Quotes About Death

I could no longer believe even in life. Which meant that I had come to be the reverse, the opposite of a Christian. For me, now, the only reality is death.

Photographs of them alive and smiling would have made me cry and fall down and beat the earth with my fists; their actual dead faces only sealed me off from myself.

Faith is that movement whereby we accept God's nearness, and his nearness must always mean the death of the ego.

Mama wept openly. "If I don't die now," she cried, "there is no death.

Stories never start at the beginning, Benny. They differ from life in that regard. Life is lived from birth to death, from the beginning into an unknowable future. But stories are told in hindsight. Stories are life lived backward.

Spinoza writes, "A free man, that is to say, a man who lives according to the dictates of reason alone, is not led by fear of death, but directly desires the good, that is to say, desires to act, and to preserve his being in accordance with the principle of seeking his own profit. He thinks, therefore, of nothing less than death, and his wisdom is a meditation upon life.

A free man, that is to say, a man who lives according to the dictates of reason alone, is not led by fear of death, but directly desires the good, that is to say, desires to act, and to preserve his being in accordance with the principle of seeking his own profit. He thinks, therefore, of nothing less than death, and his wisdom is a meditation upon life.

Maybe this is what it's like when you die. Your inbox stays empty. At first, you just think nobody's answering, so you check your SENT box to make sure your outgoing mail is okay, and then you check your ISP to make sure your account is still active, and eventually you have to conclude that you're dead.

It is not true, what I said before, because I hated him. He was the war criminal, and after the war they hanged him. I was so happy I wept for joy when I heard he was dead. Then I shave my head and took the vow to stop hating.

Death is certain. Life is always changing, like a puff of wind in the air, or a wave in the sea, or even a thought in the mind.

Great is the Matter of Birth and Death. Life is transient. Time will not wait. Wake up! Wake up! Do not waste a moment!

As I sat by my mother's side and held her hand and watched her, I remember thinking, I'm going to do this too, some day. This is what dying looks like. This is what Dad looked like when he died, and what I'm going to look like, too. Like Mom and Dad. It was comforting to know what I would look like. It made death a little less frightening, a little more intimate, a little more dear.

time isn't something you can spread out like butter or jam, and death isn't going to hang around and wait for you to finish whatever you happen to be doing before it zaps you

And what does it mean to waste time anyway? If you waste time is it lost forever? And if time is lost forever, what does that mean? It's not like you get to die any sooner, right?

As I have not much time left in life, I am determined not to be a coward. I will live as earnestly as I can and feel my feelings deeply, I will rigorously reflect upon my thoughts and emotions, and try to improve myself as much as I can. I will continue to write and to study, so that when the time of my death comes, I will die beautifully, as a man in the midst of a supreme and noble effort.

I've always though of writing as the opposite of suicide, she said. That writing was about immortality. Defeating death, or at least forestalling it. Like Scheherazade? Yes, she said. Spinning tales to forestall her execution...

Somewhere D?gen wrote about the number of moments in the snap of a finger. I don't remember the exact figure, only that it was large and seemed quite arbitrary and absurd, but I imagine that when I am in the cockpit of my plane, aiming the nose at the hull of an American battleship, every single one will be clear and pure and discernible. At the moment of my death, I look forward at last to being fully aware and alive.

Kenji knew people who knew how to party, and so when it was time to transport their friend's body to the crematorium, the musicians canceled the hearse and took matters into their own hands. Annabelle went along with them. The coffin was heavy, but Kenji added little to its weight, and so they were able to lift it, taking turns carrying it on their shoulders, New Orleans–style, through the narrow back alleys and the dark, rain-slick streets.

Montaigne wrote that death itself is nothing. It is only the fear of death that makes death seem important.

It's a sky burial. That's what they do in Tibet when someone dies, but it makes even more sense for an animal. I mean, why stick them underground? Here we are, on the top of the world. Better for them to just be here in the open. Until they're not.

I've always thought of writing as the opposite of suicide,' she said. 'That writing was about immortality. Defeating death, or at least forestalling it.

it wouldn't matter if I bumped and bounced like a cabbage all the way down until I hit bottom and then rolled out to sea, because at least I'd be safe and dead.

I knew I was dead, even if my parents didn't notice.

Was it possible people were heavier dead than alive?