Death
Quotes - Carve your name on hearts, not on tombstones
“Losing
your life is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is to lose
your reason for living.”
― Jo
Nesbo
“Pulvis
et umbra sumus. (We are but dust and shadow.)”
―
Horace, The Odes of Horace
“I
wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the
human race - that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how
the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so
damning and brilliant...I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS.”
―
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
“Anne,
I don't want to live. . . . Now listen, life is lovely, but I Can't Live It. I
can't even explain. I know how silly it sounds . . . but if you knew how it
Felt. To be alive, yes, alive, but not be able to live it. Ay that's the rub. I
am like a stone that lives . . . locked outside of all that's real. . . . Anne,
do you know of such things, can you hear???? I wish, or think I wish, that I
were dying of something for then I could be brave, but to be not dying, and yet
. . . and yet to [be] behind a wall, watching everyone fit in where I can't, to
talk behind a gray foggy wall, to live but to not reach or to reach wrong . . .
to do it all wrong . . . believe me, (can you?) . . . what's wrong. I want to
belong. I'm like a jew who ends up in the wrong country. I'm not a part. I'm
not a member. I'm frozen.”
―
Anne Sexton, Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters
“It's
true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me,
of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling
life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that
ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set
of eyes closing with mine.”
―
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated
“There
is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”
―
Frank Herbert, Dune
“Stars,"
she whispered. "I can see the stars again, my lady."
A
tear trickled down Artemis's cheek. "Yes, my brave one. They are beautiful
tonight."
Stars,"
Zoe repeated. Her eyes fixed on the night sky. And she did not move again.”
―
Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse
“No
one here gets out alive.”
―
Jim Morrison
“When
we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each
other.”
―
Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time
“Carve
your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of
others and the stories they share about you.”
―
Shannon Alder
“Death
leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
From
an Irish headstone”
―
Richard Puz, The Carolinian
“People
rarely bring flowers to a suicide.”
―
Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places
“May
she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his
foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why,
she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not
perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray
one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—May she wake in torment!"
he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden
paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is
she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing
for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue
stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said
I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe.
I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any
form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!
Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live
without my soul!”
―
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“Everybody
going to be dead one day, just give them time.”
―
Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
“He
was my North, my South, my East and West,
My
working week and my Sunday rest,
My
noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I
thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.”
― W.
H. Auden, Collected Poems
“The
only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not
a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the
dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is
then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad,
confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more;
but I want nothing more.”
―
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel
“I
was always holding onto people, and they were always leaving.”
―
Lili St. Crow, Jealousy
“It's
better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear.”
―
Michael Crichton
“My
heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.”
―
Richard Adams, Watership Down
“In
time, in time they tell me, I'll not feel so bad. I don't want time to heal me.
There's a reason I'm like this.
I
want time to set me ugly and knotted with loss of you, marking me. I won't
smooth you away.
I
can't say goodbye.”
―
China Miéville, The Scar
