Death And Dying Quotes - Page 3

I’m curious about why there’s so much honor given to death, when there is no honor in losing someone you love.

As I listened I felt a dull numbness, like the effect of chloroform, rather than the primal, anarchic agony you usually feel when you encounter someone you have loved now turned to dust, in some object like a little bowl, and you are required to believe that it is still the same person who once smiled at you.

He had visited his family the evening before, eaten dinner with Renee and Chris, his grandson, in the pretence that everything was ordinary, but in fact to service his end-game ruse. He was going over the mountains, he'd said, to hunt for quail in willow canyons, he had no particular canyons in mind, he intended to return on Thursday evening, though possibly, if the hunting was good, he would return on Friday or Saturday. The lie was open-ended so that his family wouldn't start worrying until he'd been dead for as long as a week - so none would miss or seek him where he rotted silently in the sage. Ben imagined how it might be otherwise, his cancer a pestilent force in their lives, or a pall descending over them like ice, just as they'd begun to emerge from the pall of Rachel's death. The last thing they needed was for Ben to tell hem of his terminal colon cancer.

Only the rocks live forever, Gray Wolf said.

When death comes you do not stay for one minute in the place it has visited. Many things arrive after death-sadness, questions, and policemen- and none of these can be answered when your papers are not in order.

Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die.

Death is a bored clerk, with too many orders to fill. There is no reckoning. No profound moment. It creeps up on us from behind, and snatches us away while we shit.

None of us are getting out of here alive".

I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow,and somehow, each of us will help the other live,and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.

We are, as we die, who we most were in life...

Upon learning that her cancer had spread to her spine, Paula prepared her thirteen year-old son for her death by writing him a letter of farewell that moved me to years. In her final paragraph she reminded him that the lungs in the human fetus do not breathe, nor do it's eyes see. Thus, the embryo is being prepared for an existence it cannot yet imagine

Perhaps, in a few people, I have seen what can be described as a struggle with death, and it can be distressing to behold. But for the vast majority of people death is gentle, tender.

Those what yielded the extra lolly were gevyn a clothe to put over themselves when they dost cash in their chips, and were told to staye where they lay until they be picked up. - From "Three Interesting Facts about Undertakers

I think first of the children. What the hell am I supposed to tell them? Then I think about money, the house, all those things no widow will tell you ever crossed her mind.

Sensei says funerals are not really for the dead. They are for those left behind. "The dead are long gone by the time a funeral is held," he told us. "Who would wait when the doors of Heaven are open? Only the living would be foolish enough to still hang around on earth.

[G]ive him this much: death didn't just walk up and inhale him. He wasn't exactly whisked away. He left claw marks on his life.

She wasted and grew so thin that she no longer was a little girl, but the shadow of a little girl. The flame of her life flickered so faintly that it appeared sufficient to blow at it to extinguish it. Stas understood that death did not have to wait for a third attack to take her and he expected it any day or any hour.

Are you afraid to die?'Cause it scares the hell outta me,And the end is all I can see,And it scares the hell outta me,That the end is all I can see.

I watch Ethan try to connect the dots in his head, And suddenly his face falls into a sad smile."Oh," he says. And that's all.I walk over to him, my bare feet sinking into the sand as I trudge along. He's grinning at me now, but it's not the usual plastered-on smile he usually has. This one is somehow more authentic.When I'm within a few feet of him, he holds his arms out."You're going to be such a good leader," he says. "I'm so proud of you, Five."I embrace Ethan. His arms fold around me as he pats me on the back. He lets out a long, slow sigh and then starts to say something. I cut him off before he can get the words out. I can't stand to hear him say another thing."Ethan, I'm really sorry about this. But it's for the best."I can feel his body clench as the blade slips out of my forearm sheath and into his back. It slides between his ribs-a lucky shot- then retracts back into my hoodie sleeve. It's over in an instant. I step away from him. He stands frozen, probably in shock. There's a deep spot of read blooming across the right side of his chest where the blade must have broken the skin. Blood drops down from the hidden wrist sheath, running over my right hand before falling from my fingertips to the sand."It's over," I murmur, more to myself than to Ethan. He's probably not paying much attention to what I have to say. Tears are welling in his good eye, but I don't know if they're for me or for himself. He blinks once and then falls to the beach with a soft thud.

Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue of the sky, full of stars, all solemn and golden, which extended their radiance unconcernedly into the distance. That was the nature of the stars. and the trees bore their buds and blossoms and scars for everyone to see, and whether it signified pleasure or pain, they accepted the strong will to live. flies that lived only for a day swarmed toward their death. every life had its radiance and beauty. i had insight into it all for a moment, understood it and found it good, and also found my life and sorrows good.

Demons never die quietly, and a week ago the storm was a proper demon, sweeping through the Caribbean after her long ocean crossing from Africa, a category five when she finally came ashore at San Juan before moving on to Santo Domingo and then Cuba and Florida. But now she's grown very old, as her kind measures age, and these are her death throes. So she holds tightly to this night, hanging on with the desperate fury of any dying thing, any dying thing that might once have thought itself invincible.

Do I have anything to lose? This life will be gone one day to the Creator who gave it.

I always wondered what it must be like to lose a twin—if somehow Mary felt it like it was happening to her. If she felt physical pain.

Birth is not a beginning; it’s a continuation. That lends tremendous comfort because we then understand that, equally true, death is not an end; it’s merely a continuation.

Medicine and society have entered into a folie a deaux regarding medicine's importance in gigantic population ills. We believe that genetics and pills and enzymes bring us health. We wait for the dementia cure (the obesity cure, the diabetes cure) rather than changing our society to decrease incidence and severity. We slash social welfare programs and access to GPs and ignore the downstream effect this will have on future generations. To reduce non-communicable disease, the actions we need to take are societal: make it easier for people to move and eat well, strengthen education, promote community participation and meaningful work. Our collective delusion is that we can have all the benefits such a society would bring without the structural supports necessary to bring it into being, that we can attain health by inventing and buying drugs. It is hard to know which is the more utopian vision: magic pills or a society serious about prevention.

He tried to disguise how tired and ill he was, how depressing the thought of death was to him and how he spent his days and nights thinking up schemes of living beyond what the prognosis said. His hope, if not his heart, would find a way.

Charlie started crying, in the convulsive, soundless way that men do. "Don't you understand," he said after composing himself, "that's a funeral dirge for the first wave." We all thought about that, the many lives lost before we even opened our eyes this morning.

It's only young people who make giant, life-altering decisions based on what other people might think, and it's because they don't see their own death looming. Their fear is, "Will my family, friends and lovers admire me?" whereas an older person's fear is that vision of themselves lying in a hospital bed, a breathing tube up their nose and the thought running through their heads, "Why didn't I at least try to do what I wanted to do, while I had the chance?

The dead only knows their world.

My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show.

I cannot live, if I am already dead.

I met death for the last time realizing that he, the creature I called, it because I did not want to believe came for me... Collecting.

The casket was lined with lovely velvet, which must have felt lovely even to the dead, but the glowing man continued to rip up the casket.

[In my dream] they slide their lips over my skin, whispering whispering whispering. They tell me their names, they tell me their lives, they tell me their pain...I can't struggle, I can't stop laughing, I can't resist these people who once were.

I find it hard to understand the mind of the true atheist, who believes that life is nothing more than a series of electrical impulses and biochemical reactions to chemical stimuli. Presumably, such thinkers see death as the worst thing that can occur, because it means the end of everything. Therefore (logically), maintaining the continuance of physical existence, under any circumstances, is entirely justifiable.

It is better to die honorably and render yourself immortal than live to old age and fade to dust.

Even as we live with the knowledge that each day might be our last, we don’t want to believe it.

She died in my arms saying, “I don’t want to die.” That is what death is like. It doesn’t matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn’t matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we could never have war anymore.

Although we amplify our cognitive degree of awareness and enhance our appreciation for life experiences by maturing, it also brings us death. Facing a certain death forces a person to examine the worthiness of continuing to live.

We defy augury. There is special providence inthe fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not tocome, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—thereadiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is'tto leave betimes, let be. (Hamlet 5.2.217-224)

You never know when you're going to die, but maybe something in you does, some cellular consciousness that's aware of the cosmic countdown and starts making plans.

It has been seven years since you died. Of course what I'll say next is that time has flown by. I got old. All of a sudden, de repente. I walk with difficulty. I even drool. I leave the door unlocked in case I die in my sleep, but it's more likely I'll go endlessly on until I get put away someplace. I am already dotty.... It's not so strange that I talk to my cat but I feel silly because he is totally deaf.

We need not fear death, for it is simply the next phase of life. We never die, we simply change form - just as we have since the day we were born.

Ravens are the birds I'll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black light of their limber intelligence. If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens.

We should live lives of intentionality, for every life ends in death, but not every death ends in peace. The type of death one wishes to experience determines the type of life one ought to live. We should begin with the end in view, and in our journey we should never lose sight of the destination. The meaning of death holds the key to the meaning of life.

I guess what's most important is that we chose to live with our hearts open and to let our experiences show us the way towards our brightest days.

She ran because she had no other choice. She feared what would happen if she dared to stop. There was no time to think. There was barely any time for her to breathe. On her broken ankle, she ran. With her bruised arms, she ran. With her bleeding sides, she ran because she knew today was the day she was meant to die.

But when it comes down to it, we all die alone.

(I didn’t tell him that thediagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You’re a woman. Now die.)

The Piper is coming nearer," he said, "he is nearer than he was that evening I saw him before. His long, shadowy cloak is blowing around him. He pipes - he pipes - and we must follow - Jem and Carl and Jerry and I - round and round the world. Listen - listen - can't you hear his wild music?

How people die remains in the memory of those who live on.

I make a joke of it, but... but I'm afraid of death." He straightened up and turned to look into Joseph's eyes. Joseph saw the fear there and was shocked by the intensity of it. "Are you afraid to die, Joseph?" Joseph considered for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not afraid to now, but then I'm not dying now. When I come to that moment, I will probably be... what's the right word? Maybe frightened in a way that you're frightened when an experience lies before you you've never had. "No more than that?" "I hope not.

I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52)

I wonder if my first breath was as soul-stirring to my mother as her last breath was to me. – From 14 Days: A Mother, A Daughter, A Two-Week Goodbye

Old age is catching up with me, or am I catching up with it?

once ruffle-skirted vanity table where I primped at thirteen, opening drawers to a private chaos of eyeshadows lavender teal sky-blue, swarms of hair pins pony tail fasteners, stashes of powders, colonies of tiny lipsticks (p.39)

Toward evening, Harriet found herself thinking the oddest thoughts: that twilight is not really dark. It's gray. The sun gone, the world turns gray, without emotion, without color. It seemed a fitting time for a little girl to slip free of all this pain, to let go.

Chip, she’s gone,” and he said, “I thought I’d feel her looking down on us, but you’re right. She’s just gone

[Charlie is dying:]After what seemed a long while, but hadn’t been, Marsh gave Paulette’s hand a warm and caring squeeze. “They’re here for him,” she said.But their heavenly visitors didn’t take him right away. They had to make room for the chaos of modern medical urgencies. To get out of the way of well-trained professionals who had dedicated their lives to holding back Heaven.Choppers are just as noisy and turbulent as we imagine them to be. One tore in over the hills and shattered every bit of peace Charlie otherwise could have lost himself into.In an instant the Med-Evac team was all over him. In the midst of that blatant orchestrated chaos Paulette fought to find her peace, and to hold him inside it.“Hang on, buddy,” techs kept telling him. “Don’t go leaving us now. You just hang in there.”But they didn’t understand, Paulette thought. It was his time.The chopper made a horrible racket carrying him off. Marsh, Paulette, and Ailana held their peace as its winds whipped their world into a froth.Harve’s face twisted with something that might conceivably have been rage.Then, all of a sudden, the birds sang, as though someone had given them a cue. “So that’s what it’s like,” Marsha said, very softly.“The afterlife.“My God, it’s so beautiful.

Hamlet misspoke, Strawl decided. It is consciousness that makes cowards of us all, not conscience. Right and wrong are venomless when compared to the simple awareness of being alive. The knowledge that existence can equal something past the sum of our circulation and digestion, that those corporeal purposes serve a galaxy of space between a man's ears, whose suns and planets obey his own peculiar science, but one in which he alone recognizes the order, and only in glimpses, epiphanies that melt before he can speak or even think them--and the knowledge even this distant self is not his possession but belongs to others weighing and judging the dim and distant light he emits.