asher Lev
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
War is like night, she said. It covers everything.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You think you know death, but you don't, not until you've seen it, really seen it... And it gets under your skin and lives inside you.

You also think you know life, stand on the edge of things and what you go by but you're not living it, not really, you're just a tourist, a ghost, then you see it, really see it, it gets under your skin and lives inside you, and there's no escape, there's nothing to be done, and you know what? it's good, it's a good thing.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about it.
- Jack O'Connell
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
A choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. I am the forest's conscience, but remember, the forest eats itself and lives forever.
- Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The doorways into hell are mostly inside the mind.
- Frank Lambert
Xyz
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What a thing to acknowledge in your heart! To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures to people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing-I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.
- Yann Martel
Life of Pi
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Suicide is an attack on society--an attack on its omnipotence, on its denial of death, and on its own despair.
- Robert E. Neale
The Art of Dying
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.
- Margaret Atwood
The Year of the Flood
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Thank God,
my name isn’t in the list of those
who died or were
killed yesterday!
- Suman Pokhrel
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
So," he asked. "How's death?"
"Hard," she said. "It just keeps going.
- Neil Gaiman
American Gods
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Girls are always saying things like, “I’m so unhappy that I’m going to overdose on aspirin,” but they’d be awfully surprised if they succeeded. They have no intention of dying. At the first sight of blood, they panic.
- Rachel Klein
The Moth Diaries
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You can’t live your life thinking death is going to come all the time. You have to live life and if it comes, then we can only hope we were able to do all the things we wanted. He has to want to do something. Everyone does.
- Shelena Shorts
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You think just knowing about death will keep you from dying?
- Richard Bachman
The Long Walk
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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