“There are ways of dying that don't end in funerals. Types of death you can't smell.”

“I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next.”

“The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.”

“Lots of different ways to live and lots of different ways to die. But in the end that doesn't make a bit of difference. All that remains is a desert.”

“I don't think you will ever be able to understand what it is like - the utter loneliness, the feeling of desperation - to be abandoned in a deep well in the middle of the desert at the edge of the world, overcome by intense pain in total darkness. I went so far as to regret that the Mongolian noncom had not simply shot me and got it over with. If I had been killed that way, at least they would have been aware of my death. If I died here, however, it would be truly a lonely death, a death of no concern to anyone, a silent death.”

“Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?""I guess it depends on how you die.”

“You can't choose how you're born, but you can choose how you die”