“I've had more students die than I ever thought possible. My husband urgesme to quit Fairfield and teach at some school without gang members who live their lives only to die or end upas drug dealers.”

“I guessed that only at the last possible minute did the soul in a determined fashion flee the dying flesh. Who could blame it for its reluctance? We loved our lives more than we ever knew, and at the end felt the bounty of them, as one would say in church, felt even the richness of their missed opportunities, or just understood that they were more than we had realized during the living of them and a lot to give up.”

“The living must look after one another, he thought. The worst possible outcome is to die without having lived.”

“It seems as if no man had ever died in America before, for in order to die you must first have lived. These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live.”

“The end of Religion is not to teach us how to die, but how to live....”

“I'd rather die on my own terms than live on theirs. I'd rather die loving Alex than live without him.”