quotations about death
Death is simply the soul's change of residence.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
There's really nothing quite like someone's wanting you dead to make you want to go on living.
ROGER ZELAZNY
This Immortal
Certain, when I was born, so long ago,
Death drew the tap of life and let it flow;
And ever since the tap has done its task,
And now there's little but an empty cask.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The Carriage held but just Ourselves --
And Immortality.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Because I could not stop for Death"
We are mere notes in a piece of music played by the angel Death--heard and lost.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Death augments distance and dulls the memory. Death reconciles.
LEONID ANDREYEV
He Who Gets Slapped
To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"The Death of Halpin Frayser"
They say death comes like a thief in the night, where is he? I'll hug his neck.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Suttree
When bones and flesh have finished their business together,
we lay them carefully, in positions they're willing to keep,
and cover them over.
Their eyes and ours won't meet anymore. We hope.
SARAH LINDSAY
"Shanidar, Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower
Death was everywhere,
In the air
And in the sounds
Coming off the mounds
Of Bolton's Ridge.
Death's anchorage.
When you rolled a smoke
Or told a joke,
It was in the laughter
And drinking water
It approached the beach
As strings of cutters,
Dropped in the sea and lay around us.
PJ HARVEY
"All and Everyone", Let England Shake
It is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once.
UMBERTO ECO
The Island of the Day Before
I cannot tell you if the dead,
Who loved us fondly when on earth,
Walk by our side, sit at our hearth,
By ties of old affection led....
But this I know--in many dreams
They come to us from realms afar,
And leave the golden gates ajar
Through which immortal glory streams.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Dead"
We give our dead
To the orchards
And the groves.
We give our dead
To life.
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
Parable of the Talents
As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity...of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that --- young as I am -- I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of all my acquaintances could say that in company I am morose or disgruntled.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
letter to Leopold Mozart, Apr. 4, 1787
The living is a passing traveler;
The dead, a man come home.
LI BAI
"The Old Dust"
When you look at a corpse you can always sense your own breath better.
ZONA GALE
"Miggy"
When a great life sets it leaves an afterglow on the sky far into the night.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Death to the wicked is all loss, to the righteous all gain.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
It is an error to divide people into the living and the dead: there are people who are dead-alive, and people who are alive-alive. The dead-alive also write, walk, speak, act. But they make no mistakes; only machines make no mistakes, and they produce only dead things. The alive-alive are constantly in error, in search, in questions, in torment.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
A Soviet Heretic
Old man death sits all alone
In quiet contemplation
Picking at his blackened nails
Waiting for his next victim
Watching as your life force drains
VENOM
"Death & Dying", Metal Black