Good People Dying Quotes & Sayings

You wander through this city, and wonder if anything you do will make up for the horror that keeps the world turning. To live, you rip your own heart from your chest and hide it in a box somewhere, along with everything you ever learned about justice, compassion, mercy. You throw yourself into games to mark the time. And if you yearn for something different: what would you change? Would you bring back the blood, the dying cries, the sucking chest wounds? The constant war? So we're caught between two poles of hypocrisy. We sacrifice our right to think of ourselves as good people, our right to think our life is good, our city is just. And so we and our city both survive. — Max Gladstone

Connie went slowly home to Wragby. 'Home!'...it was a warm word to use for that great, weary warren. But then it was a word that had had its day. It was somehow cancelled. All the great words, it seemed to Connie, were cancelled for her generation: love, joy, happiness, home, mother, father, husband, all these great, dynamic words were half dead now, and dying from day to day. Home was a place you lived in, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people, a father was an individual who enjoyed his own existence, a husband was a man you lived with and kept going in spirits. As for sex, the last of the great words, it was just a cocktail term for an excitement that bucked you up for a while, then left you more raggy than ever. Frayed! It was as if the very material you were made of was cheap stuff, and was fraying out to nothing. — D.H. Lawrence

High society here turns me off and I feel a bit of rage against all these rich guys here, since I have seen thousands of people in the most terrible misery without anything to eat and with no place to sleep, that is what has most impressed me here, it is terrifying to see the rich having parties day and night while thousands and thousands of people are dying of hunger ... Although I am very interested in all the industrial and mechanical development of the United States, I find that Americans completely lack sensibility and good taste. They live as if in an enormous chicken coop that is dirty and uncomfortable. The houses look like bread ovens and all the comfort that they talk about is a myth. — Frida Kahlo

Or maybe what he fears is just the opposite: that nobody is looking; that his death, like his life, is without purpose; that there is neither greater good nor evil
only people living and dying because their bodies function and then do not; that the universe is a rip. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I'm sick and tired of black and white people of good intent giving aspirin to a society that is dying of a cancerous disease. — Ralph Abernathy

They always think one
commits suicide for a reason. But it is quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what is the good of dying
intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic or
vulgar motives to your action. Martyrs,cherami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood
never! Besides,
let us not beat about the bush; I love life
that is my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life. Such avidity has
something plebeian about it, don't you think? — Albert Camus

Frankly, out in America, you get the feeling that America is dying. And along its highways and byways, the country seems less ready to leap into the future than it is already clinging to a sepia-toned past when America stood as the unencumbered Big Boy in a Manichean world of good and evil, capitalists and Commies. Even the neon oasis-pods of the interstate - the perpetual clusters of Wendy's, McDonald's, Denny's, and Burger King - are crowded with people strangely reclaiming bygone days, connecting themselves to some prior eating experience, reveling in the familiar. We gas — Michael Paterniti

Friends.
They aren't any such thing as good friend or bad friend.
Maybe there are just friend.
People who stand by you when you're hurt and who helped you feel not so lonely.
Maybe there are worth being scared for and hoping for and living for.
Maybe worth dying for too.
If that what has to be.
No bad friends.
Only people you want.
Need to be with.
People who build their houses in your heart. — Stephen King

I need to dream.
I need to believe.
I need to know that I have some control in my life.
That if I work hard, that I will be rewarded.
That life is not arbitrary.
I need to believe that bad things happen to good people, for a greater reason.
That dedication, sacrifice, hard work, discipline are all worthy attributes that will eventually produce extraordinary results.
That if I live a certain lifestyle, that my family will be better for that.
That there is a direct link between my actions and my results.
That If I prepare properly that I can face the insurmountable foe and look him in the eye and say "Bring it on, I can take whatever you can dish out."
I need to keep living in order to save my daughter from dying. — JohnA Passaro

Time mellows people as it mellows wine, as long as the grapes are good. You may set out to be a businesswoman or businessman but in the course of time end up caring for a dying parent, orphaned niece, or disabled brother. You may encounter illness yourself and end up being a writer, touching the heartstrings, not the purse strings of other people. That's why it's best to always be true to yourself and God and to be flexible within His will. He will use you. — Barbara Johnson

Fretting makes us important. Say you're an adult male and you're skipping down the street whistling "Last Train to Clarksville." People will call you a fool. But lean over to the person next to you on a subway and say, "How can you smile when innocents are dying in Tibet?" You'll acquire a reputation for great seriousness and also more room to sit down.
...Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy? — P. J. O'Rourke

I am beginning to see the fallacy in the Western world's take on dying. Too often we are taught that this one life is all there is and when it ends, that's it. Or, instead of once again returning to a loving God who welcomes us back Home with open arms, we are told that when we die we must stand in front of a stern and unforgiving deity who sits on a throne and looks at every mistake we have ever made, deciding if we are good enough to enter heaven. And, if we do make it past that stringent test, we certainly aren't able to visit our friends and family still living. No wonder so many of us are afraid of death. I also find it fascinating that most religions believe in angels or wise ascended souls who brought messages to certain people on earth (Moses and Noah, for example) thousands of years ago, but deny that such an occurrence can happen now. What, did God just decide not to talk to us anymore? — Donna Visocky

A man was dead, and that is no small matter. Regardless of circumstances, no matter the justification, anyone who can cause the death of another human being and not feel some ambivalence about it is one sick bastard. Normal, compassionate people just can't feel good about killing and dying, even when killing and dying are necessary. — William T. Prince

Everybody knows everybody's dying, that's why people are as good as they are. — Michael Moriarty

Either I'm alive or I'm dying, she said to Daniel. Please don't feel you can't tell me. Which is it?
Which does it feel like? said Daniel. He patted her hand. You're not dead yet. You're a lot more alive than many people.
This isn't good enough for Rennie. She wants something definite, the real truth, one way or the other. Then she will know what she should do next. It's this suspension, hanging in a void, this half-life she can't bear. She can't bear not knowing. She doesn't want to know. — Margaret Atwood

How many demons and people are enslaved here? (Jericho)
Define slavery. (Asmodeus)
Kept against their will. (Jericho)
Good definition. Counting me? (Asmodeus)
Why not? (Jericho)
Probably a couple of million ... you know it's really hard to count to a million, plus they're always dying and new ones are coming in. I tried to count once, but it got really depressing so I stopped. The constant adding and subtracting. Not my forte, really. (Asmodeus) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Most people in this country are looking for literature that is useful. They feel that just exploring their feelings is good enough - they should be reading about leveraged buy-outs or how to get thin. We live in a culture that is so absolutely, madly focused on commercialism and on creating money and completely turned away from any other kind of creative value. People don't generally turn to poetry unless they're bereaved or have fallen in love. Or in adolescence, when their feelings are very strong and turbulent. I think most of us are dying for lack of spirit in this culture. — Erica Jong

There was terror in each and every one of the people on that beautiful beach and on that breathtakingly beautiful evening. Terror of being alone, terror of the darkness filling their imaginations with devils, terror of doing anything not in the manuals of good behaviour, terror of God's judgement, of what other people would say, of the law punishing any mistake, terror of trying and failing, terror of succeeding and having to live with the envy of other people, terror of loving and being rejected, terror of asking for a rise in salary, of accepting an invitation, of going somewhere new, of not being able to speak a foreign language, of not making the right impression, of growing old, of dying, of being pointed on because of one's defects, of not being pointed out because of one's merits, of not being noticed either for one's defects or one's merits. Terror, terror, terror. Life was a reign of terror, in the shadow of the guillotine. — Paulo Coelho

Being missionaries means loving God with all one's heart, even to the point, if necessary, of dying for him ... Being missionaries means stooping down to the needs of all, like the Good Samaritan, especially those of the poorest and most destitute people. — Pope Benedict XVI

I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It's true that fretting never did any good. — Claude Monet

History is nothing but good people dying for the wrong reasons.
(Graukar) — Aleksandr Voinov

Unlike in our society, where we hide it, death surrounded medieval people. They had few hospitals, and so churches, poorhouses, and homes handled the dying and dead. Death was not a distant prospect at the end of a long, healthy life. It was integrated into ordinary experience. Medieval life was transitory, a journey through this world that often ended too soon and too abruptly. Death was often violent and unexpected. Extended death, through illness and in one's own bed, was actually a blessing. Death was part of everyday life; medieval people considered their deaths regularly. Indeed, as one medieval historian puts it, "One of the chief obsessions of medieval Christians was the need to make a 'good death.'"38 — Diana Butler Bass

I love you Camden. I love you so damn, fucking much and it's so right and it's so wrong because people are dying, and we're almost dying and Gus is out there and my mother and we can't trust anybody and all I can think about is you. All I can think about is how much I love you and how badly I fucked everything up and I I don't deserves you but I need you." I made a fist with my hands and pounded it against his chest, hard, my tears flowing. "I fucking need you and I need you to forgive me. I need that more than anything in the world! I need you to make me good."
He swallowed hard, letting me hit him, his fingers strong on my jaw. "Ellie, Ellie, Ellie. You are good, deep down you always have been. You don't need me for that. — Karina Halle

[Believers] do not believe in people or in the good in people that ultimately must triumph; they also do not believe in the church in its human power. Rather, believers believe solely in God, who creates and does the impossible, who creates life out of death, who has called the dying church to life against and in spite of us and through us. But God does it alone. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's been forty years of terrible waste,' she said, 'a whole country of wasted lives. It's a country of big children, people being naughty behind the teacher's back, people tattling on each other, people getting their dumb certificates for being good little socialists. People submitting to the system because they're German and because it's a system. The whole thing was stupid and a lie. But they're not arrogant, not know-it-alls. They give what they have and they take me the way I am.'

The closer she came to dying, the more sure of herself she became. She'd concluded that the meaning of a life was in the form of it. There was no answering the question of why she'd been born, she could only take what she'd been given and try to make it end well. She intended to die in her mother's bedroom, in the company of her brother and her only offspring, without the indignity of a colostomy bag. — Jonathan Franzen

Reminders

'The peace garden is opposite the War Memorial,'
Said the old soldier.

'We had to fight to make peace
Back in the good old days.'

'No, the War Memorial is opposite the peace garden,'
Said the old pacifist.

'You've had so many wars to end all wars,
Still millions are dying from the wars you left behind.'

'Look,' said the old soldier.
'You chickens stuck your peace garden
In front of our War Memorial to cause non-violent trouble.
This War Memorial is necessary,
It reminds us that people have died for our country.'

'Look,' said the old pacifist,
'In the beginning was peace
And the peace was with God
And the peace was God,
This peace garden is unnecessary but
It reminds us that people want to live for our country. — Benjamin Zephaniah

I'm okay with death, Mo. I'm good with it," Tag said quietly. "But dying...dying is different. I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid of not being strong for the people who love me. I'm afraid of the suffering I will cause. I'm afraid of the helplessness I'll feel when I can't make it all better. I don't want to sit in a hospital bed, day after day, dying. I don't want Millie trying to take care of me. I don't want Henry watching me fade from giant to shadow. Can you understand that, Mo? — Amy Harmon

There is a very good organization called "Make a Wish Foundation" that helps make a dying child's wishes come true.
People go out of their way and work together to create an unbelievable lasting memory for a deserving person.
What just dawned on me was:
Why do we wait until someone is dying in order to do that?
We have the opportunity to do this everyday for many, many, many people over our lifetime.
It doesn't have to be a really big wish, small wishes add up fast.
Imagine how much better the world would be if we all granted each other small wishes that came true every day.
Find someone today and implement the "Make a Wish" concept in your life.
Watch what happens. — JohnA Passaro

I object. I object to any killing at all. You know, it's terrible what happened and I think retaliation definitely makes sense and it's definitely one option. But, personally, I prefer peace. You know, maybe I'm just being ignorant and shortsighted, you know, it's true I'm not running the government, I'm not running the United States. I just don't think that killing people is a good way to remedy people dying. Martin Luther King Jr. said that you can murder a murderer but you can never murder murder itself. — Tre Cool

O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie
O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,
gimme a break before I die:
grant me wisdom, will, & wit,
purity, probity, pluck, & grit.
Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,
gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind,
and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice
these little blessings would suffice
to beget an earthly paradise:
make the bad people good
and the good people nice;
and before our world goes over the brink,
teach the believers how to think. — Philip Appleman

No one wants to go into a nursing home. My patients fear it; families often feel terrible guilt when the time comes: it is thought of as an abandonment. Nursing homes are where we place our bad outcomes, our frail, our no-longer-independents. They are places people go to wait safely to die. The old doubly incontinents. You might have stood up to Stalin, you might still read Tolstoy, but if you're losing it from both the front and back and you're not a two-year-old, you're going to be hidden away.
"Don't know the nursing homes, they do a pretty good job," a geriatrician said to me. And most of the time they perform their function: as a holding bay for old people. Most of the time. — Karen Hitchcock

Everyone has got their own ideas and they push them and say to hell with everyone else. That's the history of the human race. It got us on top, only now it is pushing us off. The thing is that people will put up with any kind of discomfort, and dying babies, and old age at thirty as long as it has always been that way. Try to get them to change and they fight you, even while they're dying, saying it was good enough for grandpa so it's good enough for me. Bango, dead. — Harry Harrison

He killed himself because he couldn't bear ... Ah, cher ami, how poor in invention men are! They always think one commits suicide for a reason. But it's quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what's the good of dying intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? — Albert Camus

O Tree of God - Tree of Life, In the gift of your shade, I stand, my heart raised to your Creator. Your branches call me to reach out in all directions to many people. Your branches remind me of the sheltering arms of God. Your roots call me to be rooted in all that is good and nourishing. Your roots ask me to spend time in the ground of my being. Teach me, like you, to praise God in the silence of my being. Help me to surrender unnecessary words. Draw me, like a magnet, into the abiding love of God. And when it is time for me to die, teach me to die gracefully and joyfully. Teach me to let go as you let go of your leaves each autumn. In living and in dying, teach me to praise God by living well and dying well. May it come to pass! — Macrina Wiederkehr

The healthy should be reminded that we are all dying because it is through our own reminder of mortality that we accelerate our good intentions, into actions people can see. — Shannon L. Alder

I thought again of how Tobin had already killed five good people and was about to be the cause of two more dying. I couldn't believe that this little turd had actually caused all this death and misery. The only explanation I had for it was that short people with beady eyes and big appetites were ruthless and dangerous. — Nelson DeMille

You were trained to play a game, and you're not even good enough to do that. I was trained to kill people, and I was the best at it. — Lee Child

If any good comes out of the current famine in the Horn of Africa - amidst the pictures of mothers carrying dying babies at their shrivelled breasts and hollow-eyed children with swollen bellies and matchstick limbs - it will be galvanising the world on the need to ensure access to nutritious food for the world's most vulnerable people. — Josette Sheeran

Maybe, he thought, there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends - maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart. Okay, — Stephen King

Losing a family member, and her dying knowing she didn't have to die, that ... is a scar that will last forever for the people remaining, and even with good actions and good words, that scar will never disappear. Ever. — Kim Du-han

There are no delusions for the dead. Dying is like waking up after a really good party, when you have one or two seconds of innocent freedom before you recollect all the things you did last night which seemed so logical and hilarious at the time, and then you remember the really amazing thing you did with a lampshade and two balloons, which had them in stitches, and now you realize you're going to have to look a lot of people in the eye today and you're sober now and so are they but you can both remember. — Terry Pratchett

Aren't you afraid of dying?
Not really. I've watched lots of good-for-nothing, worthless people die, and if people like that can do it, then I should be able to handle it. — Haruki Murakami

All these nice clothes, all these jokes and drinks and food, what good does it do? Tomorrow, folk will be poor and starving and dying with a solder's pike in them, and these people will have another celebration, more nice clothes, more jokes, more gems. The suffering is forgotten or ignored - why sorrow? The war victims aren't our people. And then the wheel turns and suddenly they are our people. — Tamora Pierce

You know, when a president is about to leave office, most of the time most people are dying for him to go on and get out of there. But there are a few little rituals that have to be observed. One of them is that the president must host the incoming president in the White House, smile as if they love each other and give the American people the idea that democracy is peaceful and honourable and there will be a good transfer of power — Nancy Gibbs; Michael Duffy

I do not know how to live in a world where everyone is right and everyone is wrong. Constantine was a good man, and he was also a fool who threw away the lives of his people. I have loved Mehmed with everything I am since I was a child, and I have longed to enter this city triumphant with him. But now that we are here, I cannot look at him without hearing the cries of the dying, without seeing the blood on my hands. Nazira and I - we ate and dreamed and walked and bled with these people. And now they are gone, and my people are here, but I do not know who I am anymore. — Kiersten White

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. — Richard Dawkins

I take a good long look at her. I know life well enough to know you can't count on things staying around or standing still, no matter how much you want them to. You can't stop people from dying. You can't stop them from going away. You can't stop yourself from going away either. I know myself well enough to know that no one else can keep you awake or keep you from sleeping. That's all on me too. But man, I like this girl. — Jennifer Niven

Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises. — Chief Joseph

Sometimes, love feels like a life or death situation. Losing true love is pretty much as bad as it gets, other than actually dying or losing good health. Most people know that. Most people can relate. It's like the end of the world. — Lana Del Rey

Can you think of an older adult who hates their career? They may be good at it and it makes them a lot of money at it, but the passion is not there. This person's lack of passion will eventually begin to erode the quality of their work. These are the types of people who get laid off first. A wise person will pay attention to their passions as they progress in their career. If they feel the fire dying, then it is time to begin training for a new career or a shift within the career. — Michael G. Johnson

The definition of what it means to be dying has changed radically. We are able to extend people's lives considerably, including sometimes, good days. — Atul Gawande

Ah cher ami, how poor in invention men are! They are They always think one commits suicide for a reason. But it's quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what's the good of dying intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic or vulgar motives to your action. Martyrs, cher ami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood
never! — Albert Camus