Quotes from Jack Kevorkian

I have a natural right to do whatever I want with my body as long as it doesn't affect anybody else or any other property.

I always said all my life, if I wasn't born and they gave me the question, I'd say, I don't want to be born.

What looks like enjoyment is the sneer of contempt. That's not a smile.

You can cite me for contempt, Your Honor. I don't care.

Look at the forces against me. They don't want me out. They're afraid I'll cause trouble if I get out.

Not one has shown an iota of fear of death. They want to end this agony.

I'm not a romantic.

I want some colleague to be free to come help me when I say the time has come. That's what I'm fighting for, me. Now that sounds selfish. And if it helps somebody else, so be it.

I've seen schizophrenics who are so hopeless, you couldn't cheer them, and their lives are miserable and they end up as suicides. That's not right.

If you don't have liberty and self-determination, you've got nothing, that's what this is what this country is built on. And this is the ultimate self-determination, when you determine how and when you're going to die when you're suffering.

All the big powers they've silenced me. So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right.

The patient's autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary - the decision is contrary to best medical advice and what the physician wants.

None of them want to delay. Understand that. None of them.

I gambled and I lost. I failed in securing my options for this choice for myself, but I succeeded in verifying the Dark Age is still with us.

If Christ can die in a barn, I think the death of a human in a van is not so bad.

The patient decides when it's best to go.

My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized.

I hate to say this, but I'll repeat it: After death, all we know that you do is stink.

She made the decision that her existence had lost its meaning. And you cannot judge that.

I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.

I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate.

Among doctors in general, I think more than half support what I'm doing.

This could never be a crime in any society which deems himself enlightened.

What are friends? Some people are nice. Some people aren't. There are some I'm fairly close with... we talk.