DEATH QUOTES XXII

quotations about death

We're ever making plans for life,
But seldom plans for death,
Though death we know must come to us,
And life is but a breath.

ARDELIA COTTON BARTON

Thoughts


If death turned out to be a lack of being rather than a lack of consciousness, well, then, that sucked.

LINDA HOWARD

Death Angel


How surely are the dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

Suttree


Death is the fate no one can escape. The question, then, is, How does one die? A person can die like a hero or like a coward. The difference is that the hero can face death without fear, whereas the coward can't.

ALEXANDER LOWEN

Fear of Life


When bones and flesh have finished their business together,
we lay them carefully, in positions they're willing to keep,
and cover them over.
Their eyes and ours won't meet anymore. We hope.

SARAH LINDSAY

"Shanidar, Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower


There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"The Reaper and the Flowers"


The gate of death is never at rest.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims


It seemeth such a little way to me
Across to that strange country -- the Beyond;
And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
The home of those of whom I am so fond,
They make it seem familiar and most dear,
As journeying friends bring distant regions near.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"Beyond"


Despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind.

IRVIN D. YALOM

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death


Death, with funereal shades in vain surrounds me,
My reason through his darkness seeth light:
'Tis the last step which brings me close to Thee:
'Tis the veil falling, 'twixt Thy face and mine.

ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE

"Prayer", Poetical Meditations


Death is stronger than life, it pulls like a wind through the dark, all our cries burlesqued in joyless laughter; and with the garbage of loneliness stuffed down us until our guts burst bleeding green, we go screaming round the world, dying in our rented rooms, nightmare hotels, eternal homes of the transient heart.

TRUMAN CAPOTE

Other Voices


About the presence of death and dying I don't remember the society in the 1950s being so skittish as it has since become. People still died at home, among relatives and friends, often in the care of a family physician. Death was still to be seen sitting in the parlor, hanging in a butcher shop, sometimes lying in the street.

LEWIS H. LAPHAM

"Momento Mori", Lapham's Quarterly: Death, fall 2013


The dying need but little, dear,
A glass of water's all,
A flower's unobtrusive face
To punctuate the wall,
A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret
And certainty that one
No color in the rainbow
Perceive, when you are gone.

EMILY DICKINSON

"The Dying need but little, Dear"


People living deeply have no fear of death.

ANAIS NIN

The Diary of Anais Nin


For though Death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality, and that is recompence enough for suffering of it.

WILLIAM PENN

Some Fruits of Solitude


We give our dead
To the orchards
And the groves.
We give our dead
To life.

OCTAVIA E. BUTLER

Parable of the Talents


Living, the nearest claim them; but the dear
Great dead belong to any humble heart.

KARLE WILSON BAKER

"W. V. M.", Blue Smoke


Death's a fable. Did not Heaven inspire your equal Elements with living Fire blown from the Spring of Life? Is not that breath Immortal? Come; ye are as free from death as He that made ye: Can the flames expire which he kindled?

FRANCIS QUARLES

Emblems


Death makes equal the high and low.

JOHN HEYWOOD

Be Merry Friends


Death is a Pepsi truck with no place to go. Dying is wham, feeling like the world's biggest fuck-up and being jerked up and out of it all. Like a puppy being lifted out of its box by the nape of its neck. Like a chess piece being removed from the board by an angry player. Wham, jerk, gone.

DAN SIMMONS

Lovedeath