98 Death Quotes

Death is an inevitable part of life, a topic both feared and revered across cultures and generations. It has inspired some of the most profound and thought-provoking reflections captured in words. In our curated collection of the top 98 death quotes, you'll find a blend of wisdom, solace, and inspiration from great minds throughout history. These quotes offer insight into the mysteries of mortality, encouraging us to find meaning and beauty even in the face of our own impermanence. Join us in exploring these poignant words that remind us of the delicate balance between life and death, and the enduring legacy that our thoughts and actions leave behind.

1. “Unbeing dead isn't being alive.” - E. E. Cummings

2. “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” - Mitch Albom

3. “There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.” - Frank Herbert

4. “Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” - Mahatma Gandhi

5. “Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” - Helen Keller

6. “We're reaching for death on the end of a candle We're trying for something that's already found us” - Jim Morrison

7. “Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.” - Clarence Darrow

8. “Lebih banyak orang menghadapi kematian di atas tempat tidur daripada orang yang mati di atas pesawat. Tetapi kenapa lebih banyak orang yang takut mati ketika menaiki pesawat daripada orang yang takut menaiki tempat tidur.More people can see the face of death while their sleep in their own bed rather than people who can see the face of death while their flying in the plane. But why more people scare to take a plane than people who take a bed.” - Hamka

9. “Death always leaves one singer to mourn.” - Katherine Anne Porter

10. “Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.” - William Saroyan

11. “Death doesn't care about personalities - he's more interested in meeting quotas.” - Jasper Fforde

12. “People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die.” - Haruki Murakami

13. “And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly. Like certain ancient frescoes entombed for centuries suddenly exposed to the day.” - Cormac McCarthy

14. “But, who is Death? A figure that harrows and wastes wherever and however it pleases. This is also a possible description of the Countess Bathory. Never did anyone wish so hard not to grow old; I mean, to die. That is why, perhaps, she acted and played the role of Death. Because, how can Death possibly die?” - Alejandra Pizarnik

15. “When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

16. “As for myself: I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing sacred about myself or any human being, that we were all machines, doomed to collide and collide and collide. For want of anything better to do, we became fans of collisions. Sometimes I wrote well about collisions, which meant I was a writing machine in good repair. Sometimes I wrote badly, which meant I was a writing machine in bad repair. I no more harbored sacredness than did a Pontiac, a mousetrap, or a South Bend Lathe.” - Kurt Vonnegut

17. “The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.” - T.S. Eliot

18. “ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.Death took a step backwards.It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.Death glanced sideways at the servants. LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?” - Terry Pratchett

19. “That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.” - Sarah Dessen

20. “Again the ranch is on the market and they’ve shipped out the last of the horses, paid everybody off the day before, the owner saying, ‘Give them to the real estate shark, I’m out a here,” dropping the keys in Ennis’s hand. He might have to stay with his married daughter until he picks up another job, yet he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream.” - Annie Proulx

21. “And I could have died right then. And considering how things went, I really should have.” - Ned Vizzini

22. “...Matt. I didn't think they'd kill you... I'm so sorry...” - Tsugumi Ohba

23. “Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.” - Terry Pratchett

24. “I'm bored with it all. - Last Words” - Winston Churchill

25. “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” - Epicurus

26. “Love is like a flower. Its upright when its in harmony and withered when its dead.” - Dalia

27. “Surplus meant unnecessary. Not required.You couldn’t be a Surplus if you were needed by someone else. You couldn’t be a Surplus if you were loved.” - Gemma Malley

28. “Dying is the fastest route to fame for an aspiring rock star. The dead man’s melodies become profound, acquiring mystery and rising into a realm beyond the reach of human criticism. In the stopping of a heartbeat, the rocker is transformed from decadent hedonist into misunderstood genius. Aye, death and musical stardom go together like Scotland and rain.” - Mark Rice

29. “We think of mortality so little these days...I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones.Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by,As you are now so once was I:As I am so will you be...” - Tana French

30. “The thin line between life and death is still under construction.” - Santosh Kalwar

31. “Life would go out in a 'fraction of a second' (that was the phrase), but all night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the passage of light. There were no clocks and the light wouldn't change. Nobody really knew how long a second of pain could be. It might last a whole purgatory--or for ever.” - Graham Greene

32. “Dance, my darling dance! If you dance then death can't catch you! Nothing bad can touch you! Dance!” - Jackie French

33. “A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of a man.” - W. Somerset Maugham

34. “Just when normal life felt almost possible - when the world held some kind of order, meaning, even loveliness (the prismatic spray of light through an icicle; the stillness of a sunrise), some small thing would go awry and the veil of optimism was torn away, the barren world revealed. They learned, somehow, to wait those times out. There was no cure, no answer, no reparation.” - David Wroblewski

35. “I used to think I knew everything. I was a "smart person" who "got things done," and because of that, the higher I climbed, the more I could look down and scoff at what seemed silly or simple, even religion.But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-no matter how smart or accomplished-they cry, they yearn, they hurt.But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things:comfort, love, and a peaceful heart.” - Mitch Albom

36. “If a man confessed anything on his death bed, it was the truth; for no man could stare death in the face and lie.” - richard wright

37. “The day after Paul Newman was dead, he was twice as dead.” - Maurice Sendak

38. “You know Sven? The man who takes care of the gym?' he asked. He waited till he got a nod from Nicholson. 'Well, if Sven dreamed tonight that his dog died, he'd have a very, very bad night's sleep, because he's very fond of that dog. But when he woke up in the morning, everything would be all right. He'd know it was only a dream.'Nicholson nodded. 'What's the point exactly?'The point is if his dog really died, it would be exactly the same thing. Only he wouldn't know it. I mean he wouldn't wake up till he died himself.” - J.D. Salinger

39. “You'll forget it when you're dead, and so will I. When I'm dead, I'm going to forget everything–and I advise you to do the same.” - Kurt Vonnegut

40. “The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.” - Jean Cocteau

41. “Y allá en el fondo está la muerte si no corremos y llegamos antes y comprendemos que ya no importa.” - Julio Cortazar

42. “We have only a little time to please the living. But all eternity to love the dead.” - Sophocles

43. “Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains [heaven]. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a Lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.” - C.S. Lewis

44. “The Ladies Buddenbrook from Breite Strasse did not weep, however - it was not their custom. Their faces, a little less caustic than usual at least, expressed a gentle satisfaction at death's impartiality.” - Thomas Mann

45. “Life is a struggle, from the agonies of birth to the railing against death. Devour or be devoured. The law of the wild.” - David Gemmell

46. “Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.” - Mitch Albom

47. “The country people, indeed, did not always clearly distinguish between the Fairies and the dead. They called them both the 'Silent People'; and the Milky Way they thought was the path along which the dead were carried to Fairyland.” - Hope Mirrlees

48. “In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.” - Leo Tolstoy

49. “As individuals die every moment, how insensitive and fabricated a love it is to set aside a day from selfish routine in prideful, patriotic commemoration of tragedy. Just as God is provoked by those who tithe simply because they feel that they must tithe, I am provoked by those who commemorate simply because they feel that they must commemorate.” - Criss Jami

50. “This concern, feebly called 'love of nature', seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

51. “Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.” - Mary Shelley

52. “Your coffin reached the monstrous hole. And a part of me went down into the muddy earth with you and lay down next to you and died with you.” - Rosamund Lupton

53. “Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.” - Katherine Mansfield

54. “You thought you had the choice to stay still or move forward, but your didn't. As long as your heart kept pumping an your blood kept blowing and your lungs kept filling, you didn't. The pang she felt for Tibby carried something like envy. You couldn't stand still for anything short of death, and God knew she had tried.” - Ann Brashares

55. “The thing about oracles is that they talk back.” - Darin Bradley

56. “I think...I think its always been you who was dying,"- Delaney” - Megan Miranda

57. “Do you know how wizards like to be buried?""Yes!""Well, how?"Granny Weatherwax paused at the bottom of the stairs."Reluctantly.” - Terry Pratchett

58. “The TriflerDeath's the lover that I'd be taking;Wild and fickle and fierce is he.Small's his care if my heart be breaking-Gay young Death would have none of me.Hear them clack of my haste to greet him!No one other my mouth had kissed.I had dressed me in silk to meet him-False young Death would not hold the tryst.Slow's the blood that was quick and stormy,Smooth and cold is the bridal bed;I must wait till he whistles for me-Proud young Death would not turn his head.I must wait till my breast is wilted.I must wait till my back is bowed,I must rock in the corner, jilted-Death went galloping down the road.Gone's my heart with a trifling rover.Fine he was in the game he played-Kissed, and promised, and threw me over,And rode away with a prettier maid.” - Dorothy Parker

59. “I carry the seeds of death within me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love.” - Orson Scott Card

60. “Please, please, help me grow to be like them, the ones'll soon be here, who never grow old, can't die, that's what they say, can't die, no matter what, or maybe they died a long time ago but Cecy calls, and Mother and Father call, and Grandmere who only whispers, and now they're coming and I'm nothing, not like them who pass through walls and live in trees or live underneath until seventeen-year rains flood them up and out, and the ones who run in packs, let me be the one! If they live forever, why not me?” - Ray Bradbury

61. “Pentru mine, moartea este doar hotarul unde încetează să mai existe "mâine". Numai până acolo poți să iubești, să visezi, să regreți. Brusc, tot ce n-ai făcut va rămâne pentru totdeauna nefăcut.” - Octavian Paler

62. “What glitters may not be gold; and even wolves may smile; and fools will be led by promises to their deaths.” - Lauren Oliver

63. “I know there's no heaven. I know it all turns to nothingness. But I fear there will be some remnant of me left within that void. Left conscious by some random fluke. Something that will scream out for this. That one speck of my soul will still exist and be left trapped and wanting. For you. For the light. For anything.” - Drew Magary

64. “لو كان الموت يصنع شيئا لوقف مد الحياة!..ولكنه قوة ضئيلة حسيرة، بجانب قوى الحياة الزاخرة الطافرة الغامرة...!.” - سيد قطب

65. “I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

66. “Se sentó en la única silla de la habitación y, al final, preguntó:—¿Eres tú?—Sí. Tengo frío, cachorrito.—Estás muerta, cielo.—Sí. Sí. Lo estoy.” - Neil Gaiman

67. “Oh dire, dreadful death, you drag your heels.Why dawdle and draw back? You drown my heart.” - Simon Armitage

68. “To die on a dying Earth - I'd live, if only to weep.” - Joanna Russ

69. “Suppressing the fear of death makes it all the stronger. The point is only to know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that "I" and all other "things" now present will vanish, until this knowledge compels you to release them - to know it now as surely as if you had just fallen off the rim of the Grand Canyon. Indeed you were kicked off the edge of a precipice when you were born, and it's no help to cling to the rocks falling with you. If you are afraid of death, be afraid. The point is to get with it, to let it take over - fear, ghosts, pains, transience, dissolution, and all. And then comes the hitherto unbelievable surprise; you don't die because you were never born. You had just forgotten who you are.” - Alan Wilson Watts

70. “Cry no tears for us, my friend.” I pry at her fingers, panicking to be released in fear that she may drag me into death with her. She croaks again, “Lend no aches to the dreams of yesterday.” From the corpse of Warren, his greyish gums smack from whatever goo has settled in his mouth, “Allow the tide sweep free the bay.” Then together they sing in zombie choir, “And home the ships sailing send.” - Nathan Reese Maher

71. “Will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.” - Ray Bradbury

72. “I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52)” - Barbara Blatner

73. “Life into death— Life’s other shape, No rupture, Only crossing.” - Dejan Stojanovic

74. “É preferível morrer por amor que viver sem ele.” - Álvarez de Azevedo

75. “And when [Bëor] lay dead, of no wound or grief, but stricken by age, the Eldar saw for the first time the swift waning of the life of Men, and the death of weariness which they knew not in themselves; and they grieved greatly for the loss of their friends. But Bëor at the last had relinquished his life willingly and passed in peace; and the Eldar wondered much at the strange fate of Men, for in all their lore there was no account of it, and its end was hidden from them.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

76. “Death is only final when you know you're not going to see them again!” - Evinda Lepins

77. “I once met Death, but she told me that she was on her period. Because of that, I couldn't sleep with her. When she came back to me the second time, I simply ignored her, which really pissed her off. Now, Death has become my enemy. I love the fact that Death is my enemy, and yet I trust her more than anyone else.” - Lionel Suggs

78. “Who are we to make such a decision? To allow another living being - any living being - to die, when ours is the power to prevent it? - Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic)” - John Byrne

79. “There's no way of knowing that your last good day is Your Last Good Day. At the time, it is just another good day.” - John Green

80. “I always wondered what it must be like to lose a twin—if somehow Mary felt it like it was happening to her. If she felt physical pain.” - Francesca Lia Block

81. “They all want to leave the Gray Space, Liv, she’d tell me. They don’t realise they’re dead until they remember what it sounds like to be alive.” - Kate Ellison

82. “Recollection of death also serves as a useful preparation for the time when one actually has to face death. As the concluding exercise among the body contemplations, a regular recollection of death can lead to the realization that death is fearful only to the extent to which one identifies with the body. With the aid of the body contemplations one can come to realize the true [impermanent] nature of the body and thereby overcome one's attachment to it. Being free from attachment to the body, one will be freed from any fear of physical death.” - Anālayo

83. “Tragedy is when someone ends up dead.Everything else is just a bump in the road.” - Gabrielle Zevin

84. “Do we kill time, or does time ultimately kill us?” - Anthony Liccione

85. “I must go on living. And, though itmay be childish of me, I can't go on insimple compliance. From now on I muststruggle with the world. I thought thatMother might well be the last of thosewho can end their lives beautifully andsadly, struggling with no one, neitherhating nor betraying anyone. In theworld to come there will be no room forsuch people. The dying are beautiful,but to live, to survive – those thingssomehow seem hideous andcontaminated with blood.” - Osamu Dazai

86. “Gates got up, but not fast or jerkily, with the same slowness that had always characterized him. He wiped the sweat off his palms by running them lightly down his sides. As though he were going to shake hands with somebody.He was. He was going to shake hands with death.He wasn't particularly frightened. Not that he was particularly brave. It was just that he didn't have very much imagination. Rationalizing, he knew that he wasn't going to be alive anymore ten minutes from now. Yet he wasn't used to casting his imagination ten minutes ahead of him, he'd always kept it by him in the present. He couldn't visualize it. So he wasn't as unnerved by it as the average man would have been.("3 Kills For 1")” - Cornell Woolrich

87. “Being dead is highly overrated. It’s no fun at all." -- Mythe: A Fairy Tale” - P.J. Gordon

88. “You die in the middle of your life.” - John Green

89. “And I hope she does not live in a dark world. Because even the most terrible loss doesn't have to make you darker; it can make you deeper.” - Augusten Burroughs

90. “All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.” - Leila Aboulela

91. “Tessa had lain down beside him and slid her arm beneath his head, and put her head on his chest,listening to the ever-weakening beat of his heart. And in the shadows they'd whispered, reminding each other of the stories only they knew. Of the girl who had hit over the head with a water jug the boy who had come to rescue her, and how he had fallen in love with her in that instant. Of a ballroom and a balcony and the moon sailing like a ship untethered through the sky. Of the flutter of the wings of the clockwork Angel. Of holy water and blood.” - Cassandra Clare

92. “Kako se ono zovete? SMRT. (...)- Ne mogu tvrditi da sam čuo za tu tvrtku - rekao je Lezek. - A gdje vam je sjedište? OD NAJVEĆIH MORSKIH DUBINA, DO VISINA U KOJE SE SAMO ORAO MOŽE UZDIĆI, rekla je Smrt.- To je zbilja široko područje rada...” - Terry Pratchett

93. “Everything was going to kill you, poetry as well, and the last was the most deadly.” - Brian Castro

94. “Lay downYour tired & weary head my friend.We have wept too longNight is fallingAnd you are only sleepingWe have come to this journey's endIt's time for us to goTo meet our friendsWho beckon usTo jump againFrom across a distant skyA C-130 comes to carry usWhere we shall all wait For the final green lightIn the light ofThe pale moon risingI see far on the horizonInto the world of night and darknessFeet and knees togetherTime has ceasedBut cherished memories still lingerThis is the way of life and all thingsWe shall meet againYou are only sleeping.” - José N. Harris

95. “There is a very popular opinion that choosing life is inherently superior to choosing death. This belief that life isinherently preferable to death is one of the most widespread superstitions. This bias constitutes one of the most obstinate mythologies of the human species.” - Mitchell Heisman

96. “There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.” - Iris Murdoch

97. “Kylie looked up towards the sky. "Sometimes I just wish Heaven wasn't so far away.” - C.C. Hunter

98. “DO you think it hurts to die?" Not as much as it hurts to live, Trixie thought.” - Jodi Picoult