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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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Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
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The language of love letters is the same as suicide notes.
- Courtney Love
Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love
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And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?
- Matt Haig
How to Stop Time
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Honor from death,” I snap, “is a myth. Invented by the war torn to make sense of the horrific. If we die, it will be so that others may live. Truly honorable death, the only honorable death, is one that enables life.
- Rae Carson
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
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some men never
die
and some men never
live

but we're all alive
tonight.
- Charles Bukowski
You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's been a prevalent notion. Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation. And someday, somehow, before the end, a gathering back to home. A messenger from the Kingdom, arriving at the last moment. But I tell you there is no such message, no such home -- only the millions of last moments . . . nothing more. Our history is an aggregate of last moments.
- Thomas Pynchon
Gravity's Rainbow
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Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.
- Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Good-byes hurt the most when the other person’s already gone.
- Angie Thomas
The Hate U Give
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.

And so, laughing and crying, we said good-bye to my grandmother. And when we said goodbye to one grandmother, we said good-bye to all of them.

Each funeral was a funeral for all of us.

We lived and died together.

All of us laughed when they lowered my grandmother into the ground.

And all of us laughed when they covered her with dirt.

And all of us laughed as we walked and drove and rode our way back to our lonely, lonely houses.
- Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
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ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

Death took a step backwards.

It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.

Death glanced sideways at the servants.

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
- Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What will survive of us is love.

- from A Writer
- Philip Larkin
The Whitsun Weddings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it--it, the physical act.

I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.
- James Baldwin
Giovanni’s Room
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!
- Gaston Leroux
The Phantom of the Opera
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But some part of him realized, even as he fought to break free from Lupin, that Sirius had never kept him waiting before. . . . Sirius had risked everything, always, to see Harry, to help him. . . . If Sirius was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling for him as though his life depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he could not come back. . . . That he really was . . .
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I held her close for only a short time, but after she was gone, I'd see her smile on the face of a perfect stranger and I knew she would be there with me all the rest of my days.
- Brian Andreas
Strange Dreams: Collected Stories & Drawings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Leonard asks me if there's anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what's the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that's an easy one, my son, it's whatever you want it to be.
- James Frey
My Friend Leonard
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If this continues, if this goes on, then when I die, your memories of me will be my greatest accomplishment. You memories will be my most lasting impressions.
- David Levithan
The Lover's Dictionary
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Waking up was a daily cruelty, an affront, and she avoided it by not sleeping.
- Gregory Maguire
A Lion Among Men
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either.
- Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Carmilla
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He killed himself for wanting to live.
- Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
your life will not end with death. You are Immortal. You were always there and you always will be.
- Zain Hashmi
A Blessed Olive Tree: A Spiritual Journey in Twenty Short Stories
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
One false step, and you’ll fall all the way to Tartarus—and believe me, unlike the Doors of Death, this would be a one-way trip, a very hard fall! I will not have you dying before you tell me your plan for my artwork.
- Rick Riordan
The Mark of Athena
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)? Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought...?
- Roland Barthes
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The language of love letters is the same as suicide notes.
- Courtney Love
Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?
- Matt Haig
How to Stop Time
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Honor from death,” I snap, “is a myth. Invented by the war torn to make sense of the horrific. If we die, it will be so that others may live. Truly honorable death, the only honorable death, is one that enables life.
- Rae Carson
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
some men never
die
and some men never
live

but we're all alive
tonight.
- Charles Bukowski
You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's been a prevalent notion. Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation. And someday, somehow, before the end, a gathering back to home. A messenger from the Kingdom, arriving at the last moment. But I tell you there is no such message, no such home -- only the millions of last moments . . . nothing more. Our history is an aggregate of last moments.
- Thomas Pynchon
Gravity's Rainbow
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.
- Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Good-byes hurt the most when the other person’s already gone.
- Angie Thomas
The Hate U Give
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.

And so, laughing and crying, we said good-bye to my grandmother. And when we said goodbye to one grandmother, we said good-bye to all of them.

Each funeral was a funeral for all of us.

We lived and died together.

All of us laughed when they lowered my grandmother into the ground.

And all of us laughed when they covered her with dirt.

And all of us laughed as we walked and drove and rode our way back to our lonely, lonely houses.
- Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

Death took a step backwards.

It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.

Death glanced sideways at the servants.

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
- Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What will survive of us is love.

- from A Writer
- Philip Larkin
The Whitsun Weddings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it--it, the physical act.

I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.
- James Baldwin
Giovanni’s Room
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!
- Gaston Leroux
The Phantom of the Opera
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But some part of him realized, even as he fought to break free from Lupin, that Sirius had never kept him waiting before. . . . Sirius had risked everything, always, to see Harry, to help him. . . . If Sirius was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling for him as though his life depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he could not come back. . . . That he really was . . .
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I held her close for only a short time, but after she was gone, I'd see her smile on the face of a perfect stranger and I knew she would be there with me all the rest of my days.
- Brian Andreas
Strange Dreams: Collected Stories & Drawings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Leonard asks me if there's anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what's the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that's an easy one, my son, it's whatever you want it to be.
- James Frey
My Friend Leonard
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If this continues, if this goes on, then when I die, your memories of me will be my greatest accomplishment. You memories will be my most lasting impressions.
- David Levithan
The Lover's Dictionary
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Waking up was a daily cruelty, an affront, and she avoided it by not sleeping.
- Gregory Maguire
A Lion Among Men
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either.
- Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Carmilla
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He killed himself for wanting to live.
- Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
your life will not end with death. You are Immortal. You were always there and you always will be.
- Zain Hashmi
A Blessed Olive Tree: A Spiritual Journey in Twenty Short Stories
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
One false step, and you’ll fall all the way to Tartarus—and believe me, unlike the Doors of Death, this would be a one-way trip, a very hard fall! I will not have you dying before you tell me your plan for my artwork.
- Rick Riordan
The Mark of Athena
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)? Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought...?
- Roland Barthes
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The language of love letters is the same as suicide notes.
- Courtney Love
Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?
- Matt Haig
How to Stop Time
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Honor from death,” I snap, “is a myth. Invented by the war torn to make sense of the horrific. If we die, it will be so that others may live. Truly honorable death, the only honorable death, is one that enables life.
- Rae Carson
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
some men never
die
and some men never
live

but we're all alive
tonight.
- Charles Bukowski
You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's been a prevalent notion. Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation. And someday, somehow, before the end, a gathering back to home. A messenger from the Kingdom, arriving at the last moment. But I tell you there is no such message, no such home -- only the millions of last moments . . . nothing more. Our history is an aggregate of last moments.
- Thomas Pynchon
Gravity's Rainbow
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.
- Marcus Aurelius
Meditations
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Good-byes hurt the most when the other person’s already gone.
- Angie Thomas
The Hate U Give
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.

And so, laughing and crying, we said good-bye to my grandmother. And when we said goodbye to one grandmother, we said good-bye to all of them.

Each funeral was a funeral for all of us.

We lived and died together.

All of us laughed when they lowered my grandmother into the ground.

And all of us laughed when they covered her with dirt.

And all of us laughed as we walked and drove and rode our way back to our lonely, lonely houses.
- Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

Death took a step backwards.

It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.

Death glanced sideways at the servants.

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
- Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
What will survive of us is love.

- from A Writer
- Philip Larkin
The Whitsun Weddings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it--it, the physical act.

I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.
- James Baldwin
Giovanni’s Room
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!
- Gaston Leroux
The Phantom of the Opera
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
But some part of him realized, even as he fought to break free from Lupin, that Sirius had never kept him waiting before. . . . Sirius had risked everything, always, to see Harry, to help him. . . . If Sirius was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling for him as though his life depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he could not come back. . . . That he really was . . .
- J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I held her close for only a short time, but after she was gone, I'd see her smile on the face of a perfect stranger and I knew she would be there with me all the rest of my days.
- Brian Andreas
Strange Dreams: Collected Stories & Drawings
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Leonard asks me if there's anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what's the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that's an easy one, my son, it's whatever you want it to be.
- James Frey
My Friend Leonard
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If this continues, if this goes on, then when I die, your memories of me will be my greatest accomplishment. You memories will be my most lasting impressions.
- David Levithan
The Lover's Dictionary
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Waking up was a daily cruelty, an affront, and she avoided it by not sleeping.
- Gregory Maguire
A Lion Among Men
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either.
- Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Carmilla
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
He killed himself for wanting to live.
- Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
your life will not end with death. You are Immortal. You were always there and you always will be.
- Zain Hashmi
A Blessed Olive Tree: A Spiritual Journey in Twenty Short Stories
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
One false step, and you’ll fall all the way to Tartarus—and believe me, unlike the Doors of Death, this would be a one-way trip, a very hard fall! I will not have you dying before you tell me your plan for my artwork.
- Rick Riordan
The Mark of Athena
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)? Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought...?
- Roland Barthes
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
...
95
96
97
98
99
 		...