SUICIDE QUOTES
quotations about suicide
If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
"On Suicide"
When suicide is out of fashion we conclude that none but madmen destroy themselves; and all the efforts of courage appear chimerical to dastardly minds ... Nevertheless, how many instances are there, well attested, of men, in every other respect perfectly discreet, who, without remorse, rage, or despair, have quitted life for no other reason than because it was a burden to them, and have died with more composure than they lived?
DAVID HUME
Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul
I'm a suicide. I walked right spang over the edge of life and disappeared. Splash! Bubble-bubble! There goes nothing.
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
Our Square and the People In It
Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment -- a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Parerga and Paralipomena
Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
PHIL DONAHUE
NBC TV, May 23, 1984
Even if those who take their own lives feel they have no choice--indeed, they often tragically believe their family and friends will be better off without them--the death rarely appears inevitable to those left behind. Feelings of anger and guilt and abandonment invade them, as if love should or could have prevented what happened. Survivors relive, over and over, the last days and months, even years, before the suicide, seeing now the signs that were missed, which they believe they should have recognized.
SUSAN STERLING
"The Quilt People"
Suicide is the dumbest possible way of getting revenge. Why is that? Because the people you want to strike back at are the very same folks who won't even remember you a week after you're gone, while the people you want to spare most -- the people who love you -- are the ones who will have to live with the pain of your suicide for the rest of their lives.
DAVID J. LIEBERMAN
Instant Analysis
People pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.
DAVID MITCHELL
Cloud Atlas
When your principles seem to be demanding suicide, clearly it's time to check your premises.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN
The Free Radical, October 2004
"No one commits suicide because they want to die."
"Then why do they do it?"
"Because they want to stop the pain."
TIFFANIE DEBARTOLO
How to Kill a Rock Star
Surely there was nothing more pathetic than screwing up your own suicide.
MICHAEL MARSHALL
The Upright Man
I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.
DAVID LEVITHAN
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
If suicide be supposed a crime, 'tis only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid ourselves at once of existence, when it becomes a burden.
DAVID HUME
Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul
I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity.
JERZY KOSINSKI
suicide note, Newsweek, May 13, 1991
I'm the girl nobody knows until she commits suicide. Then suddenly everyone had a class with her.
TOM LEVEEN
Party
Most of the time, people who die by suicide don't want to actually die. They just don't want to be alive, and there is a huge difference.
ROXANNE MACDONALD
Huffington Post, May 5, 2017
The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
We cannot tear out a single page from our life, but we can throw the whole book into the fire.
GEORGE SAND
Mauprat
Suicide is the role you write for yourself. You inhabit it and you enact it. All carefully staged -- where they will find you and how they will find you. But one performance only.
PHILIP ROTH
The Humbling
Some people are just not meant to be in this world. It's just too much for them.
PHOEBE STONE
The Boy on Cinnamon Street