Quotes About Mortality

In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases. John Irving's The World According to Garp

Un Dios escrupuloso o crítico, pensó Wilbur Larch, nos mataría a todos.

Once a Garp, then an Arp, now only an Ar; she knew he was dying. He had just one vowel and one consonant left.

In the World according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once

Your first loss of a loved one, the first death of someone dear to you—when it happens, the pace of everything changes. In the past, there were times when nothing seemed to be happening. When you lose someone, you're aware of the earth's motion; the world is always moving, always ahead of you. For the rest of your life, you know there are other deaths coming—one after another, yours included.

I cannot describe the change nor do I know when it took place, yet I know that there is a change for I look on the carcass of a man now with pretty much such feeling as I would were it a horse or hog.

when you're a young adult, the apparently infinite multiplicity of possible choices—possible jobs, possible friends, possible cities, possible girlfriends or boyfriends—can sometimes fool you into thinking you have an infinite amount of time to try out everything. But once you're married, you've significantly cut down the options, and it suddenly makes your life feel shorter—like now there's a direct line between you and your own death.

We don't consider any man successful until he has died well.

This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood, So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm'd. See, here it is-- I hold it towards you.

If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by? ---On death

I have a habitual feeling of my real life having past, and that I am now leading a posthumous existence.

The world is too brutal for me—I am glad there is such a thing as the grave—I am sure I shall never have any rest till I get there.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath.

When I have fears that I may ceace to be, Before my pen has gleaned my teaming brain.

I wish you could infuse a little confidence of human nature into my heart. I cannot muster any -- the world is too brutal for me -- I am glad there is such a thing as the grave -- I am sure I shall never have any rest till I get there.

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death.

My spirit is too weak--mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.

As inscribed on John Keats' tombstone: This Grave contains all that was Mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET, Who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart, at the Malicious Power of his Enemies Desired these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water. Feb 24 1821

How horrid was the chance of slipping into the ground instead of into your arms -- the difference is amazing Love. Death must come at last; Man must die, as Shallow says; but before that is my fate I fain would try what more pleasures than you have given, so sweet a creature as you can give.

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain … When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be

How astonishingly does the chance of leaving the world impress a sense of its natural beauties on us … I muse with the greatest affection on every flower I have known from my infancy.