Quotes
on Death - No Truth can cure the Sorrow
“That's
what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages
from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about life and death!
Listen to them!”
―
Connie Willis, Passage
“Here
lies Dobby, a free elf.”
―
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“Mostly
it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”
―
Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena
“No
truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no
sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see
it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no
help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.”
―
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
“To
live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
―
Thomas Campbell
“Death:
"THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT."
Albert:
"Oh, yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them.”
―
Terry Pratchett
“Books
are finite, sexual encounters are finite, but the desire to read and to fuck is
infinite; it surpasses our own deaths, our fears, our hopes for peace.”
―
Roberto Bolano
“People
pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go
a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this
specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's
audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the
necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide
takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is
to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families,
friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.”
―
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
“When
Great Trees Fall
When
great trees fall,
rocks
on distant hills shudder,
lions
hunker down
in
tall grasses,
and
even elephants
lumber
after safety.
When
great trees fall
in
forests,
small
things recoil into silence,
their
senses
eroded
beyond fear.
When
great souls die,
the
air around us becomes
light,
rare, sterile.
We
breathe, briefly.
Our
eyes, briefly,
see
with
a
hurtful clarity.
Our
memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws
on kind words
unsaid,
promised
walks
never
taken.
Great
souls die and
our
reality, bound to
them,
takes leave of us.
Our
souls,
dependent
upon their
nurture,
now
shrink, wizened.
Our
minds, formed
and informed
by their
radiance,
fall
away.
We
are not so much maddened
as
reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of
dark, cold
caves.
And
when great souls die,
after
a period peace blooms,
slowly
and always
irregularly.
Spaces fill
with
a kind of
soothing
electric vibration.
Our
senses, restored, never
to
be the same, whisper to us.
They
existed. They existed.
We
can be. Be and be
better.
For they existed.”
―
Maya Angelou
“Together,
they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they
would smile at the beauty of destruction.”
―
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
“It's
better to burn out than to fade away.”
―
Neil Young
“If
I die, I will wait for you, do you understand? No matter how long. I will watch
from beyond to make sure you live every year you have to its fullest, and then
we’ll have so much to talk about when I see you again… (Bones)”
―
Jeaniene Frost
“The
heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are
none. No hopes. Nothing remains.”
―
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
“Fear
not death for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal.”
―
Benjamin Franklin
“Ginny,
listen...I can't be involved with you anymore. We've got to stop seeing each
other. We can't be together."
"It's
for some stupid noble reason isn't it?"
"It's
been like...like something out of someone else's life these last few weeks with
you. But I can't...we can't...I've got to do things alone now. Voldemort uses
people his enemies are close to. He's already used you as bait once, and that
was just because you were my best friend's sister. Think how much danger you'll
be in if we keep this up. He'll know, he'll find out. He'll try and get me
through you."
"What
if I don't care?"
"I
care. How do you think I'd feel if this was your funeral...and it was my
fault...”
―
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
“He'd
been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a
flamethrower.”
―
Terry Pratchett, Mort
“She's
not here," I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. "She's not here. You
can hiss all you like. You won't find Prim." At her name, he perks up.
Raises his flattened ears. Begins to meow hopefully. "Get out!" He
dodges the pillow I throw at him. "Go away! There's nothing left for you
here!" I start to shake, furious with him. "She's not coming back!
She's never ever coming back here again!" I grab another pillow and get to
my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my
cheeks. "She's dead, you stupid cat. She's dead.”
―
Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
“That
life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random.
That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow
and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s
our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through
the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our
dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the
organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
―
Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch
“Do
not go gentle into that good night,
Old
age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage,
rage against the dying of the light.
Though
wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because
their words had forked no lightning they
Do
not go gentle into that good night.
Good
men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their
frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage,
rage against the dying of the light.
Wild
men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And
learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do
not go gentle into that good night.
Grave
men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind
eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage,
rage against the dying of the light.
And
you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse,
bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do
not go gentle into that good night.
Rage,
rage against the dying of the light.”
―
Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
“Life
is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets,
and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will
sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems,
taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags,
nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to
me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to
earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is
responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from
which we come and to which we shall return.”
―
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
