death

"I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying."

"...When you die, the energy that kept you alive filters into the people you loved. Did you know that? It's like a fire you've tended all your life, and the sparks are all scattered into the wind.... That's why we survive as long as we do, because the people who loved us keep us going."

"He could not stand. It was notThat he could not thrive, he was bornWith everything but the will –That can be deformed, just like a limb.Death was more interesting to him.Life could not get his attention."

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

"Hazel has to realize that her mom was wrong when she said, “I won’t be a mother anymore.” The truth is, after Hazel dies (assuming she dies), her mom will still be her mom, just as my grandmother is still my grandmother even though she has died. As long as either person is still alive, that relationship survives. (It changes, but it survives.)"

"Where music thundered let the mind be still,Where the will triumphed let there be no will,What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill."

"Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is."

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

"A life is not a waste of time"

"Death has this much to be said for it:You don't have to get out of bed for it.Wherever you happen to beThey bring it to you—free."

"Death is part of who we are. It guidesus. It shapes us. It drives us to madness. Can you still be human if you have no mortal end"

"She’s ignoring my texts. Maybe she’s dead. Oh, I certainly hope so. I’d hate to think she’s being deliberately unresponsive."

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"

"Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them."

"It's better to burn out than to fade away."

"[Children] just cannot be sad too long, it is not in them, as children mourn in little bits here and there like patchwork in their lives."

"Now comes the mystery! (last words)"

"If you’re going to hang around and watch me write, you might as well have a noose around your neck. Would you mind if I kicked the chair out from under your feet? You’re standing on my only place to sit."

"We see a hearse; we think sorrow. We see a grave; we think despair. We hear of a death; we think of a loss. Not so in heaven. When heaven sees a breathless body, it sees the vacated cocoon & the liberated butterfly."

"You're dead, George. You just don't have the sense to lie down."