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Death
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“Jesus' Wife: "And where have YOU been for the past three days, Mr. Winemaker?" Jesus Christ: "It's okay, I'll tell you...Not that's important or anything, but I was DEAD!!! I'M IN A FUCKIN' GRAVE OUTSIDE OF TOWN! I'M FIGHTIN' DEATH, HELL, DECOMPOSURE! I'M CHANGIN' SPIRITUAL FORM, ABOUT TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD, AND I GO "WAIT A SECOND! I GOTTA GO BACK BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHERE I'VE BEEN!”
Sam Kinison (1953–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When they saw Patroklos dead — so brave and strong, so young — the horses of Achilles began to weep; their immortal nature was upset deeply by this work of death they had to look at.”
Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Apparently the only way to avoid a sudden agonising death, is to walk around in tights with a bottle of vinegar. I'd rather be fucking dead!”
Billy Connolly (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His soaring vaunt escaped the blooming ears of us, He's gone, he's dead, he's dirt, he disappears from us! Be this the death of highest thrust of human all? The flaming end of bright and shining crewmen all?Destroyed? His road is run? It's but a bend of it; Make no mistake, this only seems”
R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) said by 2002 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His wife had held him in her arms as if she could keep death away from him. He had cried out, "My God, I am a dead man!”
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Birthless and deathless and changeless remainaineth the spirit forever;Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!”
Edwin Arnold (1832–1904) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Song Celestial' quoted in The Other Side of Death, by C.W. Leadbeater (1903)
“Let us learn from the lips of death the lessons of life. Let us live truly while we live, live for what is true and good and lasting. And let the memory of our dead help us to do this. For they are not wholly separated from us, if we remain loyal to them. In spirit they are with us. And we may think of them as silent, invisible, but real presences in our households.”
Felix Adler (1851–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter”
Jesus (6 BC–33) said by 33 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the living one, and I became dead, but look! I am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of the Grave.”
Jesus (6 BC–33) said by 33 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You want retreat, filthy and deep A dead moon, a drunken sleep Baby, there is a room full of death and whores and truth And I am waiting in that room And I am waiting in there for you It's all hoarse, it's all pain It's all disease, man, it's all the same My little Judas, my little twin Where you start, that's where I begin”
Courtney Love (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hold on. I realize — can, just, just — I realize something's happening in Ferguson, but we're talking about something important here, so can you at least split-screen the video? I realize — look, the protesters and the police are clashing again, alright? They’re clashing again. But we're talking about the dead— the death of an American— of an American who was beheaded, and Pete deserves his say.”
Megyn Kelly (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He laid his right hand on me and said: Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the living one, and I became dead, but look! I am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of the Grave.”
John the Evangelist (10–98) said by 98 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the case of those who are killed in battle, as in all other cases of violent death, a spirit, during the first few moments, is in a state of bewilderment, and as though he were stunned. He does not know that he is dead and seems to be taking part in the action. It is only little by little that the reality of his situation becomes apparent to him.”
Allan Kardec (1804–1869) said by 1869 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had brought nothing to read except The Tibetan Book of the Dead, hoping to find its exotic iconography ridiculous enough to purge any fantasies he might still cling to about consciousness continuing after death.”
Edward St. Aubyn (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Death makes us strangers to ourselves ... Do not indulge yourself in a self-pitying, self-gratifying revenge. More than likely you would simply end up dead as well.”
Nick Drake (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...Virginia lingers another moment beside the dead bird in its circle of roses. It could be a kind of hat. It could be the missing link between millinery and death.”
Michael Cunningham (born 1952) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 121, 1999 paperback edition.
“I will lose a brother. Would that death had deprived me of life today! My mother Fatimah is dead, and my father Ali Ibn Abi Tālib, and my brother Hasan ibn Ali. O! You are the successor of those who have passed away and the guardian of those who remain!”
Zaynab bint Ali (626–684) said by 684 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She was dead, but her very death heightened that word "supernatural"; it was what she, not being, was.”
Charles Williams (1886–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: All Hallows Eve, rejected first draft. Quoted in The Inklings (1978) by Humphrey Carpenter, part 4, chapter 1, "No one turned up", p. 204
“Consider the fact that, in a few years, I shall be dead. This fact can seem depressing. But the reality is only this. After a certain time, none of the thoughts and experiences that occur will be directly causally related to this brain, or be connected in certain ways to these present experiences. That is all this fact involves. And, in that description, my death seems to disappear.”
Derek Parfit (1942–2017) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Derek Parfit, ‘The Unimportance of Identity’, in Henry Harris (ed.), Identity: Essays Based on Herbert Spencer Lectures Given in the University of Oxford, Oxford, 1995, p. 45
“Dead labour is far harder to control than the live stuff was, which is why the enlightenment project of interring gothic superstition was the royal road to the first truly vampiric civilization, in which death alone comes to rule.”
“No one hit the ball harder than Frank Howard. He was the strongest I ever saw. I saw him hit a line drive off Whitey Ford at the stadium that Whitey actually jumped for, it was hit that low. It ended up hitting the speakers behind the monuments in dead center. I told Whitey later that it was lucky he didn't catch it because it would have drug him to death.”
Mickey Mantle (1931–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I awoke in the morning, my mother and Julia Hislop were whispering in a corner. They didn't have to tell me why. I already knew that my father was dead. And when the feeling of peace wore off, the surprise at having known intensified my sense of loss and sorrow. Although I was only nine, I could imagine what death meant. I knew he was gone forever.”
Lana Turner (1921–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He hadn’t been religious. He’d believed that death was it. When you died you were dead, like a squished bug or drowned rat, and your immortality was in the minds of those you left behind.”
“Don't try to sell me on death, Odysseus. I'd rather be a hired hand back up on earth, Slaving away for some poor dirt farmer, Than lord it over all these withered dead.”
Stanley Lombardo (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Singh could not help but think that, in a hospital, the proximity of death was best disguised — and the actual dead hidden. It was not conducive to the right frame of mind for recovery to have the morgue signposted for patients. It would be the medical equivalent of 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here'.”
Shamini Flint (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[W]hen Eisenhower heard that the German residents of a nearby city "didn't know" about a death camp whose stench should have reached their nostrils, he marched them, well-dressed, through the rotting corpses, and made them help dispose of the dead. The mayor of Gotha and his wife, went home from this and hanged themselves. We lack Eisenhower's authority.”
Alan Charles Kors (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Want real socialism? Look at Venezuela, an oil-exporting nation that is now dead broke even as the family of its socialist dictator, Hugo Chavez, reportedly somehow inherited billions at his death in 2013. Redistribution of wealth often seems to involve redistributing most of it to the people on top of the socialist pyramid.”
Glenn Reynolds (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The boys of my gang – there were six or seven of us – none of them lived to be men, to be 21 years old, except one. All of them are dead from some violence or other, shot or cut to death before they were men, by white society…”
Gordon Parks (1912–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his childhood friends in “Gordon Parks, pioneering black film director – archive” in The Guardian (2016 Sep 22)
“I know about death…Our country is haunted by its dead, weighed down by loss and remembrance.”
Ayelet Tsabari (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When death will spread all over the land, then alone will the living dead understand.”
Tapan Kumar Pradhan (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This—this guy is dead now, right?” Marguerite shrugged. “Death is such a fragile thing. Who knows? I’ve heard rumors, but you can’t depend on anything these days. The greatest wizards of antiquity turn up with less warning than Hamptons houseguests.”
Esther Friesner (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are the dead and the witnesses to death of hundreds of thousands of our people, of the water, the air, the animals and forests and grassy lands that sustained them and us not so very long ago.”
Paula Gunn Allen (1939–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who have spoken best of death are all dead. (August 9, C.E.1900; Vergani, p. 172)”
Jules Renard (1864–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whatever the dead man see in the burial ground is caused by death”
Sade Adeniran (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On Reading An Anthology of Postwar German Poetry America saved me ...I was not crushed under rubble, nor was I beaten along a frozen highway; my children are not dead of postwar hunger; ...I have forced no one into a chamber of death. ...I know enough to refuse to say that life is good, but I act as though it were, and skeptical about love, I survive by the witness of my own.”
Lisel Mueller (1924–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I bear scars on wrist and soul from being chewed by а leopard who would have been dead if my gun's ammunition had fulfilled its basic purpose. But we picked the buckshot out of the cat's hide like currants from a bun. I choked the leopard to death with the shotgun, which doesn't work anymore.”
Robert Ruark (1915–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The old man lives on the dead and awaits death.”
Vittorino Andreoli (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But law does not begin at birth, nor does it end at death. It safeguards the unborn. It respects the dead. It regulates eternity in both directions.”
George Kanyeihamba (1939–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'd received death threats over the phone. Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up. So I was not a 'good guy'.”
Hugh Thompson Jr. (attributed) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a 2004 interview with 60 minutes.
“Just have one more try - it's dead easy to die, It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.”
Robert Service (1874–1958) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ServiceWise & OtherWise (1942)
“Hadrian... as you know an architect of note... put a lot of faith in stones... died peacefully... planning a Temple to Wisdom... still, he's dead. Nero -- best not to talk about him -- burnt Rome, caused untold misery, deserved to die; died screaming in a summerhouse.”
Peter Greenaway (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They had a legend about a Chemical pinned to a piece of dead matter and allowed to die that way—Diminished to extinction! Apparently a commonplace among Chemicals. Yet after this fearsome loss, the identity emerged from its full subtraction—to claim life again. Such a desperate story! Elementary knowledge tells us that such things do not happen, of course.”
Gregory Benford (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Foxy said the whole country was night and day asking God for favours. And you'd never get a chance to slip your own in. Especially if they had any old uncles or aunts to die to leave them a bit of land, they'd say dear Jesus would you ever strike the fuckers dead.”
J. P. Donleavy (1926–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly; leave it on earth: die light.”
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory — Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Music, When Soft Voices Die (1821)
“For our dead are a part of the earth of Spain now and the earth of Spain can never die.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the American Dead in Spain", New Masses (February 14, 1939)
“Making money ain't nothing exciting to me. ... You might be able to buy a little better booze than some wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat, and when you die you're just as graveyard dead as he is.”
Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ebony magazine, November 1964
“To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source