QUOTES ON LIFE, DEATH & INSANITY

LIFE

Life is sexually transmitted.

- Anon Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove. - Ashleigh Brilliant I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole , "Babylon 5 " In "The Myth of Sisyphus", his most important non-fiction work, Albert Camus suggested that if we believed what most people claim to be the purpose of life, we would feel compelled to commit suicide. If, however, we accept that life has no purpose we would be inclined to soldier on in a cussed, stoical manner like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing his rock up a hill only to see it roll down again.

        - Phillip French, "The Observer"

Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think life sucks, then you get cancer, then your dog dies, your wife leaves you, the cancer goes into remission, you get a new dog, you get remarried, you owe ten million dollars in medical bills but you work hard for thirty-five years and you pay it back and then — one day — you have a massive stroke, your whole right side is paralyzed, you have to limp along the streets and speak out of the left side of your mouth and drool but you go into rehabilitation and regain the power to walk and the power to talk and then — one day — you step off a curb at Sixty-seventh Street, and BANG you get hit by a city bus and then you die. Maybe.

- Denis Leary A priest asked: "What is Fate, Master?"
And he answered: "It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness."
"And that is Fate?" said the priest.
"Fate ... I thought you said Freight", responded the Master.
"That's all right", said the priest. "I wanted to know what Freight was too."
        - Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"

"We are born in a lottery, and we perish in one."
        - Kevin Myers, "The Irish Times"

"Sure don't take life too seriously, none of us are getting out of it alive."
        - Colin Murphy, "The Blizzard of Odd"

"I was born in Tyrone, 1956, for something I didn't do. I was innocent. But they gave me life. I still remember the midwife who extradited me."
        - Kevin McAleer

"Life's not a paragraph and death I think is no parenthesis."
        - EE Cummings (1894-1962)

DEATH

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me the most strange that men should fear seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.

- William Shakespeare, "Julius Ceasar" People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has a man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? 'Natural' death, almost by defintion, means something slow, smelly and painful. We like to see death as an unfair conspiracy, and what we want is a magic practitioner, a combination of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

        - AA Gill, "The Times"

Dead men tell no tales.

- John Dryden, "Spanish Friar", 4.1 Never murder a man who is committing suicide.

        - Woodrow Wilson

"I want to be a pretty corpse."

        - Eva Braun, choosing poison instead of a gun in "Downfall"

They live ill who expect to live always.

Do not go gentle into that good night...
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. "There's something about seeing a new grave that makes me want to run a 4 minute mile, get drunk, and shack up with a redhead... not necessarily in that order."
        - Peter Gunn

"At my age I do what Mark Twain did. I get my daily paper, look at the obituaries page and if I'm not there I carry on as usual."
        - Patrick Moore

"I'm of an age when if I started to do eulogies, I'd be doing nothing else."
"You don't want to be remembered?"
"I don't want them to be told to remember me."
        - Garrison Keilor, in "A Prairie Home Companion"

"Part of our grief may be for things done or left undone; words said or words never said."
        - from the eulogy in "In My Father's Den"

"I hate this feeling, but I am so scared of losing it."
        - Mina Murray, grieving for her lost love in "Dracula"

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep for the dead I loved so well.
        - Walt Whitman

When the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box.
        - Italian Proverb

Weep not that I have gone, rejoice that I have been.
        - ?

If I could think that I had sent a spark to those who come after I should be ready to say Goodbye.
        - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, February 29, 1932

Death is delightful. Death is dawn, The waking from a weary night of fevers unto truth and light.
        - James Russell Lowell

Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means life itself has become one.

- Theodore Roosevelt Man transcends death by finding meaning for his life...What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance. - Beckar One owes respect to the living, but to the dead one owes nothing but the truth.

        - Voltaire

The farce is finished. I go to seek a vast perhaps.

- Francois Rabelais I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. I warmed both hands by the fire of life.

        - Walter Savage Landor

We are all sentenced to capital punishment for the crime of living.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes Every man dies, not every man really lives. - William Wallace, "Braveheart" Having read the inscriptions upon the tombstones of the great and little cemeteries, Wang Peng advised the Emperor to kill all the living and resurrect the dead. - Paul Elridge, "Wang Peng" on how improve the kingdom "Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability."

        - George Bernard Shaw

This world to her Was but a tragic play. She came, saw, dislik'd, And passed away.

        - Inscription on tomb for a teenage girl in London's Southwark Cathedral

Death is not everything. It is more cruel not to be able to die.

- Nosferatu Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where. - John Dryden, Aureng-Zebe Life. Consider the alternative. - Marshall McLuhan DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH. - Pratchett & Gaiman, "Good Omens" Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

        - Unknown

On my gravestone, I want it to say, "I told you I was sick."

- Tom Waits This is no time to make new enemies. - Voltaire when asked on his deathbed to forswear Satan Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

The statistics on death are in, and they're pretty convincing. One out of every one people die..

- Unknown New studies show that 100% of all smokers die. - Craig Bruce If I had know I'd live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself. - Jay Young Aging is bad, but consider the alternative. - Anon "If you say someone was 'convivial,' that means he was an alcoholic. 'Lifelong bachelor' means he was gay. 'Enjoyed his privacy' means he was a raging queen."
        - Dan explains the shorthand of writing an obiruary, "Closer"

He had a sense of fun, including an ability to speak backwards and a penchant for asking his staff to speak in foreign accents.
        - from "The Telegraph" obit for Lord Kelvedon (Feb'07)

Please keep off the grass.
        - Peter Ustinov, on what should be written on his tombstone

Quiet, isn't it?
        - Comedian Frank Carson, on his preferred epitaph

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
        - Oscar Wilde

"My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go."
        - Oscar Wilde's reported last words

"Thomas Jefferson survives."
        - John Adams, he actually outlived friend and rival Jefferson by several hours dying 4 July 1826

"Gentlemen, you have no sense of honor left, pray have some of humanity."
        - Virginian Daniel Parke, last words after being tortured by rebels in Antigua

"Major, tell my father that I died with my face to the enemy."
        - Colonel I.E. Avery, Confederate soldier at Gettysburg (1863)

"Take a step forward lads — it'll be easier that way."
        - Erskine Childers' last words, to his firing squad, Irish Civil War (1922)

"I see that you have made three spelling mistakes."
       - Marquis de Favras, comments to clerk after reading his own death sentence (1790)

"It is for all men that come into the world once to die; and after death the judgment! And since death is a debt that all of us must pay, it is but a matter of small moment what way it be done."
        - Richard Rumbold, from his 'gallows' speech before execution for treason 1685

"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis."
        - Humphrey Bogart

"Call immediately. Time is running out. We both need to do something monstrous before we die."
        - Message from Ralph Steadman to Hunter Thompson

"Nonsense! They couldn't hit an elephant at that range"
        - Last words of US Civil War General John Sedgewick, in his fourth year of the war

"Die? My dear Doctor, that's the last thing I shall do!"
        - Lord Palmerston, British statesman and Prime Minister. 1784-1865

"I am just going outside and may be some time."

- Captain Lawrence Oates (1880-1912), British soldier and explorer. Before leaving the tent and vanishing into the blizzard on the ill-fated Antarctic expedition . Oates was afraid that his lameness would slow down the others. INSANITY & PARANOIA

In the barking blue-blood stakes the Brits lag way behind the 19th-century King Otto of Bavaria, who felt that the best way to keep alert was to shoot a peasant a day. Fortunately his minders were able to fill his gun with blanks, and guards were told to dress as peasants and fall over when the King fired. Otto, happily, was too dense to realise.

        - Richard Morrison, "The Times"

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

- Rita Mae Brown They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. - Nathaniel Lee on being consigned to a mental institution, c. 1700 "A weak mind isn't strong enough to hurt itself. Stupidity has saved many a man from going mad.

        - Doctor Frank Reeves, "A Matter of Life and Death"

When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

- Robert A. Heinlein, "The Cat Who Walkes Through Walls" My psychiatrist says I have a messiah complex. But I forgave him. - Jim Carrey After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, 'No hablo ingles.' - Ronnie Shakes "I've discounted suicide in favor of killing everyone else in the world instead."

        - Spider Jerusalem, "Transmetropolitan #17"

Roleplaying is an escapist activity that requires a good imagination, but it is not recommended for those with a poor grip on reality. It does not make weirdos, it simply attracts them.

- rec.games.frp.* FAQ I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed. - James Thurber, "Credos and Curios " Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule. - Friedrich Nietzsche Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. - Albert Camus If there's nothing wrong with me, there must be something wrong with the Universe... - Beverley Crusher, "Star Trek : TNG" Hell is other people. Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. - H. L. Mencken It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. - Krishnamurti Feeling screwed up at a screwed up time in a screwed up place does not necessarily make you screwed up. - Mark Hunter, "Pump Up The Volume" Ma'am, that was no deranged killer that attacked you, it was a homocidal maniac. - Anon That was madness. You're never going to bring one of those down with a handgun. - Sean Penn on why he regrets shooting at "paparazzi" helicopters What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? - Ursula LeGuin "We think you should see a psychiatrist."
"Is it that obvious?"
        - The Hunter Family, "Pump Up The Volume"

"For as long as I could remember I've always wanted to spend three months as an in patient in a psychiatric hospital."
        - Jonathan Breech, facing hospital or prison, "On The Edge"

"Mom, if you're trying to drive me crazy, I can walk from here."
        - Sarah, on "Brothers & Sisters"

"When ee fear something, I think we wish for it."
        - Edmond, in David Mamet's "Edmond"

The Cardinal [of Ravenna] is at his wits’ end — it is true that he did not have far to go.

        - Byron

Insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting different results.

- StarHawk,"The Fifth Sacred Thing" I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every waking minute of it. - Anon There are two kinds of paranoia: Total, and insufficient. I am both, because if you think you are sufficiently paranoid, you're not.... When everyone IS out to get to you, being paranoid isn't going to help.. - Unknown..but paranoid I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy. - J. D. Salinger A bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for three days.
        - A Story from Zimbabwe, seen in "The Irish Independent"

Crazy is when you stay out clubbing until you pass out. Insane is when you stay home and club yourself until you pass out.
Crazy is when you buy a talking parrot. Insane is when you teach him sign language.
Crazy is when you write angry letters to your congressman. Insane is when you write angry letters to your cat, who happens to be named Congressman.
Crazy is when you swim immediately after eating. Insane is when you refuse to eat without swimming first.
Crazy is when you think up nicknames for all your friends. Insane is when you call all your friends Nick.
        - Steve Dupont

#

UNKNOWN POEM

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond's glint on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripening grain,
I am the gentle autum rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of circled birds in flight,
I am the stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

#

Return to Quotes index, or Site homepage.