Quotes About Mortality

What if he could see this, his own skull, yellow and eroded? Two centuries old. Would he still speak? Would he speak, if he could see it, the grinning, aged skull? What would there be for him to say, to tell the people? What message could he bring? What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull?

Bob, you know something . . ." Luckman said at last. "I used to be the same age as everyone else." "I think so was I," Arctor said. "I don't know what did it." "Sure, Luckman," Arctor said, "you know what did it to all of us." "Well, let's not talk about it." He continued inhaling noisily, his long face sallow in the dim midday light.

Life is short, he thought. Art, or something not life, is long, stretching out endless, like concrete worm. Flat, white, unsmoothed by any passage over or across it. Here I stand. But no longer. Taking the small box, he put the Edfrank jewellery piece away in his coat pocket.

Die Güte, but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life.

It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles in space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again. This is an interval, ein Augenblick.

Death at each moment, one avenue which is open to us at any point. And eventually we choose it, in spite of ourselves. Or we give up and take it deliberately.

Rachael said, "Do you know what the lifespan of a humanoid robot such as myself is? I've been in existence two years. How long do you calculate I have?" After a hesitation he said, "About two more years." "They never could solve that problem. I mean cell replacement. Perpetual or anyhow semi-perpetual renewal. Well, so it goes.

He thought, We will miss Roberta Rockingham when she dies; of us, she is the most benign and stable. Because, he realized, she knows she is soon going to die.

Emily Dickinson was full of shit when she prattled about "kindly Death"; that's an abominable thought, that death is kind. She never saw a six-car pile-up on the Eastshore Freeway.

This rehearsal will end, the performance will end, the singers will die, eventually the last score of music will be destroyed in one wya or another; finally the name Mozart will vanish, the dust will have won. If not on this planet then another. We can evade it awhile.

They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles in space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again. This is an interval, ein Augenblick. The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary.

I'll be all right," he said, and thought, And I'm going to die. Both those are true, too.

most horrid sound in the world, that of the once-was: alive in the past, perishing in the present, a corpse made of dust in the future.

El tiempo, ay, daba prisa a los hombres.

Todo mundo sabe disso, todo mundo que já olhou sem poder fazer nada para uma pessoa doente ou moribunda, ou um animal doente ou moribundo, sentiu uma pena terrível, uma pena avassaladora, e percebeu que essa pena, por maior que pudesse ser, é totalmente inútil.

The most horrid sound in the world, that of the once-was: alive in the past, perishing in the present, a corpse made of dust in the future.

What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull? Better they should enjoy their temporary lives, while they still had them to enjoy.

I don't expect to live long. So what? I don't want to be around long. Do you? Why? What's in this world?

Pero no puedo usar el videófono -protestó Isidore, angustiado-. Porque soy feo, encorvado, peludo, ceniciento y de dientes separados. Y además, me siento mal a causa de la radiación. Creo que me voy a morir.

The difference between Gloria Knudson and Sherri was obvious; Gloria wanted to die for strictly imaginary reasons. Sherri would literally die whether she wanted to or not. Gloria had the option to cease playing her malignant death-game any time she psychologically wished, but Sherri did not.

As you go to your grave your mouth will be still open, asking the question, "What did I do?" You will be buried that way: with your mouth still open. And I could never explain it to you, Buckman thought. Except to say: don't come to the attention of the authorities. Don't ever interest us. Don't make us want to know more about you.

It must be a manifestation of dying, he said to himself.

I'd say, Doc, I can see you under the aspect of eternity and you're dead.

WITH THEM, Joe Fernwright thought, there is not life but merely a synopsis of life. We are a thread that passes through their hands; always in motion, always flowing, we slip by and are never fully grasped. The slipping away is continuous, and carries all of us with it, on and on, toward the dreadful alchemy of the tomb.