DEATH QUOTES XVII

quotations about death

Old man death sits all alone
In quiet contemplation
Picking at his blackened nails
Waiting for his next victim
Watching as your life force drains

VENOM

"Death & Dying", Metal Black


Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The Carriage held but just Ourselves --
And Immortality.

EMILY DICKINSON

"Because I could not stop for Death"


Death ... doesn't take her eyes off us for a minute, so much so that even those who are not yet due to die feel her gaze pursuing them constantly.

JOSé SARAMAGO

Death with Interruptions


Give me to die like a beast, afar, alone
With but the hawk and crow
To watch beside me while I cast my soul,
And but the sky to know
What my racked lips have uttered, what last groan,
Or curse or prayer, I breathed to heaven above.

KENNETH RAND

"Straw-Death"


I don't want to die. Damn death. Long live life!

JAMES JOYCE

Ulysses


Death is release, if you've lived all right.

EDWARD ALBEE

Seascape


Death is simply the soul's change of residence.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust


Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

MACKEY MILLER

Mouse Attack 5!!!


The body is placed under the earth, and after a certain period there remains no vestige even of its form. This is that contemplation of inexhaustible melancholy, whose shadow eclipses the brightness of the world. The common observer is struck with dejection of the spectacle. He contends in vain against the persuasion of the grave, that the dead indeed cease to be. The corpse at his feet is prophetic of his own destiny. Those who have preceded him, and whose voice was delightful to his ear; whose touch met his like sweet and subtle fire: whose aspect spread a visionary light upon his path -- these he cannot meet again.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

The Necessity of Atheism


The grave itself is but a covered bridge,
Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The Golden Legend


Where life is there is death, reasons the vulture, and where there's death there's hope.

EDWARD ABBEY

One Life at a Time


Death comes black and hard, rushing down on me from the future, with no possible chance of escape.

DAVID GERROLD

The Man Who Folded Himself


Even as a child I was fascinated by death, not in a spiritual sense, but in an aesthetic one. A hamster or guinea pig would pass away, and, after burying the body, I'd dig it back up: over and over, until all that remained was a shoddy pelt. It earned me a certain reputation, especially when I moved on to other people's pets. "Igor," they called me. "Wicked, spooky." But I think my interest was actually fairly common, at least among adolescent boys. At that age, death is something that happens only to animals and grandparents, and studying it is like a science project.

DAVID SEDARIS

When You Are Engulfed in Flames


Science regards man as an aggregation of atoms temporarily united by a mysterious force called the life-principle. To the materialist the only difference between a living and a dead body is, that in the one case that force is active, in the other latent. When it is extinct or entirely latent, the molecules obey a superior attraction, which draws them asunder and scatters them through space. This dispersion must be death, if it is possible to conceive such a thing as death where the very molecules of the dead body manifest an intense vital energy.

HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY

Isis Unveiled


There's really nothing quite like someone's wanting you dead to make you want to go on living.

ROGER ZELAZNY

This Immortal


We may, indeed, say that the hour of death is uncertain, but when we say this we think of that hour as situated in a vague and remote expanse of time; it does not occur to us that it can have any connexion with the day that has already dawned and can mean that death -- or its first assault and partial possession of us, after which it will never leave hold of us again -- may occur this very afternoon, so far from uncertain, this afternoon whose time-table, hour by hour, has been settled in advance.

MARCEL PROUST

The Guermantes Way


Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.

YODA

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith


Death to the wicked is all loss, to the righteous all gain.

JOHN THORNTON

Maxims and Directions for Youth


Death will come in any case, and there is a long afterwards if the priests are right and nothing to fear if they are wrong.

GRAHAM GREENE

The Honorary Consul


Feeling funny in my mind, Lord
I believe I'm fixing to die
Well, I don't mind dying
But I hate to leave my children crying
Well, I look over yonder to that burying ground
Look over yonder to that burying ground
Sure seems lonesome, Lord, when the sun goes down

BOB DYLAN

"Fixin' To Die"