Quotes & Sayings About Comforting Death

Life may be scary
But it's only temporary.
And this is perhaps the most comforting conclusion to be reached if one discounts the possibility of meaning.

from: Antinatalism A Thought Experiment — Quentin S. Crisp

The more clearly we can see the walls of our life, the better. Even if it's only a psychological boundary, even if, deep down, we know that death will still enter without asking, it's comforting to pretend that we have everything under control. — Paulo Coelho

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world. — Henry David Thoreau

Some people hate funerals. I find them comforting. They hit the pause button on life and remind us that it has an end. Every eulogy reminds me to deepen my dash, that place on the tombstone between our birth and our death. — Regina Brett

Some people draw a comforting distinction between force and violence. I refuse to cloud the issue by such word-play. The power which establishes a state is violence; the power which maintains it is violence; the power which eventually overthrows it is violence. Call an elephant a rabbit only if it gives you comfort to feel that you are about to be trampled to death by a rabbit. — Kenneth Kaunda

I think about the sound the waves made against the walls of the lifeboat. A hushing sort of whisper that I'd eventually found comforting.
It had become, for me, the reckoning of death. — Carrie Ryan

A chill crept over Duiker. Even wheeled hospitals carried with them that pervasive atmosphere of fear, the sounds of defiance and the silence of surrender. Mortality's many comforting layers had been stripped away, revealing wracked bones, a sudden comprehension of death that throbbed like an exposed nerve. — Steven Erikson

As I sat alone at my desk in the dark, I thought about suicide. Sometimes I did that, thought about suicide, though not in an active way - it was more like pulling a lucky stone out of your back pocket. It was a comforting thing to have with you, so you could rub your fingers over it, reassure yourself that it was there if you needed it. I didn't want to try to kill myself, didn't want the blood and the hysterical parents and the guilt, any of it. But sometimes I liked the idea of simply not having to be here anymore, not having to deal with my life. As if death could be just an extended vacation.
But now what I thought about suicide was this: If I died tonight, everyone would believe this journal was true.
Like Amelia, Chava, and Sally, everyone would forever believe that I had written that diary. Everyone would believe they knew how I "really felt." And how dare they? — Leila Sales

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief-
woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep. — Gerard Manley Hopkins

Do not be deceived by the outside appearance of order in our plutocratic society. It fares with it as it does with the older norms of war, that there is an outside look of quite wonderful order about it; how neat and comforting the steady march of the regiment; how quiet and respectable the sergeants look; how clean the polished cannon ... the looks of adjutant and sergeant as innocent-looking as may be, nay, the very orders for destruction and plunder are given with a quiet precision which seems the very token of a good conscience; this is the mask that lies before the ruined cornfield and the burning cottage, and mangled bodies, the untimely death of worthy men, the desolated home. — William Morris

Encased in an elaborate illusion of unlimited power and progress, each of us subscribes, at least until one's midlife crisis, to the belief that existence consists of an eternal, upward spiral of achievement, dependent on will alone.
This comforting illusion may be shattered by some urgent irreversible experience ... None more potently confronts us with finiteness and contingency than the imminence of our own death. — Irvin D. Yalom

at best, religion generates comforting noises to mask the fact that someone is starving to death, or is dying of cholera, or has had a crusader stick a sword in his or her chest. — P.Z. Myers

Americans have an abiding belief in their ability to control reality by purely material means ... airline insurance replaces the fear of death with the comforting prospect of cash. — Cecil Beaton

Yet however comforting and peaceful beach-combing is, it ends up like the sea, as disturbing as it is reassuring. In dark moments I believe that walking on a beach at low tide is to be looking for death, or at least anticipating it. You will only find the dead, the spilled and the cast-off. Things torn free of their life or their place. — Tim Winton

Time doesn't heal all wounds. We both know that's bullshit; it comes from people who have nothing comforting or original to say. — Adam Silvera

It would be especially comforting to believe that I have the answer to the question, What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that - the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness, persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop? — Mary Roach

There's something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now. — Angelina Jolie

It struck me that Lee was in many ways our true hero. Lee was the one who did the dirtiest jobs, quietly, without fuss, without going into big emotional scenes. He was so efficient, so reliable, so brave. Whenever we fell short, he made up the gap. I'm not just talking about the red hot moments, when enemy soldiers were shooting at us, when we were within a moment of death. I'm talking about the sourer times too, when we were so tired we could hardly remember to breathe, or we were so bored we'd pick at each other just for something to do, or so distressed we'd wish a soldier would come along and blow us into oblivion with an M16. At all those times Lee stood strong. He was like the Wirrawee grain silo. You could see the grain silo from miles away, tall and reliable. It stood for Wirrawee, and it gave you a safe comforting feeling to know it was there. That was how I'd felt about Lee during the war. — John Marsden

Today, when death and old age are increasingly concealed behind euphemisms and comforting baby talk, and life is threatened with being smothered in the mass consumption of hypnotic mechanized vulgarity, the need to confront man with the reality of his situation is greater than ever. For the dignity of man lies in his ability to face reality in all its senselessness; to accept it freely, without fear, without illusions - and to laugh at it. — Martin Esslin

Teatime put a comforting arm around his shoulders. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm on your side. A violent death is the last thing that'll happen to you. — Terry Pratchett

Jesus lives! the same comforting, helping, instructing, loving Elder Brother, as when John leaned on His bosom, as when He lifted Peter up from the waves, as when He dried Mary's tears with His, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." Jesus lives! the same almighty Saviour, Guide, Intercessor, as when He ascended to glory with the broken fetters of sin and death in His pierced hands. — Abbott Eliot Kittredge

As you and I listen to Uncle Monty tell the three Baudelaire orphans that no harm will ever come to them in the Reptile Room, we should be experiencing the strange feeling that accompanies the arrival of dramatic irony. This feeling is not unlike the sinking in one's stomach when one is in an elevator that suddenly goes down, or when you are snug in bed and your closet door suddenly creaks open to reveal the person who has been hiding there. For no matter how safe and happy the three children felt, no matter how comforting Uncle Monty's words were, you and I know that soon Uncle Monty will be dead and the Baudelaires will be miserable once again. — Lemony Snicket

The only difference between the end of love and the end of life being that at least in the latter, we are granted that the comforting thought that we will not feel anything after death. No such comfort for the lover, who knows that the end of the relationship will not necessarily be the end of love, and almost certainly no the end of life. — Alain De Botton

The purpose of a funeral service is to comfort the living. It is important at a funeral to display excessive grief. This will show others how kind-hearted and loving you are and their improved opinion of you will be very comforting. — P. J. O'Rourke

If you weren't so sorely injured," she said evenly, "I would slap you." The laudanum was beginning to take affect, and Mr. Fairfax yawned expansively. "You've already set me on fire and then tried to beat me to death. A simple slap would probably be refreshing." Fury surged through Emma's system to snap in her eyes. "Don't worry, Mr. Fairfax. You'll be quite safe from me in the future." "That's comforting." Emma — Linda Lael Miller

How sweet is the assurance, how comforting is the peace that come from the knowledge that if we marry right and live right, our relationship will continue, notwithstanding the certainty of death and the passage of time. Men may write love songs and sing them. They may yearn and hope and dream. But all of this will be only a romantic longing unless there is an exercise of authority that transcends the powers of time and death. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Funerals seem less about comforting the souls of these dearly departed than about
comforting the people they leave behind. — Rin Chupeco

The fantastic postulates that there are forces in the outside world, and in our own natures, which we can neither know nor control, and these forces may even constitute the essence of our existence, beneath the comforting rational surface. The fantastic is, moreover, a product of human imagination, perhaps even an excess of imagination. It arises when laws thought to be absolute are transcended, in the borderland between life and death, the animate and the inanimate, the self and the world; it arises when the real turns into the unreal, and the solid presence into vision, dream or hallucination. The fantastic is the unexpected occurrence, the startling novelty which goes contrary to all our expectations of what is possible. The ego multiplies and splits, time and space are distorted. — Franz Rottensteiner

As he fell asleep he was still thinking of the subject which now occupied his mind all of the time - of life and death.

'Love? What is love?' he mused.

'Love Hinders death. Love is life. Anything at all that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is - everything exists - only because I love. All is bound up in love alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a tiny particle of love, shall return to the universal and eternal source.' These thoughts seemed comforting to him. But they were only thoughts. Something was wanting in them, there was something one-sided and personal, something intellectual. They were not self-evident. And he was prey to the same restlessness and uncertainty. He fell asleep. — Leo Tolstoy

I'm so sorry. I read of it only yesterday. Otherwise, I would have come sooner.' And what good that reassurance was, he had no idea. I would not have come if her were alive, but I would have come at the very moment of his death, had I known of it. Yes, that must be very comforting to her. — Meredith Duran

[H]e found poetry more comforting than Scripture - and his ability to forge from his life a cogent, powerful tale of living with death. — Paul Kalanithi

Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source. These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they were too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former agitation and obscurity. — Leo Tolstoy

Please, when I come home, don't forget the "soul" ... and I don't mean "sweet sayings" ... I mean the truth, the sharing of our inmost thoughts, good or bad ... lost or comforting. That is the soul. I think it. The soul, is I think, a human being who speaks with the pressure of death at his head. That's how I'd phrase it. The self in trouble ... not just the self without love (as us) but the self as it will always be (with gun at its head finally) ... To live and know it is only for a moment ... that is to know "the soul" ... and it increases closeness and despair and happiness ... — Anne Sexton

After all, there was nothing preposterous and world-shaking in the idea that there might be events which overstepped the limited categories of space, time, and causality. Animals were known to sense beforehand storms and earthquakes. There were dreams which foresaw the death of certain persons, clocks which stopped at the moment of death, glasses which shattered at the critical moment. All these things had been taken for granted in the world of my childhood. And now I was apparently the only person who had ever heard of them. In all earnestness I asked myself what kind of world I had stumbled into. Plainly, the urban world knew nothing about the country world, the real world of mountains, woods and rivers, of animals and 'God's thoughts' (plants and crystals). I found this explanation comforting. At all events, it bolstered my self-esteem. — C. G. Jung

Let us sleep, he said and he felt the long light body, warm against him, comforting against him, abolishing loneliness against him, magically, by a simple touching of flanks, of shoulders and of feet, making an alliance against death with him. — Ernest Hemingway,

The second sort was waking up alone. That was characterised by an awareness that he was alone in bed, alone in life, alone in the world, and it could sometimes fill him with a sweet sensation of freedom, and at other times with a melancholy that could perhaps be called loneliness, but which was perhaps just a glimpse of what anyone's life really is: a journey from the attachment of the umbilical cord to a death where we are finally separated from everything and everyone. A brief glimpse at the moment of awakening before all our defence mechanisms and comforting illusions slot into place again and we can face life in all its unreal glory. Then — Jo Nesbo

No one'll see us coming," Han said. "And everyone dies sometime."
"Not comforting."
"The alternative is we go spend a bunch of time waiting for you to come up with some other plan that doesn't work. — James S.A. Corey

#8 - Feeling Peaceful - It is helpful to be at peace with your loved one's returning Home to God, in order to be better able to receive a comforting communication. Feeling peaceful is an emotion that is very hard to experience when you are, understandably, very upset as you go through the grieving process. But being emotionally overwrought can give out negative energy, thus, making it harder for your loved one to get through to you, or for you to even notice a sign from them. However, all things are possible with God, and He may bless you with an after-death communication, no matter what the circumstances, because He wants to comfort you and bring you peace. Pray for peace for your anguished heart. Pray for acceptance and comfort, so that you can go on with your life contented in knowing that you will be fully reunited once again. — Christine Duminiak

Did you know that the more you remember, the more you expand your perception of personal time? No, really. There's like studies and shit. Even though we can't outrun death, if we muscle up our memories the race, at least, will seem a little longer. That is, we'll still die, but we'll have lived more. Kind of comforting right? — Elizabeth Little

Death in various forms is sometimes comforting, while resurrection and new life can be demanding and threatening. If I lived as if resurrection were real, and allowed myself to die for the sake of a new life, what might I be called upon to do? — Parker J. Palmer

My last chance had vanished into itself like a snail coiling up into his shell.
Insidiously I had lost my grip, and now this was it. I thought all this without much emotion. I really didn't care anymore. I couldn't hang on anymore. I didn't have the guts to kill myself, but I didn't want it to continue. I walked a couple of blocks, empty, listless, and wished I could cry.
... The diabolic hope, the purposeful pulsing of blood, the flight into coherence allowed for some rationalizing an afterlife. A new theology was evolving, one that had a faith-in-death clause. It was evolved when I kicked a dead waterbug on the pavement. It was dried out, hollowed, emptied, like some kind of shell. Maybe, I thought, its body is a shell, maybe all bodies are shells. We hatch and die. Our spirit or something like that is the yoke: it lives the real life, the true life.
It wasn't comforting. — Arthur Nersesian

It is the dogma that is the drama
not beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to loving-kindness and uplift, nor the promise of something nice after death
but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen, and they may not believe it; but at least they may realize that here is something that a man might be glad to believe. — Dorothy L. Sayers

I have been reading Plotinus all evening. He has the power to sooth me; and I find his sadness curiously comforting. Even when he writes: "Life here with the things of earth is a sinking, a defeat, a failure of the wing." The wing has indeed failed. One sinks. Defeat is certain. Even as I write these lines, the lamp wick sputters to an end, and the pool of light in which I sit contracts. Soon the room will be dark. One has always feared that death would be like this. But what else is there? With Julian, the light went, and now nothing remains but to let the darkness come, and hope for a new sun and another day, born of time's mystery and a man's love of life. — Gore Vidal

My mother picked me up in her arms, touching my checks comforting my distress. I stared into her eyes and held her hair in my small hands, for the first time realizing what a moment in time meant. I touched her cheek and then looked away, knowing this was the truth to life, and there was nothing I could do about it. The truth that her death would one day occur made me realize that I never wanted her to leave my side. It was something I could not control, something no one could ever stop no matter how strong they were. — Joseph McGinnis

When, sometime around my fortieth birthday, I was struck by the urge to try to write a novel, I was vastly comforted to learn that Rex Stout didn't write his first Nero Wolfe tale until he was forty-seven, and that he proceeded to write them right up to his death at the age of eighty-eight. It was considerably less comforting to learn that he typically completed a novel in thirty-eight days, and that he always got it right on the first try. P. G. Wodehouse once said, "Stout's supreme triumph was the creation of Archie Goodwin." That's how I've always felt about it, too. When I returned those first Rex Stout books to my librarian, I said to her, "Do you have any more of these Archie Goodwin stories?" She smiled, I recall, and said, "Why, yes. Dozens. — Rex Stout