I Almost Died Quotes & Sayings

I locate the ladies' room. Luckily, it's empty, no one to see the vacant-eyed girl, staring in the mirror. Staring at a stranger who doesn't care if she dies. Maybe she wants to die. Who would care if I died? My face is hollow-cheeked, spiced with sores
the places where I stab at bugs. Tiny bugs, almost invisible, but irritating. Usually they come out at night, when I'm lying there, begging for sleep. I've been meaning to tell the manager that the apartment needs to be sprayed. Sprayed. Steam cleaned. Deodorized. My hair looks odd too. It used to be darker. Shinier. Prettier. Can hair lose color when you're only eighteen? What if I go all the way gray? Will Trey still love me? Will anyone? That is, if I fool them all and don't die. — Ellen Hopkins

Memories had come back to Thomas on several occasions. The Changing, the dreams he'd had since, fleeting glimpses here and there, like quick lightning strikes in his mind. And right now, listening to the white-suited man talk, it felt as if he were standing on a cliff and all the answers were just about to float up from the depths for him to see in their entirety. The urge to grasp those answers was almost too strong to keep at bay.
But he was still wary. He knew he'd been a part of it all, had helped design the Maze, had taken over after the original Creators died and kept the program going with new recruits. "I remember enough to be ashamed of myself," he admitted. "But living through this kind of abuse is a lot different than planning it. It's just not right. — James Dashner

Because I think that by beauty, you don't just meaning something thats pretty. You mean something that makes us human. The urn, you say, is a 'friend to man'. It will live beyond its generation, and the next ones, and your poem is like that, too. You died almost two hundred years ago, when you were only twenty-five. But the words that you left are still alive — Ava Dellaira

You've been there all along, Bloodwitch. Somewhere, l-lurking. You are the reason I had to go to my tribe - which means you are the reason Corlant c-c-could attack. So if I had never met you, then would I even be here right now?"
"If I had never met you," he countered coolly, "then my spine would never have snapped, and Leopold fon Cartorra would never have hired me. Monk Evrane would not have almost died. — Susan Dennard

Tigerclaw swung his head around and fixed her with a yellow glare. "Defend myself to you, you gutless excuse for a warrior? What sort of a leader are you? Keeping the peace with other Clans. Helping them! You barely punished Fireheart and Graystripe for feeding RiverClan, and you sent them to fetch WindClan home! I would have never shown such kittypet softness. I would have brought back the days of TigerClan. I would have made ThunderClan great!" "And how many cats would have died for it?" Bluestar murmured, almost to herself. — Erin Hunter

When I was young, I used to wear a lot of wigs, and I was running on stage at a gig and tripped over and it fell off. It was in the 1970s, and Swansea were doing really well in the league, and most of the team were there. I almost died, but I picked it up, put it back on my head and carried on. — Bonnie Tyler

Maj Thapa rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served till he retired. He continued to attend almost all the Republic Day parades from 1964 to 2004. Sick and undergoing dialysis for kidney failure in Delhi, Lt Col Thapa would slip in and out of consciousness in his last year. Poornima, who was taking care of him, pleaded with him to not attend the parade that year, but he refused gently yet firmly. 'When I wear my uniform and go for the parade, I represent my soldiers; those men who fought a war with me. I cannot let them down,' he told her. Though he could hardly stand for long or even stay alert, he put on his uniform, pinned on his PVC, tilted his Gorkha hat at the perfect angle and went for the parade, remembers Poornima. Through sheer willpower, he managed to stand in the jeep till he had saluted the President. After that, he sat down. That would be the last Republic Day parade he would attend. On 5 September 2005, Lt Col Thapa died of kidney failure. He was 77 years old. — Rachna Bisht

I can't allow myself to be wary of one place merely because it reminds me of another place where I almost died, because just about every place reminds me of another place ... — Dean Koontz

I had asthma when I was a kid, asthma so bad that it would turn into pneumonia and I almost died several times. Nobody knew why back then, but now it's obvious. — Don McLean

As Stepanov turned to go, Alexander said, "Sir ... " He was so weak he almost couldn't get the words out. He didn't care how cold the wall was, he could not stand on his own anymore. He pressed his body against the icy concrete and then sank down to the floor. "Did you see her?" He lifted his gaze to Stepanov, who nodded. "How was she?" "Don't ask, Alexander." "Was she - " "Don't ask." "Tell me." "Do you remember when you brought my son back to me?" Stepanov asked, trying to keep his voice from breaking. "Because of you I had comfort. I was able to see him before he died, I was able to bury him." "All right, no more," said Alexander. "Who was going to give that comfort to your wife?" Alexander put his face into his hands. Stepanov left. Alexander sat motionlessly on the floor. He didn't need morphine, he didn't need drugs, he didn't need phenobarbital. He needed a bullet in his fucking chest. — Paullina Simons

You know, there's a very good chance I'm the best fighter in this room. Did you ever think of that?" Never mind the fact that I'd almost died. "Maybe, if you were better, you wouldn't be so surprised when someone exhibits extraordinary abilities. — Gena Showalter

When I was 11, I spent eight months in the hospital with rheumatic fever and almost died. — Rod Carew

My daddy never really lived before he died, He could never count on justice or know a free man's pride, And now it's almost certain that I, too, will be denied, I've got to make things better for my son and for my tribe — Bob Teague

She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. — John Green

You could have fooled me. Everytime I called you, Luke said you were sick. I figured you were avoiding me. Again."
"I wasn't. I did want to talk to you. I've been thinking about you all the time."
"I've been thinking about you, too."
"I really was sick. I swear. I almost died back there on the ship, you know."
"I know. Everytime you almost die, I almost die myself. — Cassandra Clare

When Pope Pius XII died, LIFE magazine carried a picture of him in his private study kneeling before a black Christ. What was the source of their information? All white people who have studied history and geography know that Christ was a black man. Only the poor, brainwashed American Negro has been made to believe that Christ was white, to maneuver him into worshiping the white man. After becoming a Muslim in prison, I read almost everything I could put my hands on in the prison library. I began to think back on everything I had read and especially with the histories, I realized that nearly all of them read by the general public have been made into white histories. I found out that the history-whitening process either had left out great things that black men had done, or some of the great black men had gotten whitened. — Malcolm X

I learned to knit in 2002, six months after my 5-year-old daughter, Grace, died suddenly from a virulent form of strep. I was unable to read or write, and friends suggested I take up knitting; almost immediately I fell under its spell. — Ann Hood

Gretchen shrugged. "After seeing how he acted when she almost died, I'm starting to get why she's with him." Then her voice hardened. "And really, Leila. That's twice now. — Jeaniene Frost

night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky. That's how quiet it is. After a while it's almost more than I can stand. I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to sing, shout, stamp my feet, clap my hands, anything to declare my presence. My conversation with the soldier had been the first words I'd said aloud in weeks. The Hum died on the tenth day after the Arrival. I was sitting in third period texting Lizbeth the last text I — Rick Yancey

Wait - what?" He'd said the last statement so casually, I almost didn't grasp its significance. "There are merrow who want to destroy the human race?" I pictured a hundred thousand Sebastians, capable of punching through picnic tables and moving faster than we could even see them. It would be a slaughter. A mermaid apocalypse. I almost laughed at the thought, but the impulse died in my throat. I felt sick. I couldn't believe I'd wanted to kiss him just a few moments ago. — D.S. Murphy

I almost died because of obesity. It make me cannot breath when sleep at night. — Bob Dylan

I want to feel like I did when Christopher's arms held me away from the harms of the world. That was the last time I ever felt safe, and it was the day I almost died. I've been chasing that feeling for years. — Ginger Scott

My grandfather and my uncle both died from colorectal cancer, my dad almost died from it and I have the gene for it. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

You need a medic, Lieutenant."
"In a minute. Let me ask you something."
"Ask away." Having nothing else, he tore part of his ripped sleeve to dab at the blood on her shoulder.
"Do I come charging into one of your board rooms when you're having trouble with a business deal?"
His eyes flicked to hers. Some of the fierceness died out of them into what was almost a smile. "No, Eve, you don't. I don't know what got into me."
"It's okay. This once. — J.D. Robb

In about an 18-month period, my mother got sick and died, and then I had a freak illness less than a year later and almost died myself. And I found in both of those situations that there was this expectation to have a kind of transformative experience. — Meghan Daum

I have lost almost every friend that I had before Casey died. — Cindy Sheehan

He almost died," I pointed out. "Not that I have any other experience of it, but I would guess that when people almost die, their worth automatically goes up, at least to some small degree. — Lauren Baratz-Logsted

I felt my face going blank, my eyes going empty. For just an instant I let Marks see the gaping hole where my conscience was supposed to be. I didn't really mean to, but I couldn't seem to help it. Maybe I was more shaken up from the room and its survivors than I thought. It's the only excuse I can give.
Marks' face went from fading laughter to something like concern. He gave me cop eyes, but underneath that was an uncertainty that was almost fear.
"Smile, Lieutenant. It's a good day. No one died."
I watched the thought spill through his face. He understood exactly what I meant. You should never even hint to the police that you're willing to kill, but I was tired, and I still had to go back into the room. Fuck it.
Edward spoke in his own voice, low and empty, "And you wonder why I compete with you? — Laurell K. Hamilton

Anyone I know who's almost died has come out of it, at least for a while, looking at things differently. — Alan Alda

Beyond the electroliers, beyond the beat and toot of the small sidewalk cars, beyond the smell of hot fat and popcorn and the shrill children and the barkers in the peep shows, beyond everything but the smell of the ocean and the suddenly clear line of the shore and the creaming fall of the waves into the pebbled spume. I walked almost alone now. The noises died behind me, the hot dishonest light became a fumbling glare. Then the lightless finger of a black pier jutted seaward into the dark. This would be the one. I turned to go out on it. Red — Raymond Chandler

My friend Dick Bass (now in his 70s) has travelled far and wide and had many adventures. His achievements include being the first person to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents, as well as being the oldest person (by five years) to climb Mount Everest (at the age of 55.) He once told me a story of a plane ride, on which he sat next to a nice man who listened to him go on about the treacherous peaks of Everest and McKinley, the time he almost died in the Himalayas, and his upcoming plan to reclimb Everest. Just before the plane landed, Bass turned to the man sitting next to him and said, 'After all this, I don't think I've introduced myself. My name is Dick Bass.' The man shook his hand, and responded, 'Hi, I'm Neil Armstrong. — Roger Horchow

He's wearing a T-shirt for the first time, answering thatquestion I had when we met. It's not muscle filling out Max's clothes; he's just chubby. It looks good on him either way. The thought feels bizarrely out of place after everything that happened today.
I've rehearsed what to tell him. Last year, a friend of my aunt's died, and Iris and Dad coached me on what to say. I copy it almost word for word. "Max, I didn't know your sister well. But she was nice to me. I'm very sorry for your loss." I hold his gaze for a second. — Corinne Duyvis

Robert Mapplethorpe asked me to write our story the day before he died. I had never written a book of nonfiction, and so it took me almost two decades to write that book. — Patti Smith

Almost everybody I know has died," Grandma said. "Bunch of wimps. — Janet Evanovich

Never having been in love, this is going to be a real trick. I think of my parents. The way my father never failed to bring her gifts from the woods. The way my mother's face would light up at the sound of his boots at the door. The way she almost stopped living when he died. — Suzanne Collins

If I had a nickel for every time I almost died, I would have been driving to school in a Ferrari and flying off to Bora-Bora on the weekends. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

How immense must be the force of life which turns a baby , who can just distinguish a great blot of blue and purple on a black background, into the child who thirteen years later can feel all that I felt on May 5th 1895 - now almost exactly to a day, forty-four years ago - when my mother died. — Virginia Woolf

He took the risk and his people had died. He blamed himself. It didn't reflect in his face, but I saw it in his eyes for a brief moment, before they went back to their icy blue. The last time we talked, I was almost completely convinced that he was a sociopath. He seemed invulnerable, as if nothing could bother him. This did. — Ilona Andrews

We missed you at the wedding," he said.
"Yeah." puck shrugged. "I was in Kyoto at the time, visiting some old kitsune friends. We were travelling up to Hokaido to check out this old temple that was supposedly haunted. Turns out, a yuki-onna had taken up residence there and had scared off most of the locals. She wasn't terribly happy to see us. Can you believe it?" He grinned. "Course, we, uh, might've pissed her off when the temple caught fire-you know how kitsune are. She chased us all the way to the coast, throwing icicles, causing blizzards ... the old hag even tried to bury us under an avalanche. We almost died." He sighed dreamily and looked at Ash. "You should've been there ice-boy. — Julie Kagawa

I was sitting at home and had a profound experience. I experienced, in all of my Being, that someday I was going to die, and it wouldn't be like it had been happening, almost dying but somehow staying alive, but I would just die! And two things would happen right before I died: I would regret my entire life; I would want to live it over again. This terrified me. The thought that I would live my entire life, look at it and realize I blew it forced me to do something with my life. — Hubert Selby Jr.

I'll be good," he repeated. "Something tells me you've told that particular fib more than once." "Mostly when I'm making deals with God." "How's that working out for you?" "I haven't been struck by lightning yet." He shook his head. "Last month, on the golf course. In the thunderstorm. I was in mortal danger, wasn't I?" "You almost died," I whispered. — Mimi Strong

The first time I almost died was surfing: I got hit on the head with a board. I went under and started swimming until I hit the bottom of the ocean. I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going the wrong way. Do I have enough air to get back up?' If you're a surfer, you know the feeling. — Robert David Hall

Somewhere today in time, I died. Conscious of a love cruelly wronged, almost hearing the silent calls beaming from eternity, hearing the sounds of the sea waves breaking at my feet - beckoning me, and it is in those cries, deep inside my fated soul, deep in another life which brings me the allure of: destiny. — J.L. Holtz

My dad almost died as a child from water-borne diseases in Ethiopia, and he had talked to me about digging a well in Ethiopia and I thought, I have too many friends and great people in my life that would be concerned with this subject of clean water. — Kenna

I remember being told of a poor wretch I once knew, who had died of hunger. I was almost beside myself with rage! I believe if I could have resuscitated him I would have done so for the sole purpose of murdering him! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The other guys were in the bedroom. There was a movie playing, one I hadn't seen. The boys lifted their heads up at the same time, like a pack of meerkats. I almost died. Too cute.
Stone, C. L. (2014-08-09). Liar: The Scarab Beetle Series: #2 (The Academy Scarab Beetle Series) (p. 176). Arcato Publishing. Kindle Edition. — C.L.Stone

The hot water running over my swollen hands was an amazing sensation, unlike anything I had ever felt before, and truthfully, not something I was eager to experience ever again. It was somewhere between an immensely powerful itch and searing agony, and I almost yelled out loud. I got out of the shower and put more calamine on my hands, and the throbbing died down to a kind of background torment. My hands felt numb and clumsy, and I had some trouble using them to get dressed. But rather than ask for help with the zipper and my shirt's buttons, I fumbled my clean clothes on all by myself, and soon I was seated at the kitchen table with a very welcome cup of coffee of my very own. I — Jeff Lindsay

Mare of the Stilts died the day she fell onto a lightning shield. Mareena, the lost Silver princess, died in the Bowl of Bones. And I don't know what new person opened her eyes on the Undertrain. I only know what she has been and what she has lost, and the weight of it is almost crushing. — Victoria Aveyard

There was something terrible about falsely accusing a man of murder, even in the imagination. It was an act of speculation that contaminated everything, once seeded, doubt is almost impossible to dispel, I knew that already from my relationship with Christopher, the marriage had died at the hand of my imagination. Still, I could not help myself. — Katie Kitamura

I looked at the pilgrims coming to America. In their first year, they decided to try a communist experiment. And the first year of the pilgrims, they established this socialistic concept: 'Well, we have all this land before us - let us all work it together.' Oh, how wonderful it sounded. 'Let us all work it together, and we will share in the produce of the land.' They almost starved to death! Almost half of them died, that very first year. — Ted Cruz

Don't pretend, Cambridge," he said. "You know my beautiful speech has made you see me in a whole new and even more attractive light. You totally think I'm secretly deep now. And you are right. It is true. I have deeps." He slid even lower on the sofa, his eyes falling almost completely closed. "Maybe," he added, his voice almost too casual, "this revelation will lead you to make the sensible decision, and go for me."
"And wouldn't that be a magical thirty-six hours," Kami said. "Before you died of exhaustion. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Oh, I almost forgot. In case that anyone besides big-headed Near or the deluded murderer is reading these notes, then I shall at least perform the basic courtesy of introducing myself, here at the end of the prologue, I am your narrator, your navigator, your storyteller. For anyone else but those two, my identity may be of no interest to you, but I am the world's runner-up, the best dresser that died like a dog, Mihael Keehl. I once called myself Mello and was addressed by that name, but that was a long time ago.
Good memories and nightmares. — NisiOisiN

How many kittens did she have?"
"Four, including Tod. We fed the kittens this special formula from the vet, since Juno didn't have enough milk." I sat beside Bailey on the rug, wishing I could trade places with my cat. "Tod almost died, so my sister named him after a grim reaper from one of her favorite books. I think she thought it would protect him. — Jeri Smith-Ready

In 2003, I almost died of an intestinal blockage when I was on a mountain in Chile, filming a segment for 'Scientific American Frontiers.' — Alan Alda

My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now. I'm so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don't have the guts to take their names out of the book. — Ray Bradbury

Speaking as the child of divorce, I have to say that one of the most disconcerting findings in 'The Longevity Project' focused on divorce: On average, grown children of divorced parents died almost five years earlier than children from intact families. — Katie Hafner

Eventually my father bought a vacation house for us in Port Saint Lucie, Florida. My dad's friend had died, so my father bought the house from his widow. We would go down there once a year, and my father believed that he had bought a good investment property. Twelve years later he would sell it at a loss. Almost immediately after the sale, Club Med built a resort there near where the New York Mets would set up their spring training camp soon after. I've tracked articles since then about how Port Saint Lucie has had the fastest growing home prices in the country. When I told my friends at Rye Country Day that we had bought a second home in Florida, they were unimpressed because it was not Palm Beach. When I told my friends in Tarrytown that we had bought a house in Florida, they were sad and asked me when my family was moving. Gosh, poor people can be really dumb sometimes. — Greg Fitzsimmons

True story
This morning I jumped on my horse
And went for a ride,
And some wild outlaws chased me
And shot me in the side.
So I crawled into a wildcats cave
To find a place to hide
But some pirates found me sleeping there
And soon they had me tied
To a pole and built a fire
Under me---I almost cried
Till a mermaid came and cut me loose
And begged to be my bride
So I said id come back Wednesday
But I must admit I lied.
Then I ran into a jungle swamp
But I forgot my guide
And I stepped into some quicksand
And no matter how hard I tried
I couldn't get out, until I met
A watersnake named Clyde
Who pulled me to some cannibals
Who planned to have me fried
But an eagle came and swooped me up
And through the air we flied
But he dropped me in a boiling lake
A thousand miles wide
And you'll never guess what I did then---
I DIED — Shel Silverstein

At first cautiously, later indifferently, at last desperately, I wandered up the stairs and along the pavement of the inextricable palace. (Afterwards I learned that the width and height of the steps were not constant, a fact which made me understand the singular fatigue they produced). 'This palace is a fabrication of the gods,' I thought at the beginning. I explored the uninhabited interiors and corrected myself: ' The gods who built it have died.' I noted its peculiarities and said: 'The gods who built it were mad.' I said it, I know, with an incomprehensible reprobation which was almost remorse, with more intellectual horror than palpable fear ...
... 'This City' (I thought) 'is so horrible that its mere existence and perdurance, though in the midst of a secret desert, contaminates the past and the future and in some way even jeopardizes the stars. — Jorge Luis Borges

He stretches languorously under me, and the silvery scar on his abdomen catches the light, that telltale mark from Sister Two when he fought her inside Butterfly Threads just weeks ago. When he almost died to help me and Jeb escape. But I didn't let him die, because I couldn't imagine a world without him.
I can't imagine a future without him, either. Not anymore. — A.G. Howard

I'm mortal. I could die any day." Brandon had almost killed her. Her parents had died young. Her grandfather would have died yesterday. "I'm Warrick Voclain. And you will stay by my side until the stars fall from the sky. — Erin Kellison

Are you actually laughing at me? Seriously?" Janie rubs her hair with a towel. "I almost died out there. Plus my brain is now infested with plankton and carp shit. You'd better watch it, or I'll blow a snot rocket at you."
"I'm ... eww. That's disgusting." Cabe laughs. "But seriously, you really should have seen yourself. Right, Megan? I wish I had a video camera. — Lisa McMann

By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once, and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died. — Hunter S. Thompson

Luckily, I found a few other crazed men who almost remained that way until they died. — Charles Bukowski

At a quarter to twelve on that Friday, Patty Jefferson died. In the final moments, Jefferson's sister Martha Carr had to help the grieving husband from his wife's bedside.13 He was, his daughter recalled, "in a state of insensibility" when Mrs. Carr "with great difficulty, got him into the library, where he fainted" - and not for a brief moment. Jefferson "remained so long insensible that they feared he would never revive." When he did come to, he was incoherent with grief, and perhaps surrendered to rage. There is a hint that he lost all control in the calamity of Patty's death. According to his daughter Patsy, "The scene that followed I did not witness" - presumably "the scene" unfolded in the library when he revived - "but the violence of his emotion, when, almost by stealth, I entered his room by night, to this day I dare not describe to myself."14 (Patsy was writing half a century later.) A — Jon Meacham

As soon as Darling had entered the reception room where his mother had waited, she'd curled her lip in revulsion at his appearance. Her first words to the son she hadn't spoken directly to in more than four years? The same son who'd been lost to them for half a year and who'd almost died? "You should consider abdicating in favor of Drakari. I know he's still too young to rule, but with your support the CDS might be swayed to accept him early. And make sure when you speak to them that you cover up that face so that it doesn't sicken anyone." She'd — Sherrilyn Kenyon

For twelve months, I'd been quiet. Almost every day since Kim died.
Now, at Ms. Homeyer's funeral, I wanted to say so many things.
I wanted to say, you guys are jerks.
I wanted to say, someone died. Did you know someone died? Someone is dead. You can't talk like that.
I wanted to say, don't you get bored? Don't you get tired? Doesn't it get old, making fun of people? Laughing at people? — Ann Dee Ellis

Aren't you afraid?" I asked. "I almost died before I could begin to remember. — Ken Liu

In stories, when someone behaves uncharacteristically, we take it as a meaningful, even pivotal moment. If we are surprised again and again, we have to keep changing our minds, or give up and disbelieve the writer. In real life, if people think they know you well enough not only to say, 'It's Tuesday, Amy must be helping out at the library today,' but well enough to say to the librarian, after you've left the building, 'You know, Amy just loves reading to the four-year-olds, I think it's been such a comfort for her since her little boy died' - if they know you like that, you can do almost anything where they can't see you, and when they hear about it, they will, as we do, simply disbelieve the narrator. — Amy Bloom

I almost died and everyday, I wish I did. — Piolo Pascual

I said in October of 2008 that there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or had the intention or capability of attacking the United States. Here we are. Almost 4,700 troops died, tens of thousands injured, over a million Iraqis dead. It will cost $5 trillion in the end for the war. — Dennis Kucinich

He gave her his best smile. His
best I-almost-died-so-how-can-you-deny-me smile. Or at least
that's how he hoped it appeared. The truth was, he wasn't a very
accomplished flirt, and it might very well have come across as an Iam-
mildly-deranged-so-it's-in-all-of-our-best-interests-if-youpretend-
to-agree-with-me smile. — Julia Quinn

It is important to go into work you would like to do. Then it doesn't seem like work. You sometimes feel it's almost too good to be true that someone will pay you for enjoying yourself. I've been very fortunate that my work led to useful drugs for a variety of serious illnesses. The thrill of seeing people get well who might otherwise have died of diseases like leukemia, kidney failure, and herpes virus encephalitis cannot be described in words. — Gertrude B. Elion

Someone called all the newspapers in New York and told them I'd died. I've been told by almost everyone it was an ex-wife - I've had a few so it's hard to pinpoint which one - but who knows for sure? — Richard Pryor

The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage. — Libba Bray

By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed) - Gandalf came by. Gandalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Tales and adventures sprouted up all over the place wherever he went, in the most extraordinary fashion. He had not been down that way under The Hill for ages and ages, not since his friend the Old Took died, in fact, and the hobbits had almost forgotten what he looked like. He had been away over The Hill and across The Water on businesses of his own since they were all small hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls. — J.R.R. Tolkien

You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens ... the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her ... a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them; she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes, cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little ... little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it's fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day. — Octave Mirbeau

My dad died, I write. almost a year ago. Car accident. My hand is shaking; my eyes sting and fill. I add Not his fault before pushing the notebook and pen back across the table, wiping a hand across my cheeks.
As he reads, my impulse is to reach out, grab the notebook, run outside, dump it in the trash, bury it in the snow, throw it under the wheels of a passing car - something, something, so I can go back fifteen seconds when this part ofme was still shut away and private. Then I look at Ravi's face again, and the normally white white whites of his eyes are pink. This causes major disruption to my ability to control the flow of my own tears. I see myself when I look at him right now: he's reflecting my sadness, my broken heart, back to me.
He takes the pe, writes, and slides it over. You'd think it's something epic from the way it levels my heart. It isn't.
I'm really sorry, Jill.
Four little words. — Sara Zarr

But why me?
Because, idiot, you ... are funny and smart and you have a giant heart that you can't even pretend to hide. And you love your friends and your mum, and you held my hand and made me sing when I was so scared I thought I was going to die. I knew you understood, right from the beginning, this thing inside, the stuff in your head that you need to make real. You get that ... And you wear stupid Superman pyjamas without any irony, and your face lights up when you talk about the movies you love ... And ... you protect my dwarf. You always have her back. And you have a dimple when you smile that's so cute I almost died the first time I saw it. — Melissa Keil

I melt and swell at the moment of landing when one wheel thuds on the runway but the plane leans to one side and hangs in the decision to right itself or roll. For this moment, nothing matters. Look up into the stars and you're gone. Not your luggage. Nothing matters. Not your bad breath. The windows are dark outside and the turbine engines roar backward. The cabin hangs at the wrong angle under the roar of the turbines, and you will never have to file another expense account claim. Receipt required for items over twenty-five dollars. You will never have to get another haircut.
A thud, and the second wheel hits the tarmac. The staccato of a hundred seat-belt buckles snapping open, and the single-use friend you almost died sitting next to says:
I hope you make your connection.
Yeah, me too.
And this is how long your moment lasted. And life goes on. — Chuck Palahniuk

I almost died. Fortunately, my mother was a nurse. She gave me a shot of something, and things turned out brilliantly.
Lucky me, I thought. Why couldn't his mother have been a telephone operator? — Tiffanie DeBartolo

You almost died."
"But you brought me back."
She cupped his face in her hands. "I always knew you were there. Death didn't have a chance against the Wall. — Nalini Singh

I am a marathon runner. I ran the New York City marathon and almost died. I tried to run, like, a two-minute mile early on in the race. I was crazy enough to think I could win. After seven miles I thought I would die, but I slowed down my pace and kept going. — Sean Combs

No," he agreed. "You're not. She never caused me this agony."
What could I say to that? The way he was looking at me was making my head feel funny. Was making me feel funny and not just in that oh God I just almost died way.
Christophe leaned in. His mouth was a mere centimetres from me. "She never made me think I would die of heart failure. She never, never made me fear for her this way. — Lili St. Crow

Well! I had the most fantastic dream! Trees crying blood. Horrible dead elves going around and killing people! Raistlin wearing black robes! It was the most incredible thing! And you were there, Sturm. Laurana and Flint. And everyone died! Well, almost everyone. Raistlin didn't. And there was a green dragon-'
Tasslehoff stopped. What was wrong with his friends? Their faces were pale, their eyes wide. — Margaret Weis

And then I get up because it is the only thing I can do. I step out of the ditch and brush the ants off because it is the only thing I can do. I follow Randall around the house because it is the only thing I can do; if this is strength, if this is weakness, this is what I do. I hiccup, but tears still run down my face. After Mama died, Daddy said, What are you crying for? Stop crying. Crying ain't going to change anything. We never stopped crying. We just did it quieter. We hid it. I learned how to cry so that almost no tears leaked out of my eyes, so that I swallowed the hot salty water of them and felt them running down my throat. This was the only thing that we could do. I swallow and squint through the tears, and I run. — Jesmyn Ward

My head don't work any more and it's hard for me to understand how anybody could care if he lived or died or was dying or cared about anything but whether or not there was liquor left in the bottle and so I said what I said without thinking. In some ways I'm no better than the others, in some ways worse because I'm less alive. Maybe it's being alive that makes them lie, and being almost not alive that makes me sort of accidentally truthful
I don't know but
anyway
we've been friends ... And being friends is telling each other the truth ... — Tennessee Williams

Soon I am seeing the blue-and-yellow flags that line the campus streets, and it makes me feel happy and sad at the same time to be back at La Salle
almost like looking at old pictures of people who have either died or with whom you have lost contact. — Matthew Quick

I wasn't trying to reach England. or Paris. I thought that if I made the broadcast powerful enough, my brother would hear me. That I could bring him some peace, protect him as he had always protected me."

You'd play your brother's own voice to him? After he died?"

"And Debussy."

Did he ever talk back?"

The attic ticks. What ghosts sidle along the walls right now, trying to overhear? She can almost taste her great-uncle's fright in the air.

"No," he says. "He never did. — Anthony Doerr

Instead they dream of furniture
Of buying a new hat
Of owning matching silverware
Could you imagine that?

Yes there are places in the world
Where dreams are almost dead
So please my child do keep in mind
Before you go to bed

To dream a dream as big
As big could ever dream to be
Then dream a dream ten times as big
As that one dream you see

Please dream for those who've given up
For those who've never tried
Please use your dream to make new dreams
For all the dreams that died

So when you think your dreaming's done
Just remember what I said
'Close your eyes my child and dream
That perfect dream inside your head. — Dallas Clayton

Quentin did not answer, staring at the window; then he could not tell if it was the actual window or the window's pale rectangle upon his eyelids, though after a moment it began to emerge. It began to take shape in its same curious, light, gravity-defying attitude
the once-folded sheet out of the wistaria Mississippi summer, the cigar smell, the random blowing of the fireflies. "The South," Shreve said. "The South. Jesus. No wonder you folks all outlive yourselves by years and years and years." It was becoming quite distinct. He would be able to decipher the words soon, in a moment; even almost now, now, now.
"I am older at twenty than a lot of people who have died," Quentin said. — William Faulkner

I was an idiot," were my mother's last words. I'll never know what she meant because I wasn't there when she died. I am left with unanswered questions while I grieve for a woman I had barely spoken to during the last six months of her life. In fact, by the time I found out she had six months to live we'd been estranged for almost a year. — Amy Passantino

Imperio!"
Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing - everyone except Moody.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly. — J.K. Rowling

The old world order changed when this war-storm broke. The old international order passed away as suddenly, as unexpectedly, and as completely as if it had been wiped out by a gigantic flood, by a great tempest, or by a volcanic eruption. The old world order died with the setting of that day's sun and a new world order is being born while I speak, with birth-pangs so terrible that it seems almost incredible that life could come out of such fearful suffering and such overwhelming sorrow. — Nicholas Murray Butler

I think a lot of the American people feel more than a little disappointed that the high-water mark for human exploration was 1969. The dream of human space travel has almost died for a lot of people. — Elon Musk

I almost died, this past June.
But I didn't.
End of story. — Jose N. Harris

You nearly died today,' he says. 'I almost shot you. Why didn't you shoot me, Tris?'
'I couldn't do that,' I say. 'It would have been like shooting myself.'
He looks pained and leans closer to me, so his lips brush mine when he speaks. — Veronica Roth

G. K. Chesterton said that his goal in life was to take nothing for granted - not a sunrise, not a smile, not a flower, nothing. That is a truly wonderful approach to life. Don't take anything for granted. Truly appreciate every minute that you have to live. My near-death experience has helped me be better at that. If I hadn't almost died, I wouldn't have figured out how to live. — Mark Batterson

Since 1775, when the first Continental Congress called for a national day of prayer, there have been such events called for by almost every President. I saw the figures - 34 out of 44 Presidents have called for a national day of prayer. Some of those who didn't have died in office. — James Dobson

He loves me, and I reward his love by forcing on him something he hates. In the evening, after we dance, he rarely returns to the throne; he dances with others or moves from place to place through the room. The court thinks he is trying to be gracious, sharing his attention. Only I see that he moves always to the empty spot and the court always moves after him. He is like a dog trying to escape his own tail. He indulged himself in one brief moment of privacy, and almost died of it. Relius, he hates being king. — Megan Whalen Turner