Quotes About Mortality

Every time I finish a book, I say to an imaginary god that I do not believe in, 'Please let me live to write another one.'

I've been through plenty in my life where I've really had to focus on the day ahead... because, as I know, the future is, you know, whatever the future is... Once you've stared mortality that hard in the face, you really seize the day.

Everything about aging in my experience so far has been a plus. Except the death part!

Paul Lisicky, in his new memoir, 'The Narrow Door,' describes losing his old friend, the novelist Denise Gess, and his husband, the acclaimed poet and memoirist Mark Doty, within a year of each other: Gess to cancer, at the age of 57, and Doty to another man.

At the age of 18 all young poets are sure they will be dead at 21 - of old age.

I realized, at a certain point, all my big people were dying. I couldn't see a clearer picture: what's the difference between me and him, of me being in a casket?

I think most of us who live into our 50s have had a few experiences with death. You know, we see people we know start to die. We realize it's getting closer and closer for us.

Maybe some day they'll find me behind the computer, just bones and cobwebs.

I don't think I've ever been starstruck because they're just, you know... everybody's a person; we all come and go the same way.

Once in a while, when I'm alone, I think about my age. I think, 'How many more years do I have on this earth?' But I can't really conceive of dying.

I understand that a lot of girls feel encouraged by what I have been able to do, but I've never felt like I'm a role model. I'm not concerned with building a great legacy or anything because I'll be dead so it won't matter.

Death is not something any one of us want to dwell on, but we must all confront it at some point.

You can better embrace life, you can enjoy it more, when you are conscious that it will end. You bite life.

I have always considered myself to be spiritual in a way that has less to do with religion and more with an awareness that you have, and the consciousness you have of being alive and the consciousness that you will be dead.

You don't get dead and there not be consequences.

We all live in this little bubble that we just expect to live forever and I think those of us that have been with people battling cancer, you realise, actually, this surrounds us everywhere we go.

Around half of the top alpinists have died climbing. Of course if I'm careful and turn back more often than the others, I can increase my chances of survival. But if I hadn't been lucky a few times, I wouldn't be here.

The idea behind 'Defending Your Life': Imagine if you had to sit in a courtroom and watch your life. I don't care who you are - if you committed a crime and you had to have all of your emails searched and made public, who on this planet could survive that? Nobody.

Same with souls. They can't survive without a body for long.

Man was made to be immortal; else, he could not survive being the fool he is.

I'm lucky to be alive. I'm one of only 40 people who have survived the surgery I had, and when you've been that close to dying, you re-evaluate what's really important to you - and it's nothing to do with fame and money.

My mum had 14 pregnancies - but only four of us survived. We had a little sister born for a few days and she died. There had to be a funeral.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

I suspect that perfect happiness is not possible for me. I suppose if I was ever selected for eternal life - the moment I was informed - that would bring me the closest.