Death And Dying Quotes - Page 7

Remember, you are as dispensable as the most indispensable king of kings, the mighty lord of silly worldly men.

I can tell you something remarkable about that time, although it has only just occurred to me now. I never thought about death, like I do now. I never worried about dying. I only ever thought about being alive.

I remembered screaming then, screaming until my voice stopped.

As Ossie Jones crept out of his body and into the mist, his heart murmured till it was silent.

He wanted to argue like this forever. This was better than nothing. There was no exhausting his anger at his father, and every word, however well intentioned or intentionally barbed, was a pull at a scab on his bloody heart. It was too late for any of this. There could ultimately be no healing. Marty had terminal cancer, and so did the two men have a cancer between them. They were terminal together, as father and son. They remained, momentarily exhausted, but it was really only that quiet between lightning and thunder as sound lags behind speed. The lightning had cracked the ground already, you just hadn't heard it yet.

They say that when a man is going to drown, when he finally gives up the struggle - it's sort of blissful, for a moment. And then he drowns.

The essence of death is discovered in the gap between one moment ceasing and another one beginning. That essence is the wakefulness that is our true nature.

Even the reeking dark in the lion's cage seemed precious and infinitely preferable to whatever lay beyond. She would go out like the flame of a candle. Where does the candle flame go when the candle is blown out?She laid her painted face against the iron bars and bared her teeth at death.

What is death if not these words that I say

It's not that I am not moved by these things, that I don't them in my life. But lately, their power has diminished." - 140

Biology includes the study of the human death which began when you took your first breath

Dying may just be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.

I kept a picture of me kissing my dad’s corpse on the forehead in my wallet for years. I’d break it out any time someone showed me a baby picture, just so they would know how it ends.

Have you ever taken yourself a bit too seriously, thinking that who you are is actually defined by what you look like, how much talent you have (or don't have), how well known you are (or aren't), or how much money you have (or don't have)? Those are all "garments and labels" you wear during the course of your stay here on this planet, but it's not who you are. At the end of the day, when it's all said and done, you will turn all of that back in just like a car you had on lease.

You still are? There go my plans! And the suit I had bought to attend your funeral. Well, well. Anyway, do call me up when you an't.

The syrup of lilies hangs thick and sweet in the air, its cloying scent the traditional mask of death and rebirth: ashes and incense, rain and dirt, and something like rosin. It's the scent Hector associates with God. The scent of heavenly things.

The stony silence of death, trapped by the original gravity of our sins,and the perpetuity of a long, leisurely yawn, a world where blood and bone no longer matter.

When everything looks the same on the outside, yet everything has changed on the inside, we break. We break in half.This is the duality of loss.

Before we're born we've all of us been dead for millions of years...but we're always afraid of going back...

It's... no, nothing." She grunted, turning from the screen with her vodka. "I'm starting to think Morris is right. We're just f---ed. Us, Colby, the whole human race.""Maybe," Teagan said noncommittally. "Some days I believe that. I look at this f---ed up bloody world and see we don't be needing the likes of monster-gods with unpronounceable names to come and do the job for us. We do just fine screwing ourselves, don't we?

Thus spake brave Horatius, the captain of the gate. To all men upon this Earth, death cometh soon or late. And what better way to die, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of ones' fathers, and the temples of ones' G/Ds? For the tender mother, who dandled him to rest. And for the wife, who nurses his baby at her breast. And for the holy maidens, who feed the eternal flame. To save them from false sextus, that wrought the deed of shame. Lay down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may. I, with two more at either side, shall hold the foe in play. In Yon straight path a thousand may well be stop by three. Now who will stand on either hand and hold the bridge with me?

So, what is the right way to look at death? Do we see death as life's expiration date and the point of no return? Or is it simply a threshold to be crossed, on the way to another dimension, or another life? Do you want to know what the right answer is?Whatever makes you feel more comfortable about dying.

Sullivan had her Crucifix Soldier and now I have mine. No. I am the soldier. Teacup is the cross.

When I spoke to a colleague about Joe's report, her face registered surprise. She said, "Is it possible for a death in a nursing home to be premature?" Joe told me, "If it were happening in any other kind of institution, to any other part of the population - workers, say, or children - there'd be an outcry, media, inquiries, swift intervention. The truth is we do not value the last months or years of a person's life. The remaining life of someone old. Particularly if they are in residential care." If we are all just economic units who lift or lean, then very little is "lost" when a nursing home resident or anyone getting on in their years dies prematurely. In fact money might be saved - one less nursing-home bed to fund, and the kids can finally get their hands on the house.

I was finally beginning to perceive that no matter how many dead people I might see, or people at the instant of their death, I would never manage to grasp death, that very moment, precisely in itself. It was one thing or the other: either you are dead, and then in any case there's nothing else to understand, or else you are not yet dead, and in that case, even with the rifle at the back of your head or the rope around your neck, death remains incomprehensible, a pure abstraction, this absurd idea that I, the only living person in the world, could disappear. Dying, we may already be dead, but we never die, that moment never comes, or rather it never stops coming, there it is, it's coming, and then it's still coming, and then it's already over, without ever having come.

Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother.

It’s just another stop on the curvy roadthe final encounterfor the man who has liveddeath is the answer.

A man dies and his skin loses heat like the sand on a summer evening. It makes you feel like warming him up.

A candle without a spark, a sky without a sun, the look people get when they cease to be people, start being bodies.

Most people die at 25 and aren’t buried until they’re 75.

Death isn't a tragedy to God, only to those left behind.

Death does not mark the end of a chapter in a man’s life, but the end of a book of man, the beautiful conclusion to his yearnings.

...we spoke about dying. [Prim] told me how she'd nearly died of malaria. She said that she didn't mind the thought of death. That realizing you're going to die actually makes life better as it's only then that you decide to live the life you really want to live.

See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory thatsomeone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of livingis a tide: at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one dayyou look down and see how much pain has eroded.

We walk on the ground and give sparse recognition to the mud that will be the eternal homes for the bodies that we praise so much. Ground might not worth much but it holds billions of history and some of humanity's greatest treasures, One day it will become our permanent home. Maybe we should begin a mud religion and give reverence to the dirt, in the end, it is the dirt, ground and Mother Earth that wins and reigns supreme throughout the centuries.

The rare opportunity to exist, no matter how brief, is worth the pain left in the wake of its disappearance.

I miss your face. That big bright smile. You always had it, in any weather. It's hard for me to find one these days. These cold November days. Except when I think of you.

Such is true joy’s absolute certainty,Its slow lit fuse that burns holesIn the shabby shroud of death forever.

No person can escape the germs of their eventual deterioration and destruction. A round-table of physical breakdown and death awaits the rich person and the poor person, as well as the common people and world leaders. The skulls of noble men and savages alike litter the streets of ancient cities. Modern humans live longer than the ancient people did, but eventually we all succumb to the same wretched infirmities.

Death: When next we meet, the hour will strike for you and your friends.Antonius Block: And will you reveal your secrets?Death: I have no secrets.Antonius Block: So do you know nothing?Death: I am unknowing.

Die in a good way, obviously.

They sat quietly together for a few minutes, Joe holding Fiona's hand, Fiona sniffling. No flowery words, no platitudes passed between them. Joe would have done anything to ease her suffering, but he knew nothing he might do, or say, could. Her grief would run its course, like a fever, and release her when it was spent. He would not shush her or tell her it was God's will and that her da was better off. That was rubbish and they both knew it. When something hurt as bad as this, you had to let it hurt. There were no shortcuts.

O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pieO Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,gimme a break before I die:grant me wisdom, will, & wit,purity, probity, pluck, & grit.Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind,and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice—these little blessings would sufficeto beget an earthly paradise:make the bad people good—and the good people nice;and before our world goes over the brink,teach the believers how to think.

Excerpt: Paradox – Bound By Blood. The hands on a clock never falter, not for a second. One day ends; and a new begins. If there was one thing on this earth that could be counted on, it was that. Time never paused to mourn the dead. That particular privilege is allotted to the living. It is for the survivor to mourn, bury the dead, and leave the rest to the earth. That is the way of it – the way of death - and the misery it leaves behind.

How are we supposed to live every day if we know we're going to die?' He looked at me, clearly pained by the dawning of my genetically predestined morbidity. He had been the same way as a kid. A day never went by where he didn't think about this eventual demise. He sighed, leaned back in his chair, unable to conjure a comforting answer. 'You just do'.

This world rubs me raw, scours me smooth like an SOS pad put to a grease-caked skillet. And pain: it stabs and scrapes and pulls me back to earth, my final B&B, that worm-spun cot of cool black sod.

I die with the dying light, yet shine brighter as the darkness approaches. Soon I’ll be whittled to bone and stripped clean through, nothing left but a skeleton on which to hang a hat. But have no fear, I look good in hats.

Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

Some deaths were long, the decay so gradual the rotted end was nothing more than a sigh disappearing in the wind.Others were quick, the abrupt cut of a life in mid-phrase leaving unanswered questions lingering like an unresolved harmony.

In the natural course of events, the period when death is taking over a body is fairly brief. My grandfather (who had no medication) had about a fortnight of this period in his life. Today it can drag on for months or years.

An acceptable death is a death which can be accepted or tolerated by the survivors. It has its antithesis: ‘the embarrassingly graceless dying,’ which embarrasses the survivors because it causes too strong an emotion to burst forth; and emotions must be avoided both in the hospital and everywhere in society. One does not have the right to become emotional other than in private, that is to say, secretly.

It is appointed for man to die once, Live life to the fullness.

They stared at each other. Every ocean, every river, every minute they had walked together was in their gaze. He said nothing and she said nothing. She kneeled by him, her hands on him, on his chest, on his heart, on his lungs that took air in but could not move air out, on his open wound; her eyes were on him, and in their eyes was every block of uncounted, unaccounted-for time, every moment they had lived since June 22, 1941, the day war started for the Soviet Union. Her eyes were filled with everything she felt for him. Her eyes were true.

The place smelled of commodes and playing cards, and before I was halfway to the end I had made a firm resolve never to begin to die. For me it would be all or nothing: no half measures, no lingering on the doorstep.

This was how the world ended. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

We are not from here, my dear. So:Let the flames take over our bodies,‘cause I wanna merely burn with you.And we can dance until we become ashes,but don’t you dare leave me when we become pointless dust.Because this is when we canfinally blow away with the wind,back to that place where lovewas once real...

I am not afraid of death. When I have to confront the great reaper, I would like to recall Bernanos' words- 'And now , just the two of us!'.

I’m not afraid of death, just of dying.

There were worse things than dying, and those worse things happened to the people you left behind.