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
...
85
86
87
88
89
 		...
Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.
Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?
Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.
All mortals owe a debt to death.
There's no one alive
who can say if he will be tomorrow.
Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.
No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.
Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!
But don't forget Aphrodite--that's one sweet goddess.
You can let the rest go. Am I making sense?
I think so. How about a drink.
Put on a garland. I'm sure
the happy splash of wine will cure your mood.
We're all mortal you know. Think mortal.
Because my theory is, there's no such thing as life,
it's just catastrophe.
- Anne Carson
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow.
- William S. Burroughs
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It struck Mort with sudden, terrible poignancy that Death must be the loneliest creature in the universe. In the great party of Creation, he was always in the kitchen.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How does one become a butterfly?' she asked pensively.

'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.'

'You mean to die?' asked Yellow, remembering the three who fell out of the sky.

'Yes and No,' he answered.

'What looks like you will die, but what's really you will still live.
- Trina Paulus
Hope for the Flowers
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.
- George Saunders
Lincoln in the Bardo
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I love you," he said, his voice catching. "When I thought you were going to die, I wanted to die.
- Eloisa James
When Beauty Tamed the Beast
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.
- Isaac Marion
Warm Bodies
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She'll die.'
'Aye. That's a consequence of being alive.
- Ursula K. Le Guin
The Farthest Shore
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that’s what it’s like, I wouldn’t mind.
- Gayle Forman
If I Stay
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She is dead. Almost certainly dead. Nearly conclusively dead. She is, at the very least, not answering her telephone.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I waited for dawn, but only because I had forgotten how hard mornings were. For a second I'd be normal. Then came the dim awareness of something off, out of place. Then the truth came crashing down and that was it for the rest of the day. Sunlight was reproof. Shouldn't I feel better than I had in the dead of night.
- Francine Prose
Goldengrove
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
As Ginny and Hermione moved closer to the rest of the family, Harry had a clear view of the bodies lying next to Fred: Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling.
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
- Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.
- Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
History is just a way of keeping score, but it doesn't have to be who we are.
- Shaun David Hutchinson
We Are the Ants
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And what of the dead? I own that I thought of myself, at times, almost as dead. Are they not locked below ground in chambers smaller than mine was, in their millions of millions? There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men – all are dead. Their bodies repose in caskets, in sarcophagi, beneath arches of rude stone, everywhere under the earth. Their spirits haunt our minds, ears pressed to the bones of our foreheads. Who can say how intently they listen as we speak, or for what word?
- Gene Wolfe
The Citadel of the Autarch
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Embrace the probability of your imminent death....and know there is nothing i can do to save you.
- Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Let me tell you something about dying: it's not as bad as they says.

it's the coming-back-to-life part that hurts.
- Lauren Oliver
Requiem
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
- Terry Pratchett
Small Gods
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Her last conscious thought was disgust at life; her senses had lied to her. The world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal, and lassitude. Living was hateful, and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe this was the first and last and only truth.
- Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,
And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,
And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was, in ashes.
- Tithonus
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Don't fear the gods,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
- Epicurus
The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.
Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?
Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.
All mortals owe a debt to death.
There's no one alive
who can say if he will be tomorrow.
Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.
No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.
Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!
But don't forget Aphrodite--that's one sweet goddess.
You can let the rest go. Am I making sense?
I think so. How about a drink.
Put on a garland. I'm sure
the happy splash of wine will cure your mood.
We're all mortal you know. Think mortal.
Because my theory is, there's no such thing as life,
it's just catastrophe.
- Anne Carson
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow.
- William S. Burroughs
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It struck Mort with sudden, terrible poignancy that Death must be the loneliest creature in the universe. In the great party of Creation, he was always in the kitchen.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How does one become a butterfly?' she asked pensively.

'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.'

'You mean to die?' asked Yellow, remembering the three who fell out of the sky.

'Yes and No,' he answered.

'What looks like you will die, but what's really you will still live.
- Trina Paulus
Hope for the Flowers
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.
- George Saunders
Lincoln in the Bardo
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I love you," he said, his voice catching. "When I thought you were going to die, I wanted to die.
- Eloisa James
When Beauty Tamed the Beast
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.
- Isaac Marion
Warm Bodies
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She'll die.'
'Aye. That's a consequence of being alive.
- Ursula K. Le Guin
The Farthest Shore
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that’s what it’s like, I wouldn’t mind.
- Gayle Forman
If I Stay
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She is dead. Almost certainly dead. Nearly conclusively dead. She is, at the very least, not answering her telephone.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I waited for dawn, but only because I had forgotten how hard mornings were. For a second I'd be normal. Then came the dim awareness of something off, out of place. Then the truth came crashing down and that was it for the rest of the day. Sunlight was reproof. Shouldn't I feel better than I had in the dead of night.
- Francine Prose
Goldengrove
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
As Ginny and Hermione moved closer to the rest of the family, Harry had a clear view of the bodies lying next to Fred: Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling.
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
- Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.
- Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
History is just a way of keeping score, but it doesn't have to be who we are.
- Shaun David Hutchinson
We Are the Ants
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And what of the dead? I own that I thought of myself, at times, almost as dead. Are they not locked below ground in chambers smaller than mine was, in their millions of millions? There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men – all are dead. Their bodies repose in caskets, in sarcophagi, beneath arches of rude stone, everywhere under the earth. Their spirits haunt our minds, ears pressed to the bones of our foreheads. Who can say how intently they listen as we speak, or for what word?
- Gene Wolfe
The Citadel of the Autarch
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Embrace the probability of your imminent death....and know there is nothing i can do to save you.
- Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Let me tell you something about dying: it's not as bad as they says.

it's the coming-back-to-life part that hurts.
- Lauren Oliver
Requiem
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
- Terry Pratchett
Small Gods
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Her last conscious thought was disgust at life; her senses had lied to her. The world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal, and lassitude. Living was hateful, and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe this was the first and last and only truth.
- Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,
And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,
And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was, in ashes.
- Tithonus
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Don't fear the gods,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
- Epicurus
The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.
Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?
Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.
All mortals owe a debt to death.
There's no one alive
who can say if he will be tomorrow.
Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.
No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.
Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!
But don't forget Aphrodite--that's one sweet goddess.
You can let the rest go. Am I making sense?
I think so. How about a drink.
Put on a garland. I'm sure
the happy splash of wine will cure your mood.
We're all mortal you know. Think mortal.
Because my theory is, there's no such thing as life,
it's just catastrophe.
- Anne Carson
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow.
- William S. Burroughs
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It struck Mort with sudden, terrible poignancy that Death must be the loneliest creature in the universe. In the great party of Creation, he was always in the kitchen.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
How does one become a butterfly?' she asked pensively.

'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.'

'You mean to die?' asked Yellow, remembering the three who fell out of the sky.

'Yes and No,' he answered.

'What looks like you will die, but what's really you will still live.
- Trina Paulus
Hope for the Flowers
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.
- George Saunders
Lincoln in the Bardo
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I love you," he said, his voice catching. "When I thought you were going to die, I wanted to die.
- Eloisa James
When Beauty Tamed the Beast
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.
- Isaac Marion
Warm Bodies
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She'll die.'
'Aye. That's a consequence of being alive.
- Ursula K. Le Guin
The Farthest Shore
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that’s what it’s like, I wouldn’t mind.
- Gayle Forman
If I Stay
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
She is dead. Almost certainly dead. Nearly conclusively dead. She is, at the very least, not answering her telephone.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I waited for dawn, but only because I had forgotten how hard mornings were. For a second I'd be normal. Then came the dim awareness of something off, out of place. Then the truth came crashing down and that was it for the rest of the day. Sunlight was reproof. Shouldn't I feel better than I had in the dead of night.
- Francine Prose
Goldengrove
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
As Ginny and Hermione moved closer to the rest of the family, Harry had a clear view of the bodies lying next to Fred: Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling.
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
- Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.
- Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
History is just a way of keeping score, but it doesn't have to be who we are.
- Shaun David Hutchinson
We Are the Ants
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And what of the dead? I own that I thought of myself, at times, almost as dead. Are they not locked below ground in chambers smaller than mine was, in their millions of millions? There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men – all are dead. Their bodies repose in caskets, in sarcophagi, beneath arches of rude stone, everywhere under the earth. Their spirits haunt our minds, ears pressed to the bones of our foreheads. Who can say how intently they listen as we speak, or for what word?
- Gene Wolfe
The Citadel of the Autarch
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Embrace the probability of your imminent death....and know there is nothing i can do to save you.
- Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Let me tell you something about dying: it's not as bad as they says.

it's the coming-back-to-life part that hurts.
- Lauren Oliver
Requiem
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
- Terry Pratchett
Small Gods
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Her last conscious thought was disgust at life; her senses had lied to her. The world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal, and lassitude. Living was hateful, and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe this was the first and last and only truth.
- Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,
And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,
And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was, in ashes.
- Tithonus
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Don't fear the gods,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
- Epicurus
The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
...
85
86
87
88
89
 		...