Why is it okay to put someone to death, but it’s not okay for those people to do it themselves?
The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die – although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born.
My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. some rises and falls. But that’s it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I’d loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.
I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it’s in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped.
The brave men die in war. It takes great luck or judgment not to be killed. Once, at least, the head has to bow and the knee has to bend to danger. The soldiers who march back under the triumphal arches are death’s deserters.
Everything worthwhile ends. We are in the perpetual process now: creation, maturation, cessation.
I don’t know if love exists, not the kind that keeps. I think love’s an infatuation that turns into a habit, because you can’t keep that passion going. You get used to people, and that’s death for me – I like to be surprised.
Time moves on for us, for you it stands still. You will be forever ageless as we grow old, your smile will never wrinkle, nor will that shine in your eyes fade..
I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more…
You’re probably wondering what’s going to happen to you. That’s easy. The same thing is going to happen to you that has happened to every other human being who has ever lived. You’re going to die. We all die. That’s just how it is.
A small but noteworthy note. I’ve seen so many young men over the years who think they’re running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.
From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.
The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.
People aren’t often asked to make life or death decisions. There are no causes to die for. You can go through life never knowing which of your friends would really come through for you
This sadness is one of the great trials of the human experiment. As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift – or curse, perhaps – of awareness about our own mortality. Everything here eventually dies; we’re just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day.
My death, taking the light from my eyes, gives back to the day the purity which they soiled.
My reasons to liveWere my reasons to dieBut at least they were mineNow I’ve freedom unboundCut the laces of life
If no one knows when a person is going to die, how can we say he died prematurely?
Witness also that when we talk about literature, we do so in the present tense. When we speak of the dead, we are not so kind.
.. when all this started, I asked myself, ‘Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?’ I decided I’m going to live – or at least try to live – the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humour, with composure.
The thing about butterflies, Mr. Crow, is that they need to be admired from afar.
It’s quite simple. Death isn’t what we think it is. It isn’t life which ends but time which stops.
Death would hurt only for a moment, which was not so bad when one considered how much, and for how long, life hurt.
Till her appointed course be run;Till on the darkness faint her breathFlown to the silent void, and DeathSit crowned upon the ashen sun.(“The Testimony of the Suns”)
A poet might die at twenty-one, a revolutionary or a rock star at twenty four. But after that you assume everything’s going to be all right. you’ve made it past Dead Man’s Curve and you’re out of the tunnel, cruising straight for your destination down a six lane highway whether you want it or not.
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’stBut in his motion like an angel sings,Still quiring [making music] to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls,But whilst this muddy vesture of decayDoth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it.
It is certainly safe, in view of the movement to the right of intellectuals and political thinkers, to pronounce the brain death of socialism.
Death Row inmates are almost twice as expensive to house each year as other inmates. Death penalty trials are much costlier than trials where execution is not a potential punishment and consume more time from judges, public defenders, and other legal personnel.
Now I’m not blaming anything on her—I take full responsibility for my own actions— but it was Annette’s betrayal that began my slow spin downward to insanity.
Yes, Bastille. I keep trying to get killed because it’s inconvenient for you.
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.
I am alone on this road strewn with bones and bordered by ruins! Angels have their brothers, and demons have their infernal companions. Yet I have but the sound of my scythe when it harvests, my whistling arrows, my galloping horse. Always the sound of the same wave eating away at the world
If you can overcome love, you can overcome fear. If you can overcome fear, you can overcome death.
Do you know why hurricanes have names instead of numbers? To keep the killing personal. No one cares about a bunch of people killed by a number. ‘200 Dead as Number Three Slams Ashore’ is not nearly as interesting a headline as ‘Charlie kills 200.’ Death is much more satisfying and entertaining if you personalize it.Me, I’m still waitin’ for Hurricane Ed. Old Ed wouldn’t hurt ya, would he? Sounds kinda friendly. ‘Hell no, we ain’t evacuatin’. Ed’s comin’!
Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.
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.
In the last moment of his life, he turned his fading flame of life into a huge fire that enveloped the world. I’ve never laughed more than on that day…!! I’ve never cried more than on that day… I’ve never drank more either..!! He was our captain… and he was a magnificent man…!!!
And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me.
What will I be doing in twenty years’ time? I’ll be dead, darling! Are you crazy?
IT’S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY’RE NOT /MEANT/ TO BE SAFE.
Death seems to be a long way off. Is this not shallow thinking? It is worthless and is only a joke within a dream. It will not do to think in such a way and be negligent. Insofar as death is always at one’s door, one should make sufficient effort and act quickly.
Suicide is an attack on society–an attack on its omnipotence, on its denial of death, and on its own despair.
I g-g-guess…I’m dead? she heard her own voice call out, strangely high-pitched and thin.For a long time, she heard nothing else. And then:Hi, Dead. I’m Dan.
Nox didn’t say a word. He waited, counting the seconds in his mind. Sometimes you counted bullets and sometimes you counted time. Either one could kill you.
I don’t think so, said the captain. Their ship is clearly outfitted with weapons systems that it did not have when it left Terrene over 600 years ago. And they are pointed directly at us.
My life was going to flash before my eyes, but it decided to hide behind my eyes and quake with terror instead.
There is not a day or night but a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief Rabbit’s. Sometimes it is taken, sometimes it is not. But there is no bargain, for here, what is, is what must be.
Death cuts off possibilities. Even if they were possibilities you never meant to act on, it feels differentwhen they’re gone.
Anyway, I’m sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever another war, I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it. I’ll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.
It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, poppies, smiling, anthills, the color of the sky, coffee and cashmere, literature, sparks and subway trains… If only one could leave this life slowly!
One death is too many – and with careful management and a lot of luck, the coronavirus sweeping the globe will be curbed, in terms of illness and loss of life.
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.
What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.