Quotes & Sayings About Already Being Dead

Shara was already an avid reader by then, but she had never realized until that moment what books meant, the possibility they presented: you could protect them forever, store them up like engineers store water, endless resources of time and knowledge snared in ink, tied down to paper, layered on shelves ... Moments made physical, untouchable, perfect, like preserving a dead hornet in crystal, one drop of venom forever hanging from its stinger.
She felt overwhelmed. It was
she briefly thinks of herself and Vo, reading together in the library
a lot like being in love for the first time. — Robert Jackson Bennett

Do you know why our poetry today and especially our philosophy are such dead issues? Because they've cut themselves off from life. Now, Greece idealized on life's own level: an artist's life was already a poetic achievement; a philosopher's life was an enactment of his philosophy; and when they were a part of life that way, instead of ignoring each other, philosophy could nourish poetry, poetry express philosophy, and together achieve an admirable persuasiveness. Today beauty no longer acts; and action no longer bothers about being beautiful; and wisdom operates on the sidelines. — Andre Gide

I've got to have wheels," Theo called after him, and swore under his breath as he heard his father
walk down the stairs. "You might as well be dead out here without wheels." He flopped back on the
bed to brood up at the ceiling.
Maddy just shook her head. "You're such a moron, Theo."
"You're so ugly, Maddy."
"You're never going to get a car if you nag him. If I help you get a car, you have to drive me to the
mall twelve times, without being mean about it."
"How are you going to help me get a car, you little geek?" But he was already considering. She
almost always got what she wanted.
She sauntered into the room, made herself at home. "First the deal. Then we discuss — Nora Roberts

1Then I looked again at all the acts of aoppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had bno one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. 2So aI congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. 3But abetter off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Mom's already dead!" I yelled at him. "Who the hell do you think you're saving?"
And he just gave me his Sad, Tired look. It's one of the three he's got, the other two being Pissed Off and Blised Out on ESPN. — Barry Lyga

Too many of my friends are dead, and others wrecked
By various diseases of the intellect
Or failing body. How am I still upright?
And even I sleep half the day, cough half the night.

How did it come to this? How else but through
The course of years, and what its workings do
To wood, stone, glass and almost all the metals,
Smouldering already in the fresh rose petals.

Our energy deceived us. Blessed with the knack
To get things done, we thought to get it back
Each time we lost it, just by taking breath -
And some of us are racing yet as we face death.

Well, good to see you. Sorry I have to fly.
I'm struggling with a deadline, God knows why,
And ghosts keep interrupting. Think of me
The way I do of you. Quite often. Constantly. — Clive James

I wish I could explain it so someone could understand it. I'm afraid it's something I can't put into words. There's just this heavy, overwhelming despair - dreading everything. Dreading life. Empty inside, to the point of numbness. It's like there's something already dead inside. My whole being has been pulling back into that void for months. (81) — Kay Redfield Jamison

Everything is already there in ... " How does it come about that [an] arrow points? Doesn't it seem to carry in it something besides itself? - "No, not the dead line on paper; only the psychical thing, the meaning, can do that." - That is both true and false. The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

It all seems so worthless. Such a waste of lives. We've spent hundreds of years since the Return buffering the Dark City and trying to maintain it - scraping out a life that will soon be wiped out.
And what of the rest of the world that's already fallen? Stars blinking away, their light slowly fading? Somewhere out there a star's just dying and we'll never know about it. Somewhere another's being born whose light we'll never see.
The Earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothing ness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything-all of us-will simply cease to be. — Carrie Ryan

The sensation - it's not sorrow, but something deeper - of being broken. Of being crushed so often, and so hatefully, that emotion becomes something you can only wish for. If only you could cry, because then you'd feel something. Instead, you feel nothing. Just ... haze and smoke inside. Like you're already dead. — Brandon Sanderson

We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. We have an obligation to use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside. We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. We must not attempt to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but we should use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time. — Neil Gaiman

Everybody is called to become a saint. Not everybody's gonna be canonized by the Church ... The only thing about being canonized is you're already dead so you don't even get to go to the party. — Lino Rulli

It was as if the boy had already divined what his senses and intellect had not encompassed yet: that doomed wilderness whose edges were being constantly and punily gnawed at by men with plows and axes who feared it because it was wilderness, men myriad and nameless even to one another in the land where the old bear had earned a name, and through which ran not even a mortal beast but an anachronism indomitable and invincible out of an old dead time, a phantom, epitome and apotheosis of the old wild life which the little puny humans swarmed and hacked at in fury of abhorrence and fear like pygmies about the ankles of a drowsing elephant;
the old bear, solitary, indomitable, and alone; widowered childless and absolved of mortality
old Priam reft of his old wife and outlived all his sons. — William Faulkner

If your problem is being chronically starved of social bonds, then part of the solution is to bond with the heroin itself and the relief it gives you. But a bigger part is to bond with the subculture that comes with taking heroin - the tribe of fellow users all embarked on the same mission and facing the same threats and risking death every day with you. It gives you an identity. It gives you a life of highs and lows, instead of relentless monotony. The world stops being indifferent to you, and starts being hostile - which is at least proof that you exist, that you aren't dead already. The heroin helps users deal with the pain of being unable to form normal bonds with other humans. The heroin subculture gives them bonds with other human beings. — Johann Hari

When you're that resigned and oppressed you're already dead. It shows the genocide was prepared for too long. I detest this fear. These victims of genocide had been psychologically prepared to expect death just for being Tutsi. They were being killed for so long that they were already dead. — Philip Gourevitch

During the night she had told me, 'I feel old. I miss being young.' She curled her arms over her chest, looking already like all the dead Papillons I hade seen littering the grass beneath the sycamores on campus. Unlike any of the other Papillons, though, she was in my apartment, curled in my lap. I missed being young too. Only I had thousands of days to go. — Maggie Stiefvater

I was sitting in a movie theater at 4:13 in the morning, with a faerie muse who had vaguely psychic vampire tendencies, watching The Sixth Sense.
At this point in my life I'd had some pretty freaky, surreal experiences already, such as (1) watching my best friend move things with her mind, (2) being dragged from my wrecked car by a soulless faerie assassin, and (3) feeling the inexorable pull of the king of the dead's nightly song. And really, sitting with Nuala and watching a crazy little boy tell Bruce Willis that he saw dead people should've been included amongst them. — Maggie Stiefvater

Maybe Justin, my students, spoiled me for people my own age, usually so boring, talking about their endless health problems, pros/cons of being cremated, not realizing they're already dead in the most tragic way. — Alma Luz Villanueva

Even knowing all of that, if I head to Kauf alone, I can make it in half the time that it would take the wagons. I don't wish to leave Laia - I will feel the absence of her voice, her face, every day. I already know it. But if I can make it to the prison in a month, I'll have enough time before Rathana to break Darin out. The Tellis extract will keep the seizures at bay until the wagons get close to the prison. I will see Laia again. I rise, coil my bedroll, and make for Afya's wagon. When I knock on the back door, it takes her only a moment to answer, despite it being the dead of night. She — Sabaa Tahir

I am dead already. Physical death will make no difference in my case. I am timeless being. I am free of desire or fear, because I do not remember the past or imagine the future. Where there are no names and shapes, how can there be desire and fear? With desirelessness comes timelessness. I am safe, because what is not, cannot touch what is. You feel unsafe, because you imagine danger. Of course, your body as such is complex and vulnerable and needs protection. But not you. Once you realize your own unassailable being, you will be at peace. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

All of the designers I have met up to this point have been very nice, although upon being introduced to Karl Lagerfeld, he looks me up and down and dismisses me with the not super-kind, "What can you write that hasn't been written already?"
He's absolutely right, I have no idea. I can but try. The only thing I can come up with right now is that Lagerfeld's powdered white ponytail has dusted the shoulders of his suit with what looks like dandruff but isn't ... seated on a tiny velvet chair, with his large doughy rump dominating the miniature piece of furniture like a loose, flabby, ass-flavored muffin over-risen from its pan, he resembles a Daumier caricature of some corpulent, overfed, inhumane oligarch drawn sitting on a commode, stuffing his greedy throat with the corpses of dead children, while from his other end he shits out huge, malodorous piles of tainted money. How's that for new and groundbreaking, Mr. L.?
— David Rakoff

Ghouls," I heard Archer say. His voice was low and tense, like a person who's being confronted by a wild animal. "Reanimated human flesh, used as guardians. Seriously dark magic. Someone obviously didn't want us finding-"
"Oh my God,less talking, more stabbing, please." My voice was squeaky with fear, and I knew my eyes wer huge when I swiveled around to look at Archer.
He already had the sword in his hand, and he was crouching slightly. "I can slow them down, but ghouls can't be killed by blades. You're the one who has to stop them."
"Come again?" I nearly squeaked.
"You're a necromancer," he said. "They're dead."
Oh,right. One of the many "perks" of having a lot of dark magic at my disposal. But I'd never seen the point in boning up on my necromancer skills. When was I ever going to need to order around the dead? — Rachel Hawkins

Maybe I was just being paranoid. But that's the thing about the game. If you weren't paranoid, you were dead already. — Allison Van Diepen

Lance rolled his eyes. "I'm already sorrier than you could possibly imagine. Now you promise me you won't interfere, or mention it to anyone, or poke your nose in, or follow Mr. Traynor along the street when he comes into town, ... "
Lily snorted. "As if I would tell anyone! You think I want it spread around that my son's into puppy play?"
Lance felt his temper supernova. Yes, that was really quite an interesting sensation, the way the cells inside his chest spontaneously burst into flame. "I AM NOT INTO PUPPY PLAY! AND HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW THAT TERM?"
Lily waved her hand as if he was being silly. "Please. Like I was born fifty years old."
"I want to be stricken dead. Right now," Lance groaned and hid his face.
"Oh, all right. Fine! You're doing some reconnaissance in your dog form, and that's all it is, and it's none of my business, and I've always been a virgin. You and your brothers and sister were all conceived by supernatural means. Happy? — Eli Easton

I've already just completely opened up about my shame and my inability to be open and straightforward about this. You're exposing something I've already held up to view. It's your shame about being ashamed of what you're afraid might be seen as a lack of brightness that's getting to stay buried under this dead horse of my deformity that you're trying to whip. — David Foster Wallace

I loved her, Eric. So much. And she died. I only get the general sense of things and they pass so quickly, like childhood smells touching you and then being gone on the breeze. But. But but but. It feels strange to be writing this down - I think I believed I could change what happened, undo it, prevent it, save her life somehow after she was already gone. Of course I couldn't. Dead is dead is dead. — Steven Hall

For me, being in a car or on an airplane is like being in limbo. It's this dead zone between two places. But to walk, you're some place that's already interesting. You're not just between places. Things are happening. — Rebecca Solnit

Not much different from the morgue. Smaller," she noted, scanning the steel worktables, the gullies on the sides, the hoses and tubes and tools. "I guess he got some of his knowledge of anatomy working here. Might have had some of his early practice sessions on corpses."
"Charming thought."
"Yeah, well, being as they were already dead - hopefully - it probably didn't upset them too much. Oh, and FYI? When my time comes, I don't want the preservatives and the stylist. You can just build a big fire, slide me in. Then you can throw yourself on the pyre to show your wild grief and constant devotion."
"I'll make a note of it. — J.D. Robb

R-4 got stuck on the First Law. "Can anyone really protect a human being from all harm whatever?" it thought. "No. It is inevitable that all humans must be injured, contract illnesses and ultimately die. The future can only be averted for humans who are already dead. Ergo ... " It took a dozen cops to subdue R-4, after his blood orgy in a department store (83 dead, none injured). — John Sladek

One minute walking along, the next minute dead. Why?"
THINK OF IT BEING MORE ... DIMENSIONALLY DISADVANTAGED.
"Yes. I know." Beano relaxed, and stopped wondering too much about events in an increasingly irrelevant world. Death found that people often did, after the initial confusion. After all, the worst had already happened. At least ... with any luck. — Terry Pratchett

There was to be nothing special about it, nothing that savored of a religious Order, no special rule, no distinctive habit. She, and those who joined her, would simply be poor
there was no choice on that score, for they were that already
but they would embrace their poverty, and the life of the proletariat in all its misery and insecurity and dead, drab monotony. They would live and work in the slums, lose themselves, in the huge anonymous mass of the forgotten and the derelict, for the only purpose of living the complete, integral Christian life in that environment
loving those around them, sacrificing themselves for those around them, and spreading the Gospel and the truth of Christ most of all by being saints, by living in union with Him, by being full of His Holy Ghost, His charity. — Thomas Merton

The Triumph Of Achilles

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted--
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal. — Louise Gluck

How could I suddenly go from a person who had struggled to dissect an already dead mouse, to someone who was willing to murder a human being? There was no logic to it! — Adele Rose

Hordes of people on the street, lighted Christmas trees sparkling high on penthouse balconies and complacent Christmas music floating out of shops, and weaving in and out of crowds I had a strange feeling of being already dead, — Donna Tartt

I actually come from comics, and I'm big on comics. I was reading 'Walking Dead' from the beginning. Then just being on the show, I was really lucky to work on episodes like 'Pretty Much Dead Already' and 'Clear.' I worked a lot on episodes that I didn't write. — Scott M. Gimple

You're already dead inside. Years of living in Espoo have made you an empty husk of a human being. They don't call their hockey team the "Espoo Blues" for nothing. — Phil Schwarzmann

When he first met Kai, Sehun already knew that he was about to lose entire world. Although at the time, he thought that Kai would try to destroy his world. How can you hang on to something so incomprehensible? How can you keep pouring love into an abyss? An abyss. That was what Kai was. This town was not his home. This house was not his home. Kai was. Being in his arms, having him inflict a sort of beautiful pain was home. Sehun fell for Kai and he fell for Sehun just as hard. — Hyperionova

One thing about being successful is that I stopped being afraid of dying. Once you're a star you're dead already. You're embalmed. — Dustin Hoffman

Han struggled to remember Master Leontus's lectures on healing, the recitations he'd drowsed through. I'll never have need of that, Han had thought. I'm being trained to kill people, not heal them. He'd thought everyone he'd ever want to heal was already dead.
He'd been wrong. — Cinda Williams Chima

Soldier on guard says they've identified "someone on two legs a hundred metres from the outpost". The other soldier, in the lookout, says "A girl about ten," but by then they're already shooting. Girl's dead[ ... ]The point is this use of code, on two legs, denoting human. It reminded me of that speech by their Prime Minister saying that we were beasts walking on two legs [ ... ]The idea that having legs makes you human. I thought of adding a Primo Levi-ish dimension to it. Merging this two-legged idea with a sort of general question about what is a man, you know, linking it to "if this is a man who labours in the mud/ who knows no peace/ who fights for a crust of bread?" [ ... ] my thesis being that the occupation, the closures, the siege have made amputees of all of us, crawling around in the mud. Legless in Gaza. The lot of us. — Selma Dabbagh

Yet a single sound, a single scent, already heard or breathed long ago, may once again, both in the present and the past, be real without being present, ideal without being abstract, as soon as the permanent and habitually hidden essence of things is liberated, and our true self, which may sometimes have seemed to be long dead, but never was entirely, is re-awoken and re-animated when it receives the heavenly food that is brought to it. — Marcel Proust