The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.

I joyfully hasten to meet death. If it come before I have had opportunity to develop all my artistic faculties, it will come, my hard fate notwithstanding, too soon, and I should probably wish it later – yet even then I shall be happy, for will it not deliver me from a state of endless suffering?

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.

The level of destruction and terror and violence carried out by the powerful states far exceeds anything that can imaginably can be done by groups that are called terrorists and subnational groups.

Wars based on principle are far more destructive… the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor.

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

We’re all going to die, all of us; what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing.

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around. I’ll probably be writing when the Lord says, ‚Maya, Maya Angelou, it’s time.‘

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.

I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need, if I die by four o’clock.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

Shall I, that have destroyed my Preservers, return home?

I don’t pick up toys. I crush them.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

I’ve reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can’t do anything to change events anyway.

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.

Some day science may have the existence of mankind in power, and the human race can commit suicide by blowing up the world.

Once the automobile appeared you could have predicted that it would destroy as many people as it did.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

All diseases run into one, old age.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

Millions of people die every day. Everyone’s got to go sometime.

It is natural to die as to be born.

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

Colleges are like old-age homes, except for the fact that more people die in colleges.

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

Our words will either bring life and victory or death and destruction. If we want to be happy, we have to be serious about speaking words of life that line up with God’s Word.

Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

Dalton’s records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you… Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.

From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.