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Death

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“When you go to bed, don't leave bread or milk on the table: it attracts the dead.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do I have a body? Or have I none? Am I who I am? Or am I not? Pondering these questions, I sit Leaning against the cliff while the years go by And the green grass grows up between my feet And the red dust settles on my head Then men of the world come and thinking me dead Bring offerings of wine and fruit”
Hanshan (born 800) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Disneyland is something that will never be finished. It's something that I can keep developing. It will be a live, breathing thing that will need change. A picture is a thing, once you wrap it up and turn it over to Technicolor, you're through. Snow White is a dead issue with me. But I can change the park, because it's alive.”
Walt Disney (1901–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Rides of Passage" in Via magazine (July 2005)
“The image a society evolves of the relationship between the living and the dead is, in the final analysis, an attempt, on the level of religious thought, to conceal, embellish or justify the actual relationships which prevail among the living.”
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The muffled thunder of dialogue comes through the walls, then a chorus of laughter. Then more thunder. Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950s. These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead.”
Chuck Palahniuk (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anymore, no one's mind is their own. You can't concentrate. You can't think. There's always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion. Someone's always spraying the air with their mood.”
Chuck Palahniuk (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leather shoes and fried chicken and dead soldiers are only a tragedy if you waste their gift sitting in front of the television. Or stuck in traffic. Or stranded at some airport.”
Chuck Palahniuk (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.”
Willa Cather (1873–1947) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: One of Ours (1922), Bk. II, Ch. 6
“The years seemed to stretch before her like the land: spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives; always the same yearning; the same pulling at the chain — until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously be released.”
Willa Cather (1873–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Were there no men of vision, all who are blind would be dead.”
Rumi (1207–1273) said by 1273 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: I, 2133 (tr. Helminski, 1990)
“I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom.”
Lin Yutang (1895–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever I hear you saying, rise and shine, rise and shine, it makes me think how lucky dead people are!”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Such a darling child, they would say, and pat her head. And Miriam would answer in her heart: you made my father a slave. You want us all dead. You are the river, you and all of Egypt. You are the river and as long as we stay beside you we are in danger of drowning.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be cut off from the land of the living, and yet not to be dead. How could I bear that? That's how most men live, and don't even know it.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That's what survival means, for me. I thought it was a matter of staying alive, but it isn't. Nobody lives forever anyway. It's how you're remembered. It's what your children thought of you, what they think of you after you're dead. That's survival.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'll be dead and you'll think about this day and wonder which of us was more the slave, you or me!”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t hold with prophets,” said Alvin. “Near as I can tell, they end up just as dead as the next man.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our savior will resurrect us,” said Peggy, “but I haven’t noticed that Christians end up any less dead at the end of life than heathens.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I see Alvin with a son. That what he want most.” “I see him with a woman,” said Rien. “That is what he miss the most.” “I see him kneeling by a child’s grave,” said Dead Mary. “That is what he fears the most.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I try never to brag but I'm probably the only person who has been on 60 Minutes twice and isn't dead.”
Chris Rock (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A scholar is like a book written in a dead language — it is not every one that can read in it.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1823 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Common Places," No. 13, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823)
“The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of dead men.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be remembered after we are dead, is but a poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance — all strewn with crumpled playbills.”
Henry James (1843–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've just read that I'm dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by: Ashwin Sanghi, 13 STEPS TO BLOODY GOOD LUCK, westland ltd, 2014
“'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white, Remember it's ruin to run from a fight: So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, And wait for supports like a soldier. Wait, wait, wait like a soldier...”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Song of the Dead, II, Stanza 1 (1896).
“He is dead already who doth not feel Life is worth living still.”
Alfred Austin (1835–1913) said by 1913 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People living and dead, things past and present, all are contributories to that diminutive stream, oneself; a reflection which is essentially consoling, since it associates one with the sum of things and prevents one from living in barren isolation.”
Alfred Austin (1835–1913) said by 1913 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At my age, all my friends, doctors, and attorneys are dead. The good thing about this is that there's no one left who can refute my stories.”
George Burns (1896–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maximizing the probability of winning does not lead to maximizing the expectation from the game when one's strategy may include , i.e., a small chance of a large loss and a large chance of a small win. If you engaged in a Russian Roulette-type strategy... you are likely to show up as the winner in almost all samples—except in the year when you are dead.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At no point during his ordeal did Nero think of himself as 72% alive and 28% dead.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no such thing as a failed soldier, dead or alive (unless he acted in a cowardly manner)—likewise there is no such thing as a failed entrepreneur or failed scientific researcher ...”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, in a way I wish I hadn't met you two. It's much more convenient to think of the opposition as a nice homogeneous, dead-wrong mass. Now I've got to muddy my thinking with exceptions.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was not a country in the world that had not fought a battle in the war of all Earth against the invaders from Mars. All was forgiven. All living things were brothers, and all dead things were even more so.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that flickered out.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As in my other works of fiction: All persons living and dead are purely coincidental, and should not be construed. No names have been changed in order to protect the innocent. Angels protect the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So the bastard's dead? Too bad we didn't capture him alive!”
Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Said in April 1945 — On hearing of Hitler's suicide, as quoted in The Memoirs of Georgy Zhukov
“The root of our psychological weakness was this: We socialists have never examined the problems of nations. The International was never concerned with it. The International is dead, paralyzed by events. Ten million proletarians are today on the battlefield.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution, J.L. Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 492. Original source: Mussolini, Opera Omnia VI, p. 427, 1914
“Christ is dead and his teachings moribund.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Twentieth Century Journey: The Start 1904-1930, William L. Shirer, Little, Brown & Company, (1976) p. 402 (proclaimed in 1922)
“To make a revolution it is not necessary to play the great drama of the area. We have left many dead on the roads to Rome and naturally anybody who deludes himself is a fool. We have the power and we shall hold it. We shall defend it against anybody! The revolution lies in this firm determination to hold power!”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Election Reform Bill,” speech (16 July 1923) delivered at the Chamber of Deputies, p. 354
“Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tariffs are making America GREAT & RICH Again... Now the tide has completely turned, and America has successfully countered this onslaught of Tariffs used against it. ONE YEAR AGO, AMERICA WAS A DEAD COUNTRY, NOW IT IS THE “HOTTEST” COUNTRY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL!”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Truth Social, reported in With trade deadline nearing, court case could define Trump's tariff authority Scripps News (July 31, 2025)
“Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2026 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Robert Mueller, special counsel who investigated Trump-Russia ties, dies at 81" The Guardian (March 21, 2026)