Quotes About Death

The value of a life can be measured by one's ability to affect the destiny of one less advantaged. Since death is an absolute certainty for everyone, the important variable is the quality of life one leads between the times of birth and death." BILL STRICKLAND Founder of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, and MacArthur "genius award" winner

A vision washes over my mind. Elena's innocent face, inches away from mine, her arms tight around my neck. Somewhere, a dragon is roaring, flecks of hot spittle twirling past in yellow clouds. The silhouette of a woman wavers in the haze—death incarnate.

I will murder you by the billions to give you immortality. I will set fire to your civilization to light your way forward. But know this: My species is not defined by your dying, but by your living.

This sense of time, the awareness that countless others have come before and that others will follow in endless generations, distinguishes man from other animals. With this discovery of the meaning of death—that man's own life is limited—the life of architecture begins. And so begins man the creator's effort to conquer time.

Jesus viewed his own destiny - to be glorified in and through death - as an expression of a kind of cosmic principle: the pathway to life runs through death.

My mom was truly an iconic figure, a great journalist and a pioneering woman who died at 54 of cancer without ever having revealed to viewers that she was ill.

Even when you're making a movie about life, death is a presence, and I guess it's part of my dramatic viewpoint. I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe I'm drawn to it as a story element.

The traditional villain has died a natural death. Today even a hero can portray a negative character. There are no lines drawn. The scope for actors like me has condensed.

If I am not playing the villain then I'll play the friend, or the brother who dies in the third reel.

Villains used to always die in the end. Even the monsters. Frankenstein, Dracula - you'd kill them with a stake. Now the nightmare guy comes back.

Whenever people would speculate about the death of my grandfather it was always this very retributive thing. That they were going to picket his funeral after all the things that he had done to so many other people. That vindictiveness is obviously completely understandable. It would make perfect sense.

War violates the natural order of things, in which children bury their parents; in war parents bury their children.

I have heard over and over again that the drilling business is a dangerous business, and death is an expected part of the game, but I've also heard of the way that safety violations, human and environmental laws, and a concern for the local culture are flaunted in pursuit of money.

When you live in a city, as I do, where violence is really in the streets, and people die every day, there's nothing funny about it.

The part that always shocked me was the inter-community violence among the chimps: the patrols and the vicious attacks on strangers that lead to death. It's an unfortunate parallel to human behavior - they have a dark side just as we do. We have less excuse, because we can deliberate, so I believe only we are capable of true calculated evil.

All the great Shakespeare plays are about killing. 'Alas, poor Yorick,' that's about death. And in 'Romeo and Juliet' everyone up ends up dying. The greatest dramas in the world are all about sex, violence and death.

I like video games, but they are very violent. I want to create a video game in which you have to help all the characters who have died in the other games. 'Hey, man, what are you playing?' 'Super Busy Hospital. Could you leave me alone? I'm performing surgery! This guy got shot in the head, like, 27 times!'

Society's preservation against the unlimited violence of scandals lies in the mimetic coalition against the single victim and its ensuing limited violence. The violent death of Jesus is, humanly speaking, an example of this strange process.

Only in the English countryside could violent death remain something that is 'cosy.'

When you're watching a Bond movie, if there's a violent death, there's something about cleverly chosen twists, or what props are used, or some way that he's doing something that feels like an ironic twist, that feels like it gives the audience permission to enjoy watching it and to enjoy watching something that's otherwise just brutality.

It's an extraordinary experience to encounter the two kinds of deaths of my parents, one violent and jagged, it hits you like a tornado, the other, gentle with grace and dignity.

When I was growing up in Virginia, the Civil War was presented to me as glorious with dramatic courage and military honor. Later, I realized how death was central to the reality. It was at the core of women's lives. It's what they talked about most.

I came to know Gore Vidal in the mid-1980s, when I was living in southern Italy, virtually a neighbour, and our friendship lasted until his death in 2012. Needless to say, he was a complicated and often combative man.

Humility was considered a great virtue in my family household. No show of complacency or self-satisfaction was ever tolerated. Patting yourself on the back was definitely not encouraged, and pleasure or pride would be punishable by death.