There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

It is normal to give away a little of one’s life in order not to lose it all.

All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.

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.

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

John 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.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

I’m 31 now. I think I’m beginning to understand what life is, what romance is, and what a relationship means.

Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.

The Congo was the most difficult shoot of my life but was also maybe the greatest adventure of my life.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

I think 9/11 affected everybody in one way or another.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

We spend our lives, all of us, waiting for the great day, the great battle, or the deed of power. But that external consummation is not given to many: nor is it necessary. So long as our being is tensed, directed with passion, towards that which is the spirit of all things, then that spirit will emerge from our own hidden, nameless effort.

I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car.

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?

The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

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

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn’t trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity.

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

We all die, we all get sick, we all feel hunger and lust and pain, and therefore human life is consistent from one generation to the other. We all – most of us, anyway – want connections with other people and spend our lives looking for them.

Our life is made by the death of others.

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.

Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.

Old age is just a record of one’s whole life.

I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog, but I would not intend this to imply that in all imaginable circumstances one must, necessarily, act in accordance with this general responsibility.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

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

We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

To be awake is to be alive.

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

Life would pall if it were all sugar; salt is bitter if taken by itself; but when tasted as part of the dish, it savours the meat. Difficulties are the salt of life.

Apart from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla.

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

My father had died, and very swiftly, too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was 79. I am 61. In whatever kind of a ‚race‘ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith.

Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, ‚Why god? Why me?‘ and the thundering voice of God answered, ‚There’s just something about you that pisses me off.‘