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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
263b895 America was, to them, the place that good people went to when they died. They were prepared to believe just about anything could happen in America. death Neil Gaiman
ac00a2a "The realization of what would happen next settled gradually over Harry in the long minutes, like softly falling snow. "I've got to go back, haven't I?" "That is up to you." "I've got a choice?" "Oh yes." Dumbledore smiled at him. "We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to...let's say...board a train." "And where would it take me?" "On," said Dumbledore simply." death J.K. Rowling
abb6333 "Don't you have a religion?" Dorolow asked Horza. "Yes," he replied, not taking his eyes away from the screen on the wall above the end of the main mess-room table. "My survival." "So... your religion dies with you. How sad," Dorolow said, looking back from Horza to the screen. The Changer let the remark pass." death religion changer dorolow mess-room survival Iain M. Banks
829246d I didn't know if his art was helping. But Moses's pictures were like that, glorious and terrible. Glorious because they brought memory to life, terrible for the same reason. Time softens memories, sanding down the rough edges of death. But Moses's pictures dripped with life and reminded us of our loss. death truth raw ironic talent Amy Harmon
1ebf7a0 You've thrown down the gauntlet. You've brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. But... If I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist... then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master. murder heaven living death life wrath master puppet damned kill dying hell Chuck Palahniuk
60ca79e It is said that men condemned to death are subject to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire, their destruction were coincidental with attainment. death John le Carré
1d3c16b This was a normal town once, and we were normal people. Most of us worked at the plastics factory on the outskirts of town. Then one day there was an accident... something escaped from the factory, a yellow gas. It floated over the town so fast that we didn't see it, didn't realize... and then it was too late, and Dark Falls wasn't a normal town anymore. grief murder people death dark-falls factory living-dead plastics townsfolk yellow gas creepy pollution small-town zombie normal poison R.L. Stine
6fe89e0 In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die. death rowboat morning dying Ernest Hemingway
b98549c Death followed by eternity the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought. death life eternity experience Tom Stoppard
3b681ab Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage. marriage death humor love olivia twelfth-night wedding fool William Shakespeare
226f731 Not flowers--never flowers in Terrasen. Instead, they carried small stones to graves to mark their visits, to tell the dead that they still remembered. Stones were eternal--flowers were not. death sam-cortland throne-of-glass queen-of-shadows sarah-j-maas celaena-sardothien Sarah J. Maas
db4b189 The dead know everything, but don't give a damn. death hindsight caring knowledge Joanne Harris
9e1c5ab The more mental effort he made the clearer he saw that it was undoubtedly so: that he had really forgotten and overlooked one little circumstance in life - that Death would come and end everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it, Yes it was terrible but true death life leo-tolstoy Leo Tolstoy
d0c3a83 Just before the went back into warp and its crew sat down at the table, the ship expelled the limp corpse of Zallin. Where it had found a live man in a suit, it left a dead youth in shorts and a tattered shirt, tumbling and freezing while a thin shell of air molecules expanded around the body, like an image of departing life. death life zallin vacuum shell space Iain M. Banks
def9c1b The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers). Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around). The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words. death polyglots questionnaires talents ugliness languages Christopher Hitchens
a4cd3ee Obedient to no man, dependent only on weather and season, without a goal before them or a roof above them, owning nothing, open to every whim of fate, the homeless wanderers lead their childlike, brave, shabby existence. They are the sons of Adam, who was driven out of Paradise; the brothers of the animals, of innocence. Out of heaven's hand they accept what is given them from moment to moment: sun, rain, fog, snow, warmth, cold, comfort, and hardship; time does not exist for them and neither does history, or ambition, or that bizarre idol called progress and evolution, in which houseowners believe so desperately. A wayfarer may be delicate or crude, artful or awkward, brave or cowardly--he is always a child at heart, living in the first day of creation, before the beginning of the history of the world, his life always guided by a few simple instincts and needs. He may be intelligent or stupid; he may be deeply aware of the fleeting fragility of all living things, of how pettily and fearfully each living creature carries its bit of warm blood through the glaciers of cosmic space, or he may merely follow the commands of his poor stomach with childlike greed--he is always the opponent, the deadly enemy of the established proprietor, who hates him, despises him, or fears him, because he does not wish to be reminded that all existence is transitory, that life is constantly wilting, that merciless icy death fills the cosmos all around. freedom death wayfarer wanderer innocence Hermann Hesse
b74d6aa I -- I alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves.' But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday -- nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of time -- his death and her sorrow -- I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you understand? I saw them together -- I heard them together. mourning time sorrow death devotion Joseph Conrad
e06dd03 Still, being fragile creatures, humans always try to hide from themselves the certainty that they will die. They do not see that it is death itself that motivates them to do the best things in their lives. They are afraid to step into the dark, afraid of the unknown, and their only way of conquering that fear is to ignore the fact that their days are numbered. They do not see that with an awareness of death, they would be able to be even more daring, to go much further in their daily conquests, because then they would have nothing to lose- for death itself is inevitable. fear death life conquest Paulo Coelho
1648bb2 "I have a serious question." "I will give a serious answer." "Can a god be killed?" The humor drained from Roman's face. "Well, that depends on if you're a pantheist or a Marxist." "What's the difference?" "The first believes that divinity is the universe. The two are synonymous and nonexistent without each other. The second believes in anthropocentrism, seeing man in the center of the universe, and god as just an invention of human conscience. Of course, if you follow Nietzsche, you can kill God just by thinking about him." death philosophy roman gods Ilona Andrews
e30ec40 Perhaps you should speak more softly to me, then. Monsters are dangerous beasts, and just now kings seem to be dying like flies. death flies whisper soft kings speak dangerous die monsters George R.R. Martin
7a034b8 "Glaring at the Gasman, ter Borcht said, "Your time is coming to an end, you pathetic failure of an experiment. Vhat you say now is how you vill be remembered." Gazzy's blue eyes flashed. "Then you can remember me telling you to kiss my-" "Enough!" ter Borcht said." funny death cool-response gazzy-i-love-u good-guy badass end lol James Patterson
c86d402 We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man. winter perfection shakespeare true grief doubt passion nature joy fear past death dreams music hope life love truth hateful philosophies religion-myths scorn sacred-books brave tender fairy haunted pagan king-lear spring woods fable poetic mountains lake birth smiles deny eternity autumn punishment gods effort tears questions mystery beautiful throne summer thought delight william-shakespeare pleasure Robert G. Ingersoll
ea340b9 It's easier to die than to move ... at least for the Other Side you don't need trunks. death moving Wallace Stegner
05d6d63 Her constant orders for beheading are shocking to those modern critics of children's literature who feel that juvenile fiction should be free of all violence and especially violence with Freudian undertones. Even the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, so singularly free of the horrors to be found in Grimm and Andersen, contain many scenes of decapitation. As far as I know, there have been no empirical studies of how children react to such scenes and what harm if any is done to their psyche. My guess is that the normal child finds it all very amusing and is not damaged in the least, but that books like and should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis. literature reading death media children Martin Gardner
d1d0ca0 The walk felt long, but I kept telling my lungs to shut up, that they were strong, that they could do this. I could see him as I approached: His hair was parted neatly on the left side in a way that he would have found absolutely horrifying, and his face was plasticized. But he was still Gus. My lanky, beautiful Gus. death heart-breaking hazel-grace John Green
41c7051 We do know that we are cheated from birth to the overcharge on our coffins. death cheating coffin John Steinbeck
67eeb6a As if the dead really do persist, even in a bottle of wine. persistence death persist remembrance wine Thomas Pynchon
89c1a4d It's not hard to read about death abstractly. I do find it tough when a character I love dies, of course. You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them. reading death life missing-someone Will Schwalbe
8158cd7 Here I am...wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end--that there is such a thing as death. death philosophy Leo Tolstoy
e364051 The misfortune is that although everyone must come to [death], each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days... and yet we were profoundly separated from her. death existentialism Simone de Beauvoir
6cb28ba He is fifteen and ten and five. He is an instant. He is flying back to her. He is hers again. She feels the weight of him in her chest as he comes into her arms. He is her son, her beloved child, and she takes him back. motherhood spirit death meditation Ann Patchett
cb9d663 Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, every poem an epitaph. poetry death T.S. Eliot
de70251 And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade. death life-lessons truth inspirational crossroads Jacqueline Carey
3b4246c So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don't have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know. heaven christianity death bible hell Marcus J. Borg
8ab98b0 You don't know what cold is until you've experienced the cold you feel when the blood is draining out of your body. suicide death Ryū Murakami
52aa7bc Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It's the second biggest cause of death amongs the English in general. Sheer boredom... death suburbia england london Alexander McCall Smith
e0d4f63 No matter what I accomplish, it doesn't seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz. death life survival Art Spiegelman
86f1069 Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive. death living-life problems endings growing-older Colum McCann
6c89548 Bulgaria, I reflected as I walked back to the hotel, isn't a country; it's a near-death experience. travel death 1990s city-centre european night-club post-communist sofia bulgaria country nightlife adventure eastern-europe crisis europeans europe Bill Bryson
acf5c8d Of course his dust would be absorbed in other living things and to that degree at least he would exist again, though it was plain enough that the specific combination which was he would never exist again. death nothingness Gore Vidal
a189a92 who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded and loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes, travel death sadness beauty-alone impatience insight Allen Ginsberg
65c27e3 Supermarkets this large and clean and modern are a revelation to me. I spent my life in small steamy delicatessens with slanted display cabinets full of trays that hold soft wet lumpy matter in pale colours. High enough cabinets so you had to stand on tiptoes to give your order. Shouts, accents. In cities no one notices specific dying. Dying is a quality of the air. It's everywhere and nowhere. Men shout as they die to be noticed, remembered for a second or two. To die in an apartment instead of a house can depress the soul, I would imagine, for several lives to come. In a town there are houses, plants in bay windows. People notice dying better. The dead have faces, automobiles. If you don't know a name you know a street name, a dog's name. 'He drove an orange Mazda.' You know a couple of useless things about a person that become major facts of identification and cosmic placement when he dies suddenly, after a short illness, in his own bed, with a comforter and matching pillows, on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, feverish, a little congested in the sinuses and chest, thinking about his dry cleaning. death dying Don DeLillo
edb4468 That which is alive hath known death, and that which is dead can never die, for in the Circle of the Spirit life is naught and death is naught. Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten. mortality immortality death life circle-of-life H. Rider Haggard
f476d90 He always thought that Touie's long illness would somehow prepare him for her death. He always imagined that grief anf guilt, if they followed, would be more clear-edged, more defined, more finite. Instead they seem like weather, like clouds constantly re-forming into new shapes, blown by nameless, unidentifiable winds. death-and-dying illness marriage death love death-of-a-loved-one Julian Barnes
6e36b8e 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. death life inspirational atheism Christopher Hitchens
d3bd47e [Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha. death religion darkness life philosophy contrast compare worldview opposites beliefs belief comparison G.K. Chesterton
b18a399 It's harder to pick and choose when you're dead. It's like a photograph, you know. It doesn't matter as much. death-and-dying death truth self-censorship significance perspective etiquette Neil Gaiman
86fde22 I know cigarettes can kill & wonder why she wants to die. wonder death smoking Nick Flynn
6be6ea3 If we all knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we's tend not to notice the sunrise, or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into the shore. We'd tend not to treasure our time with the people we love. Simply the awareness that our mortal lives had a beginning and will have an end enhances the quality of our living. Perhaps it's even more intense when we know that the termination of the body is near, but it shouldn't be. mortality death life Madeleine L'Engle
d1aac4e He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it. suicide death life philosophy G.K. Chesterton
d35a651 The human body is robust. It can gather strength when it's in mortal danger. fear death strength danger Toni Morrison
4627b56 Harry... take my body back, will you? Take my body back to my parents... family death J.K. Rowling
339d768 With the death of my father, it wasn't just the objects of everyday life that had changed; even the most ordinary street scenes had become irreplaceable mementos of a lost world whose every detail figured in the meaning of the whole. meaning death life mementos ordinariness Orhan Pamuk
0935437 Personally, I like a chocolate-covered sky. Dark, dark chocolate. People say it suits me. I do, however, try to enjoy every color I see - the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. It takes the edge off the stress. It helps me relax. death stress perception Markus Zusak
35e400b What the dead had no speech for, when living, They can tell you, being dead: the communication Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living. death unsaid-words communication longing T.S. Eliot
73a46a7 WHAT FOR IS THIS BOX PADDED? IS IT TO BE SAT ON? CAN IT BE THAT IT IS CAT-FLAVOURED? death chocolate-box Terry Pratchett
bfb42c6 I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist. universe death religion life cosmic-sadist theology everything Charles Stross
941fe5b When he was this close to me, I could feel his palpable yearning. I could sense that gut-wrenching loneliness he'd suffered. death Kresley Cole
297d198 Every angel is terrifying. Through the darkness, they move silently... I will go down into death with you. I must go where I must go To see what I must see In that place where no one knows... ... This is where love is taking me. You have been leading Me, angels, in and out of death. I have no idea who you are. Eurydice. Is she nothing Or is she your mirror? I don't know anymore. I am at war. Perhaps that which is given - Being human - Is too hard, And so it is love that brings us, To what cannot be born, To ourselves, And so we must change, Must descend, guided by love, into the unknown. Lovers disappear in each other. Do they disappear forever? Where do they go? lovers death love eurydice self Kathy Acker
4cda592 -I'm going to heaven! I replied. -What do you mean, you're going to heaven? -Let me pass. -And what will you do in heaven, my poor child? -I'm going there to kill God, who killed Daddy. revenge death god Tom Reiss
4a32a4d Being alone can be good. It's easy to find peace alone. But sometimes, being alone is a king of death. death life peace Dean Koontz
70c318d By now you must have guessed: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, Take me to your leaders. Even I - unused to your ways though I am - would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them. Instead I will say, Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths. These are worth it. These are what I have come for. death dreams life philosophy sf Margaret Atwood
ff03a02 Dead or not, I have come for his heart and I will have it. death heart love inspirational my-idol prince-valiant valiant Holly Black
85d9bc3 Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit. time death life passage Annie Dillard
ea66c7e She was fierce in the presence of death, heroic even, as she was at no other time. Its threat gave her direction, clarity, audacity. death fearlessdirection clarity fierce Toni Morrison
26c58a3 ...As she grew older, she was aware of her changing position on mortality. In her youth, the topic of death was philosophical; in her thirties it was unbearable and in her forties unavoidable. In her fifties, she had dealt with it in more rational terms, arranging her last testament, itemizing assets and heirlooms, spelling out the organ donation, detailing the exact words for her living will. Now, in her sixties, she was back to being philosophical. Death was not a loss of life, but the culmination of a series of releases. It was devolving into less and less. You had to release yourself from vanity, desire, ambition, suffering, and frustration - all the accoutrements of the I, the ego. And if you die, you would disappear, leave no trace, evaporate into nothingness... death Amy Tan
e6c6846 { } heart was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience, sacrifice. His little home amid the roses was austerely simple; he knew the worthlessness of luxury, the joy of few possessions. The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in an empty boast. I was in New York when, in 1926, my dear passed away. In tears I thought, 'Oh, I would gladly walk all the way from here to Santa Rosa for one more glimpse of him!' Locking myself away from secretaries and visitors, I spent the next twenty-four hours in seclusion... name has now passed into the heritage of common speech. Listing 'burbank' as a transitive verb, Webster's New International Dictionary defines it: 'To cross or graft (a plant). Hence, figuratively, to improve (anything, as a process or institution) by selecting good features and rejecting bad, or by adding good features.' 'Beloved ,' I cried after reading the definition, 'your very name is now a synonym for goodness! mourning grief joy goodness death sadness science friendship love burbank luther-burbank brotherhood modesty new-york Paramahansa Yogananda
4b73313 "Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. You shall not deny the Stranger. They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. death life imperfection utopia questions T.S. Eliot
56647e7 He would find his Susie,inside his young son. Give that love to the living. loss death love inspirational Alice Sebold
bfa429f And I don't believe you dead. How can you be dead if I still feel you? Maybe, like God, you changed into something different that I'll have to speak to in a different way, but you not dead to me Nettie. And never will you be. spirit faith death change life belief soul alice walker
956c48f and I told myself -- as I've told myself before -- that the body shuts down then the pain gets too bad, that consciousness is temporary, that this will pass. But just like always, I didn't slip away. I was left on the shore with the waves washing over me, unable to drown. pain death hazel-grace sickness John Green
4050054 Only the previous day, Arch had found him in a spirit-dance corral, blistering the creatures to the point of death, such was his need to touch and destroy. dance seeing spirit death weird blister corral glass redd wars destroy looking Frank Beddor
d8b5d37 Celaena knew where she was before she awoke. And she didn't care. She was living the same story again and again. The night she'd been captured, she'd also snapped, and come to killing the person she most wanted to destroy before someone knocked her out and she awoke in a rotting dungeon. She smiled bitterly as she opened her eyes. It was always the same story, the same loss. loss death pg240 sam-cortland nehemia-s-death nehemia-ytger Sarah J. Maas
5558dde Cauldron save you. Mother hold you. Pass through the gates, and smell that immortal land of milk and honey. Fear no evil. Feel no pain. Go, and enter eternity. death eternity Sarah J. Maas
2cd9555 To-day I wear these chains, and am HERE. To-morrow I shall be fetterless!--BUT WHERE? death life Edgar Allan Poe
9dc891a At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be. independence writing death nadine-gordimer Christopher Hitchens
5ea8911 It had a very long pendulum, and the pendulum swung with a slow tick-tock that set his teeth on edge, because it was the kind of deliberate annoying ticking that wanted to make it abundantly clear that every tick and every tock was stripping another second off your life. It was the kind of sound that suggested very pointedly that in some hypothetical hourglass somewhere, another few grains of sand had dropped out form under you. death Terry Pratchett
bcf4289 "Rolling flat onto his back, Drake shuddered. Then he inhaled deeply. He stared up at the night sky. "We're going to win," he said, his voice calmer, less strained. "This is nothing. Keep going. They can't stop us. Jason, give Rachel the necklace. Tell her . . . tell her I'm sorry. Tell her . . . I wanted . . . to show her . . . my little valley. Tell her I tried." His voice was growing weak. Farfalee smoothed a hand over his brow. "Shhh," she whispered. "Be still, Drake. You can rest now. You did it. Rest. We'll take it from here." "Failie," he whispered, his hand twitching toward the back of his neck with little jerks. "Where's my seed?" His head tipped sideways. The breath went out of him." death chasing drake brandon mull prophecy dying Brandon Mull
fa37732 The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife - a depressing thought, particularly for those who bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it's being held. On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily laying down. death Woody Allen
1857cb8 He did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt a dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness. death sadness science apes Arthur C. Clarke
d0a688d And what is death, if not a face at peace - its artistic perfection. death hauntingly-beautiful Vladimir Nabokov
5f429f8 This was how an enemy should be dealt with: with a dagger, not a declaration. death evil George R.R. Martin
a2a57ab "Pulling through is what people do around here. There is a kind of bravery in their lives that isn't bravery at all. It is automatic, unflinching, a mix of man and machine, consuming and unquestionable obligation meeting illness move for move in a giant even-steven game of chess - an unending round of something that looks like shadowboxing, though between love and death, which is the shadow? "Everyone admires us for our courage," says one man. "They have no idea what they're talking about." "Courage requires options," the man adds. "There are options," says a woman with a thick suede headband. "You could give up. You could fall apart." "No you can't. Nobody does. I've never seen it," says the man. "Well, not really fall apart." illness courage death love death-and-sickness death-and-love death-of-a-loved-one Lorrie Moore
cf26b0d Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win. death win Stephen E. Ambrose
b4eb166 The two moments are much alike: birth and death are made of the same fabric. death Isabel Allende
b1b456b If/when I die, do not want Pam lonely. Want her to remarry, have full life. As long as new husband is nice guy. Gentle guy. Religious guy. Very caring + good to kids. But kids not fooled. Kids prefer dead dad (i.e., me) to religious guy. Pale, boring, religious guy, with no oomph, who wears weird sweaters and is always a little sad, due to, cannot get boner, due to physical ailment. Ha ha. Death very much on my mind tonight, future reader. Can it be true? That I will die? That Pam, kids will die? Is awful. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like. Note to self: try harder, in all things, to be better person. death life George Saunders
7cdc76d Around, around the sun we go: The moon goes round the earth. We do not die of death: We die of vertigo. death mother-goose-s-garland vertigo Archibald MacLeish
d0ea02a Look at us. We build giant highways and murderously fast cars for killing each other and committing suicide. Instead of bomb shelters we construct gigantic frail glass buildings all over Manhattan at Ground Zero, a thousand feet high, open to the sky, life a woman undressing before an intruder and provoking him to rape her. We ring Russia's borders with missile-launching pads, and then scream that she's threatening us. In all history there's never been a more lurid mass example of the sadist-masochist expression of the thanatos instinct than the present conduct of the United States. The Nazis by comparison were Eagle Scouts. death ground-zero thanatos-instinct sadism united-states manhattan modernity Herman Wouk
d4e431e One feels such love for the little ones, such anticipation that all that is lovely in life will be known by them, such fondness for that set of attributes manifested uniquely in each: mannerisms of bravado, of vulnerability, habits of speech and mispronouncement and so forth; the smell of the hair and head, the feel of the tiny hand in yours--and then the little one is gone! Taken! One is thunderstruck that such a brutal violation has occurred in what had previously seemed a benevolent world. From nothingness, there arose great love; now, its source nullified, that love, searching and sick, converts to the most abysmal suffering imaginable. grief death George Saunders
de1c914 "You're innocent until proven guilty," Mandy exclaimed, unable to hide her gleeful smile. She missed the way people used to have normal conversations, used to be more caring for each other than themselves, back in the Seventies and Eighties. These days, she realized, neighbors kept to themselves, their kids kept to themselves, nobody talked to each other anymore. They went to work, went shopping and shut themselves up at home in front of glowing computer screens and cellphones... but maybe the nostalgic, better times in her life would stay buried, maybe the world would never be what it was. In the 21st century music was bad, movies were bad, society was failing and there were very few intelligent people left who missed the way things used to be... maybe though, Mandy could change things. Thinking back to the old home movies in her basement, she recalled what Alecto had told her. "We wanted more than anything else in the world to be normal, but we failed." The 1960's and 1970's were very strange times, but Mandy missed it all, she missed the days when Super-8 was the popular film type, when music had lyrics that made you think, when movies had powerful meanings instead of bad comedy and when people would just walk to a friend's house for the afternoon instead of texting in bed all day. She missed soda fountains and department stores and non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags, she wished cellphones, bad pop music and LED lights didn't exist... she hated how everything had a diagnosis or pill now, how people who didn't fit in with modern, lazy society were just prescribed medications without a second thought... she hated how old, reliable cars were replaced with cheap hybrid vehicles... she hated how everything could be done online, so that people could just ignore each other... the world was becoming much more convenient, but at the same time, less human, and her teenage life was considered nostalgic history now. Hanging her head low, avoiding the slightly confused stare of the cab driver through the rear view mirror, she started crying uncontrollably, her tears soaking the collar of her coat as the sun blared through the windows in a warm light." earth grief loss death convenient old-school reporter taxi retro cape-breton nova-scotia stuck moving digital medications leaving-home environment canada cars stop crying gone misery trapped lonely sad crazy insane dying mental-illness nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
09816d9 (On WWI:) A man of importance had been shot at a place I could not pronounce in Swahili or in English, and, because of this shooting, whole countries were at war. It seemed a laborious method of retribution, but that was the way it was being done. ... A messenger came to the farm with a story to tell. It was not a story that meant much as stories went in those days. It was about how the war progressed in German East Africa and about a tall young man who was killed in it. ... It was an ordinary story, but Kibii and I, who knew him well, thought there was no story like it, or one as sad, and we think so now. The young man tied his shuka on his shoulder one day and took his shield and his spear and went to war. He thought war was made of spears and shields and courage, and he brought them all. But they gave him a gun, so he left the spear and the shield behind him and took the courage, and went where they sent him because they said this was his duty and he believed in duty. ... He took the gun and held it the way they had told him to hold it, and walked where they told him to walk, smiling a little and looking for another man to fight. He was shot and killed by the other man, who also believed in duty, and he was buried where he fell. It was so simple and so unimportant. But of course it meant something to Kibii and me, because the tall young man was Kibii's father and my most special friend. Arab Maina died on the field of action in the service of the King. But some said it was because he had forsaken his spear. war death senselessness wwi Beryl Markham
5466d10 In actuality, it was like the homes of all people who are not really rich but who want to look rich, and therefore end up looking like one another: it had damasks, ebony, plants, carpets, and bronzes, everything dark and gleaming--all the effects a certain class of people produce so as to look like people of a certain class. And his place looked so much like the others that it would never have been noticed, though it all seemed quite exceptional to him. death furniture Leo Tolstoy
3f28646 You'd think after two thousand years, I'd be accustomed to looks of fear. death Kresley Cole
2cb476e "History doesn't start with a tall building sex shakespeare magic rain poems romance sacrifice death dreams music songs life carrack cityisle cityspire desolate fedora haunts horace-walpole mannequins phillip-k-dick puddles specters spectre amnesia androids haunting greek-mythology waking damnation count emily-dickinson magick tempest apocalypse reflections storms masquerade empty science-fiction gothic jazz ships ghosts water piano Nathan Reese Maher
750ca93 "And yet," said Poirot, "suppose an accident-" "Ah, no, my friend-" "From your point of view it would be regrettable, I agree. But nevertheless let us just for one moment suppose it. Then, perhaps, all these here are linked together - by death." murder death murder-on-the-orient-express myserty Agatha Christie
5e1c80e "We read off the ancient Hebrew words, with no idea of what they might mean, and the congregation responds with more words that they don't understand either. We are gathered together on a Saturday morning to speak gibberish to each other, and you would think, in these godless times, that the experience would be empty, but somehow it isn't. The five of us, huddled together shoulder to shoulder over the bima, read the words aloud slowly, and the congregation, these old friends and acquaintances and strangers, all respond, and for reasons I can't begin to articulate, it feels like something is actually happening. It's got nothing to do with God or souls, just the palpable sense of goodwill and support emanating in waves from the pews around us, and I can't help but be moved by it. When we reach the end of the page, and the last "amen" has been said, I'm sorry that' it's over. I could stay up here a while longer. And as we step down to make our way back to the pews, a quick survey of the sadness in my family's wet eyes tells me that I'm not the only one who feels that way. I don't feel any closer to my father than I did before, but for a moment there I was comforted, and that's more than I expected." death religion Jonathan Tropper
6b85892 The death of a parent, he wrote, 'despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and that may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago... memories death preparation parents Joan Didion
87fc769 I am near fourteen and have never yet seen a hanging. My life is barren. death life the-more-things-change hanging teenagers lol Karen Cushman
7245edc Not only during the ascent, but also during the descent my willpower is dulled. The longer I climb the less important the goal seems to me, the more indifferent I become to myself. My attention has diminished, my memory is weakened. My mental fatigue is now greater than the bodily. It is so pleasant to sit doing nothing - and therefore so dangerous. Death through exhaustion is like death through freezing - a pleasant one. death freezing willpower Reinhold Messner
19db57b "You have to appreciate life before you want to preserve it," she said. "And it's the survivors who maintain the most light and poignant hold upon the beauties of living. Women know this more often than men because birth is the reflection of death." death life survivor preservation Frank Herbert
d9c35b2 Go on, glare your eyes at me, and cry and plead, and talk to me about money and what it can buy. But it can't buy back a child once he's dead! kids youth death life glare glares glaring money-monetary plead buy pleading baby kid cry talk crying talking child children young dead eyes young-adults V.C. Andrews
8cbe568 I'm talking about those novels where the characters aren't really interesting and you don't care about them or anything they care about. It's those books I won't read anymore. There's too much else to read--books about people and things that matter, books about life and death. reading death life characters Will Schwalbe
5511fee You start to die the moment you are born. The whole of life is cutting through the pack with death. So take it easy. comfort living death life relax Ian Fleming
c40f52f "Sarra looked at her daughter and said reproachfully, "Speaking of war, I never raised you to be always fighting and killing. That's not woman's work." "It's needful, Ma. You taught me a woman has to know how to defend herself." "I never!" gasped Sarra, indignant. "You taught me when you were murdered in your own house," Daine said quietly." death fighting self-defense sad Tamora Pierce
36ae357 Nobody knows how many North Koreans have died or are dying in the famine--some estimates by foreign-aid groups run as high as three million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone--but the rotund, jowly face of Kim Il Sung still beams down contentedly from every wall, and the 58-year-old son looks as chubby as ever, even as his slenderized subjects are mustered to applaud him. death 1997 1996 1998 aid famine north-korean-famine kim-il-sung kim-jong-il north-korea propaganda Christopher Hitchens
942d829 "She surveyed the carnage behind him. "Did you have fun?" He showed her his teeth. "Yes." death cerise ilona-andrews the-edge william Ilona Andrews
088bfe6 The dark sky. A hundred million stars. More stars than I've ever seen before. My eyes let me see farther, but they don't show me the one thing I want to see. I would trade all the stars in the universe if I could just have him back again. Wind whistles through the trees nearby. Birdsong weaves in and out of the sound. The hybrids emerge from the communication building, heads tilted to the sky. And then we see the end. Godspeed's engine was nuclear; who knows what fueled the biological weapons. But they explode together. In space, they don't make the familiar mushroom cloud. They don't make the boom! of an exploding bomb. There is, against the dark sky, a brief flash of light. It is filled with colors, like a nebula or the aurora borealis, bursting like a popped bubble. Nothing else--no sound of an explosion, no tremors in the earth, no smell of smoke. Not here, on the surface of the planet. Nothing else to signify Elder's death. Just light. And then it's gone. And then he's gone. universe stars death aurora nebula elder atu-series shades-of-earth burst galaxy sky gone dead lost Beth Revis
a92c959 "Lords of spirit, Lords of breath, Lords of fireflies, stars, and light, Who will keep the world from death? stars light world spirit death fireflies breath blue-eyes sight night eyes Madeleine L'Engle
81308e6 O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies. suicide earth poem poetry christianity death the-virgin-suicides rebirth funeral Jeffrey Eugenides
f37c0e2 I know my time will come soon enough, but I will not dwell on it. What is the purpose? We might as well dwell on the work of our teeth or on the mechanics of our walk. It is there, it will always be there, and I don't intend to spend my glorious hours looking over my shoulder to see death's icy face. living death living-well fear-of-death Alberto Manguel
dd5009a He had thrown himself away, he had lost interest in everything, and life, falling in with his feelings, had demanded nothing of him. He had lived as an outsider, an idler and onlooker, well liked in his young manhood, alone in his illness and advancing years. Seized with weariness, he sat down on the wall, and the river murmured darkly in his thoughts. pain death life introspection Hermann Hesse
70f3e46 He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness. grief death George Saunders
5cd3bef "She's had a long life. Now she's going to the Lord." "Frankly it creeps me out a little when you say things like that," Simon said. "It shouldn't. If you don't like 'Lord,' pick another word. She's going home. She's going back to the party. Whatever you like." "I suppose you have some definite ideas about an afterlife." "Sure. We get reabsorbed into the earthly and celestial mechanism." "No heaven?" "That's heaven." "What about realms of glory? What about walking around in golden slippers?" "We abandon consciousness as if we were waking from a bad dream. We throw it off like clothes that never fit us right. It's an ecstatic release we're physically unable to apprehend while we're in our bodies. Orgasm is our best hint, but it's crude and minor by comparison." death orgasm Michael Cunningham
a8a1e71 You can't make me do nothing but die! freedom death Richard Wright
520ba9c I've wrought my family's destruction. Killed those I loved most, with my very touch. My dark precipice has been reached. I throw back my head and roar as recognition takes hold. I am Death... death Kresley Cole
e85ec0e For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway from a wold where dreams and adventures shrink, to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand. heaven death inspirational Randy Alcorn
d5d014c A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there's no escape from either. responsibility courage death life Ellis Peters
0887cea A man without trust might as well be dead. man trust death Robert Jordan
9b2e605 As my visits with Morrie go on, I begin to read about death, how different cultures view the final passage. There is a tribe in the North American Arctic, for example, who believe that all things on earth have a soul that exists in a miniature form of the body that hold it -so that a deer has a tiny deer inside it, and a man has a tiny man inside him. When the large being dies, that tiny form lives on. It can slide into something being born nearby, or it can go to a temporary resting place in the sky, in the belly of a great feminine spirit, where it waits until the moon can send it back to earth. Sometimes, they say, the moon is so busy with the new souls of the world that it disappears from the sky. That is why we have moonless nights. But in the end, the moon always returns, as do we all. That is what they believe. death inspirational Mitch Albom
5dc991f On the sea he wished to meet it, if meet it he must. He was not sure why this was, yet he had a terror of meeting the thing again on dry land. Out of the sea there rise storms and monsters, but no evil powers: evil is of earth. And there is no sea, no running of river or spring, in the dark land where once Ged had gone. Death is the dry place. death earthsea land sea water evil Ursula K. Le Guin
fa21d69 How talented was death. How many expressions and manipulations of hand, face, body, no two alike. death Ray Bradbury
f0e1c63 I was living my own future and my brother's lost one as well. I represented him here just as he represented me there, in some unguessable other place. His move from life to death might resemble my stepping into the kitchen - into its soft nowhere quality and foggy hum. I breathed the dark air. If I had at that moment a sense of calm kindly death while my heart beat and my lungs expanded, he might know a similar sense of life in the middle of his ongoing death. death life love glbtq Michael Cunningham
3d558de "The plane had lost power in all three engines, dropped from thirty-four thousand feet to twelve thousand feet. Something like four miles. When the steep glide began, people rose, fell, collided, swam in their seats. Then the serious screaming and moaning began. Almost immediately a voice from the flight deck was heard on the intercom: "We're falling out of the sky! We're going down! We're a silver gleaming death machine!" This outburst struck the passengers as an all but total breakdown of authority, competence and command presence and it brought on a round of fresh and desperate wailing." death authority Don DeLillo
04151cb The sudden loss of her father was like living with a wound that would never heal, yet her memories of him were fading more and more every day. loss memories death daughter father Frank Beddor
39fbc26 It's really difficult to talk about dead people, but it's even harder to talk about dead young women. It's because from the time they die, they'll be young forever. On the other hand, for us, the survivors, every year, every month, every day, we get older. Sometimes, I feel like I can feel myself aging from one hour to the next. It's a terrible thing, but that's reality. death girls Haruki Murakami
91f6c9e "I regarded him gently over my own bowl of stew. He was very large, solid, and beautifully formed. And if he was a bit battered by circumstance, that merely added to his charm. "You're a very hard person to kill, I think," I said. "That's a great comfort to me." death jamie Diana Gabaldon
24d9101 How would you know if you were the last man on Earth? He said. I don't guess you would know it. You'd just be it. solitude death life Cormac McCarthy
e737f9a Certainty. Life's last and kindest gift. sleep death-and-dying death czech-literature 20th-century-literature gallows-humor certainty bliss endings cynicism gifts Milan Kundera
939749c "What is the matter with you?" asked Shcherbatsky. "Nothing much, but there is little to be happy about in this world." "Little? You'd better come with me to Paris instead of going to some Mulhausen or other. You'll see how jolly it will be!" "No, I have done with that; it is time for me to die." "That is a fine thing!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing. "I am only just beginning to live." "Yes, I thought so too till lately; but now I know that I shall soon die." Levin was saying what of late he had really been thinking. He saw death and the apprroach of death in everything; but the work he had begun interested him all the more. After all, he had to live his life somehow, til death came. Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through the darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might." -- death humor levin Leo Tolstoy
e64c1c9 A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard. And the candle by which she had read the book that was filled with fears, with deceptions, with anguish, and with evil, flared up with greater brightness than she had ever known, revealing to her all that before was in darkness, then flickered, grew faint, and went out forever. death Leo Tolstoy
5b5515e Sooner or later, all talk among foreigners in Pyongyang turns to one imponderable subject. Do the locals really believe what they are told, and do they truly revere Fat Man and Little Boy? I have been a visiting writer in several authoritarian and totalitarian states, and usually the question answers itself. Someone in a cafe makes an offhand remark. A piece of ironic graffiti is scrawled in the men's room. Some group at the university issues some improvised leaflet. The glacier begins to melt; a joke makes the rounds and the apparently immovable regime suddenly looks vulnerable and absurd. But it's almost impossible to convey the extent to which North Korea just isn't like that. South Koreans who met with long-lost family members after the June rapprochement were thunderstruck at the way their shabby and thin northern relatives extolled Fat Man and Little Boy. Of course, they had been handpicked, but they stuck to their line. There's a possible reason for the existence of this level of denial, which is backed up by an indescribable degree of surveillance and indoctrination. A North Korean citizen who decided that it was all a lie and a waste would have to face the fact that his life had been a lie and a waste also. The scenes of hysterical grief when Fat Man died were not all feigned; there might be a collective nervous breakdown if it was suddenly announced that the Great Leader had been a verbose and arrogant fraud. Picture, if you will, the abrupt deprogramming of more than 20 million Moonies or Jonestowners, who are suddenly informed that it was all a cruel joke and there's no longer anybody to tell them what to do. There wouldn't be enough Kool-Aid to go round. I often wondered how my guides kept straight faces. The streetlights are turned out all over Pyongyang--which is the most favored city in the country--every night. And the most prominent building on the skyline, in a town committed to hysterical architectural excess, is the Ryugyong Hotel. It's 105 floors high, and from a distance looks like a grotesquely enlarged version of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco (or like a vast and cumbersome missile on a launchpad). The crane at its summit hasn't moved in years; it's a grandiose and incomplete ruin in the making. 'Under construction,' say the guides without a trace of irony. I suppose they just keep two sets of mental books and live with the contradiction for now. irony grief death doublethink drinking-the-kool-aid graffiti jonestown koreans moonies ryugyong-hotel jokes indoctrination surveillance dissent totalitarianism tourism-in-north-korea south-korea authoritarianism pyongyang kim-il-sung kim-jong-il north-korea propaganda mind-control university Christopher Hitchens
fd0661d (Just to give you an idea, Proust's reply was 'To be separated from Mama.') I think that the lowest depth of misery ought to be distinguished from the highest pitch of anguish. In the lower depths come enforced idleness, sexual boredom, and/or impotence. At the highest pitch, the death of a friend or even the fear of the death of a child. sex friends fear death proust-questionnaire impotence mothers idleness proust misery children Christopher Hitchens
bc4c204 "Come, my child," I said, trying to lead her away. "Wish good-bye to the poor hare, and come and look for blackberries." "Good-bye, poor hare!" Sylvie obediently repeated, looking over her shoulder at it as we turned away. And then, all in a moment, her self-command gave way. Pulling her hand out of mine, she ran back to where the dead hare was lying, and flung herself down at its side in such an agony of grief as I could hardly have believed possible in so young a child. "Oh, my darling, my darling!" she moaned, over and over again. "And God meant your life to be so beautiful!" grief death god hares children-s-literature rabbits dying Lewis Carroll
4c364c2 If seeing her an hour before her last Weak cough into all blackness I could yet Be held by chalk-white walls - death belsen wwii disease guilt Mervyn Peake
6761ee1 The other mammoths were as protective of the dying as they were of newborns, and they gathered around tying to make the fallen one get up. When all was over, they buried the dead ancestor under piles of dirt, grass, leaves, or snow. Mammoths were even known to bury other dead animals, including humans. death touching Jean M. Auel
55a57a8 DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR TRUST IN ROOT VEGETABLES. WHAT THINGS SEEM TO BE MAY NOT BE WHAT THEY ARE. -Death death potato Terry Pratchett
af3fca9 -But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know? -I believe; I have faith: I am going to God. -Where is God? What is God? -My maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me. death religion friend classic Charlotte Brontë
f050dce I have learned that it is one thing to kill in battle, to send a brave man's soul to the corpse hall of the gods, but quite another to take a helpless man's life... war revenge death Bernard Cornwell
bbbfe8c Time makes everything mean and shabby and wrinkled. The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful things die young, but that they grow old and mean. tragedy time youth beauty death shabby wrinkled grow mean old young die Raymond Chandler
1cd3001 And here face down beneath the sun And here upon earth's noonward height To feel the always coming on The always rising of the night poem poetry death night poet Archibald MacLeish
b426db6 Is that the end... of all the races and civilizations, and the dreams of the world, to be able to leave a few stones buried beneath the sands, to tell the Dark that we were here? death C.J. Cherryh
550f496 If death is no longer a fear, we're really free. Free to take any risk under the sun for Christ and for love. immortality faith death John Piper
0d85fe4 There was no light. The darkness was deep and there was no dazzle. light death Madeleine L'Engle
02f1239 White man trying to kill you slow every day, and sometimes trying to kill you fast. Why make it easy for him? That was one kind of work you could say no to. escape slavery death slaves whites race-relations Colson Whitehead
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