If I Could Die Quotes & Sayings

Is the fact that other people are not doing their fair share a sufficient reason for allowing a child to die when you could easily rescue that child? I think the answer is clear: No. The others have, by refusing to help with the rescue, made themselves irrelevant. They might as well be so many rocks. According to the fair-share view, in fact, it would be better for the children if they were rocks, because then you would be obliged to wade back into the pond to save another child. — Peter Singer

I'm sorry I started all this by trying to fly and I'd take it back if I could but I can't, so please think of it from my point of view: if you die I will have a dead brother and it will be me instead of you who suffers.
Justin thought of his brother on that warm summer day, standing up on the windowsill holding both their futures, light and changeable as air, in his outstretched arms.
Of course, Justin thought, I'm part of his fate just as he's part of mine. I hadn't considered it from his point of view. Or from the point of view of the universe, either. It's just a playing field crammed full of cause and effect, billions of dominoes, each knocking over billions more, setting off trillions of actions every second. A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and my brother in Luton thinks he can fly.
The child nodded. A piano might fall on your head, he said, but it also might not. And in the meantime you never know. Something nice might happen. — Meg Rosoff

But if Frederica was aware of my sentiments, and begged Cousin Alverstoke to intervene - !" She shuddered, and clasped her hands tensely together. "You see, he could, Harry! He could arrange for Endymion to be sent abroad, for instance, and then I think I should die. Oh, my dear brother, there's no one to help us but you, and I count on your support! — Georgette Heyer

If you told me to cry for you
I could
If you told me to die for you
I would
Take a look at my face
There's no price I won't pay
To say these words to you — Jon Bon Jovi

I envy Johnny and at the same time I get sore as hell watching him destroy himself, misusing his gifts, and the stupid accumulation of nonsense the pressure of his life requires. I think that if Johnny could straighten out his life, not even sacrificing heroin, if he could pilot that plane better, maybe he'd end up worse, maybe go crazy altogether, or die, but not without having played it to the depth, what he's looking for in those sad a posteriori monlogues, in his retelling of great, fascinating experiences which, however, stop right there, in the middle of the road. And all this I back up with my own cowardice, and maybe basically I want Johnny to wind up all at once like a nova that explodes into a thousand pieces and turns astronomers into idiots for a whole week, and then one can go off to sleep and tomorrow is another day. — Julio Cortazar

Can it be, thought I, that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and act, fate has somehow associated me with the last act of other people's tragedies, as if without me no one could either die or give way to despair! I have been the inevitable character who comes in at the final act, involuntarily playing the detestable role of the hangman or the traitor. What has been fate's object in all this? Has it destined me to be the author of middle-class tragedies and family romances
or a purveyor of tales for, say, the Reader's Library? Who knows? Are there not many who begin life by aspiring to end it like Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, and yet remain petty civil servants all their lives? — Mikhail Lermontov

Don't die wondering "What if I could have done that..."

Die, saying "I remember when I did... — John R. Morris

'Men die of the diseases which they have studied most,' remarked the surgeon, snipping off the end of a cigar with all his professional neatness and finish. 'It's as if the morbid condition was an evil creature which, when it found itself closely hunted, flew at the throat of its pursuer. If you worry the microbes too much they may worry you. I've seen cases of it, and not necessarily in microbic diseases either. There was, of course, the well-known instance of Liston and the aneurism; and a dozen others that I could mention.' — Arthur Conan Doyle

Zara." He sighs. The wind bellows outside. "How can I make you understand this? I need your mom. If I don't get her, more boys will die."
"That's ridiculous."
"No, it's just how it is."
I think for a second. "If that's true, then why did Ian try to turn me?"
He loses his composure. His face shifts into something worried, something almost human. "Did he kiss you?"
"Almost. Betty killed him first."
He almost smiles. He pulls his hand through his hair. "Betty is fierce."
"Is that why you stay away when she's here?"
"Not even a pixie wants to tangle with a tiger."
He blows on the ember in his hand. It turns to dust.
"You seem like you could handle almost anything," I say.
"This?" He smirks. "Parlor tricks. — Carrie Jones

I fain would follow love, if that could be;
I needs must follow death, who calls for me;
Call and I follow, I follow! let me die. — Alfred Tennyson

If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die. — Pentti Linkola

You would think a person could only die once. You would think you would only find you sister's lifeless body once. You would think you would only have to watch your mother's reaction once after finding out her only daughter is dead.
Once is so far from accurate.
It happens repeatedly.
Every single time I close my eyes I see Les's eyes. Every time my mother looks at me, she's watching me tell her that her daughter is dead for the second time. For the third time. For the thousandth time. Every time I take a breath or blink or speak, I experience her death all over again. I don't sit here and wonder if the fact that she's dead will ever sink in. I sit here and wonder when I'll stop having to watch her die. — Colleen Hoover

Your Majesty, what I am saying is that I have never seen him driven, and rarely led either. However, if you were to twist him around your finger and could conceivably grind him under your heel in the process, you have to know that I would be eternally grateful. I would die a happy man. — Megan Whalen Turner

I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck. — Graham Greene

He suggested I play golf, but finally agreed to give me something that, he said, "would really work"; and going to a cabinet, he produced a vial of violet-blue capsules banded with dark purple at one end, which, he said, had just been placed on the market and were intended not for neurotics whom a draft of water could calm if properly administered, but only for great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries. — Vladimir Nabokov

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera) — E. E. Cummings

If I could out run the Angel of Death I'd probably die from lack of breath! — Stanley Victor Paskavich

You know," my father said sprinkling nutmeg on his brandy Alexander, "if you sniff too much nutmeg, you could die."
"You can die from anything, really," my mother said "You can die from eating too many apricots."
"How many apricots?" I said, afraid that the World's Most Pathetic Death could happen to me. — Alison Espach

I could die today, if I wished, merely by making a little effort, if I could wish, if I could make an effort. But it is just as well to let myself die, quietly, without rushing things. Something must have changed. I will not weigh upon the balance any more, one way or the other. — Samuel Beckett

I've never considered being a cop. I could be a teacher, I could be a minister, a social worker or a professor. As long I don't have to see blood and see people die every day, if I could inspire or help in their lives, that's something I'd want to do. — Ruben Santiago-Hudson

Honestly, I just go to restaurants to eat so I won't die. If there was a pill I could take in January and then I wouldn't have to eat again for the rest of the year, I would take it. Of course, I wouldn't want to sacrifice my chocolate cake and ice cream. — Steven Wright

If only I could die right now, then I would never have to live without him, I would just be gone ... — Tarryn Fisher

But like my brother, I too have a crutch. Mine is not metal. It is flesh and fire and bronze eyes. If only I could cast him away. If only I was strong enough to let the prince go and do what he would with his vengeance. To die or live as he saw fit. But I need him. And I can't find the strength to let him go. — Victoria Aveyard

Well, yes. I believe that children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations. It's just that as they grow older and experience the everyday world that memory sinks lower and lower. I feel I need to make a film that reaches down to that level. If I could do that I would die happy. — Hayao Miyazaki

It is my land, my home, my father's land, to which I now ask to be allowed to return. I want to spend my last days there, and be buried among those mountains. If this could be I might die in peace, feeling that my people, placed in their native homes, would increase in numbers, rather than diminish as at present, and that our name would not become extinct. — Geronimo

If I could find one word
that would shudder the air
like that frightened sob,
that wordless prayer
of my newly-born,
who drew one breath,
and with unopened eyes
sank back into death;
If I could break the world's cold heart
with that cry,
then this grief would lift
and I could die. — Kenneth L. Patton

All Angelina Jolie wants to do is do good for people. And she was saying to me: If I could just make one person happy, Joan, I'll die satisfied. I said: Easy! Just give Jennifer Aniston back her husband. — Joan Rivers

I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit. — Ida B. Wells

She died in my arms saying, "I don't want to die." That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we could never have war anymore. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I'm an idiot. I'm ten times an idiot. God, I could just die." Then I forged ahead because the last comment was too close for comfort these days. "Not die die, as in not-breathing die, but die figuratively, if you know what I mean." Lee was grinning. — Kristen Ashley

Well
to put it briefly
Arianna and I had become
well
friends."
"I see."
"Nothing improper, you understand," Lelldorin said quickly. "But our friendship was such that
well
we didn't want to be separated." The young Asturian's face appealed to his friend for understanding. "Actually," he went on, "it was a little more than 'didn't want to.' Arianna told me she'd die if I left her behind."
"Possibly she was exaggerating," Garion suggested.
"How could I risk it, though?" Lelldorin protested. "Women are much more delicate than we are
besides, Arianna's a physician. She'd know if she'd die, wouldn't she? — David Eddings

Do You Know That By Just Saying "I WANNA DIE" Or "I WISH I COULD DIE" ... God Can Answer That Prayer???
You Will Be Cancelled In The Book Of Life And At Heaven You Will Be Dead, But You Will Just Be Walking On Earth Waiting To Go To Hell. Thats What Most People Call HELL OF A LIFE ... A Life Of Someone Who Is Not Written In The Book Of Life.
So People Stop Playing With Those Words.
And If You Once Said That, PRAY TONIGHT SO THAT GOD RE-WRITES YOU IN THE BOOK OF LIFE. — Cyc Jouzy

After this, I couldn't hear their voices any longer; for in my ears I heard a sound like a bird's wings flapping in panic. Perhaps it was my heart, I don't know. But if you've ever seen a bird trapped inside the great hall of a temple, looking for some way out, well, that was how my mind was reacting. It had never occurred to me that my mother wouldn't simply go on being sick. I won't say I'd never wondered what might happen if she should die; I did wonder about it, in the same way I wondered what might happen if our house were swallowed up in an earthquake. There could hardly be life after such an event. — Arthur Golden

I watched her backside as she went. I thought perhaps I wouldn't die if I could still find time to watch a well-crafted bottom — Mark Lawrence

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy - if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says: — Mark Twain

Dad ... you did it? (Shocked but keeping voice down) You did it to the others? You sent out a hundred and twenty cracked engine-heads and let those boys die! How could you do that? How? (Voice rises with anger) Dad ... Dad, you killed twenty-one men! You killed them, you murdered them. (Becomes more furious) Explain it to me. Explain to me how you do it? What did you do? (Pause) Explain it to me goddammit or I will tear you to pieces! I want to know what you did, now what did you do? You had a hundred and twenty cracked engine-heads, now what did you do? Why'd you ship them out in the first place? If you knew they were cracked, then why didn't you tell them? — Arthur Miller

You know we talked about where people go when they die. I just believe you go someplace and I seen her layin there and I thought maybe she wouldn't go to heaven because, you know, I thought she wouldn't and I thought about God forgivin people and I thought about if I could ask God to forgive me for killin that son of a bitch because you and me both know I ain't sorry for it and I reckon this sounds ignorant but I didn't want to be forgiven if she wasn't. I didn't want to do or be nothin that she wasn't like going to heaven or anything like that. — Cormac McCarthy

If I could ever be on a Missy Elliott record, I could then die. Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige - I love hearing them interviewed, I love the way they talk about their art. They're very self-assured, they're funny, they're inviting. I love it. — Neko Case

I think that its out very differences that make us a perfect match," he said, and his jaw moved under his fingertips. "You'd die of boredom with Thomas within a year. If I found a lady with a temper similar to mine, we'd tear each other apart within months. You and I, though, we're like bread and butter."
She snorted. "That's romantic."
"Hush," he said, his voice quivering with laughter, but also with an undertone of gravity. She cradled his jaw as he said, "Bread and butter. The bread provides stability for the butter; the butter gives taste to the bread. Together they're perfect."
Her eye brows drew together. "I'm the bread, aren't I?"
"Sometimes." His voice was a thread of rumbled sound, low and ominous. She could feel his words as they drifted over her palm. "And sometimes I'm the bread and you're the butter. But we go together
you understand that, don't you? — Elizabeth Hoyt

To me, it is like a diabetic with insulin. If that diabetic stops taking insulin, they will die, and I believe that if I don't follow the 12-step programme, I will regress, and that could eventually be the death of me. — Trinny Woodall

I stretched on my toes, pulled his head down, and kissed him. His response was instant and held every bit of one hundred and forty thousand years of sexual expertise - but not one ounce of that elusive, deadly death-by-sex Fae quality.
I pushed back and stared at him. I could feel intense sexual arousal rolling off him, but no more so than I would coming off any man. There went that muscle in his jaw again. Was it possible he wasn't muting himself? I'd heard that if you took certain poisons but didn't die, you acquired immunity. Had I drunk enough Poison de Fae? "Unmute yourself," I demanded.
"I. Am. Not. Muted."
Did he ever sound pissed! — Karen Marie Moning

Stevenson threw back his head and made a slow murmuring sound, "If only I could secure a violent death."
"Pardon?"
"What a fine success!" Stevenson continued, spurring Jack into a canter as he lost himself in his thoughts. "I wish to die in my boots, you see, Mr. Porter. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from this horse into a ditch, Mr. Fergins
aye, to be hanged, rather than pass through the slow dissolution of illnesses! — Matthew Pearl

When I started, I was a theater actress, and there were roles that I couldn't imagine not playing, like Rosalind in 'As You Like It.' I used to think I would die if I could play that. But then I started doing movies, and I had children, and I moved to Los Angeles. And now I kind of can't remember what those roles would be. — Annette Bening

I never knew what sad work the reading of old-letters was before that evening, though I could hardly tell why. The letters were as happy as letters could be - at least those early letters were. There was in them a vivid and intense sense of the present time, which seemed so strong and full, as if it could never pass away, and as if the warm, living hearts that so expressed themselves could never die, and be as nothing to the sunny earth. I should have felt less melancholy, I believe, if the letters had been more so. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Kill me if you will, I am not afraid to die; and I have endured so much oppression that I am weary of life. But I am a strong man, and I could cast both of you down, if I would. If you have any legal process to serve, present it, for I am at all times subject to law and shall not offer resistance. — Sam Smith

I've been wanting to kiss ye since the first moment I saw ye," he said. "I'm going to do it now."
Sybil could not breathe, let alone form the words to object. When she moistened her lips with her tongue, she felt his heartbeat leap beneath her palm. Her gaze fixed on his mouth as he drew her to him ever so slowly.
She had expected a sweet, teasing kiss, not this explosion of passion that seared through her body at the first touch of their lips. No one had ever kissed her like this before, as if he would die if he could not have his mouth on hers. With a will of their own, her arms wound around his neck and her fingers tangled in his long, thick hair as she pulled him closer.
She was lost in the sensations and long past thought. As his kisses slowly changed from feverish to tender, she felt as if she were floating. She wanted this to go on forever.
When Rory pulled away, she stared up at him, stunned.
"That was promising," he said with a wide grin. — Margaret Mallory

What happened next played itself out like a terrible drama with two spectators. Lee and I stayed on our side of the fence, like an audience. Of course if the bull had wanted to smash through the fence he could have done so any time, but luckily nearly all cattle live and die without learning that. It's like school, most students go from kindergarten to Year 12 without noticing that they could do a fair amount of damage if they wanted to. They stay inside the fence. — John Marsden

My
mother hoped that
i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could — E. E. Cummings

petal." I don't look at it that closely. "That blossom started as a seed," she continues. "It was buried deep in the cold, dark ground. One day when the soil was warm and moist, the little seed split apart and began to climb to a world it could not see. Imagine the courage it had! It did not know what it would find when it broke through the surface. The scorching sun? The gardener's blade? The crushing hoof of a cow? But the seed courageously pushed on so that one day, it could become a beautiful flower." She points a finger at me. "You must have the courage of the seed, Anna. Without it, you will stay buried. You will rot and die. It does not matter how smart you are, or how pretty, or if you have money and many friends. If you do not have courage, you will never blossom into the flower you were meant to be. — William Andrews

You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
I'd feel better if I could guard your back."
You're going to do that with a rifle from the closest hill, remember."
Night vision and scope, fine, but I can't kill them all from a distance."
You couldn't kill them all if you were johnny on the spot, either," I said.
No but I'd feel better."
Worried about me?" He shrugged.
I'm your bodyguard. If you die under my protection, the other bodyguards will make fun of me." It took me a second to realize he was making a joke. Harley looked back at him with an almost surprised look. I don't think either of us heard humor from Edward much. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Aelin ran for Manon, leaping over the fallen stones, her ankle wrenching on loose debris.
The island rocked with her every step, and the sunlight was scalding, as if Mala were holding that island aloft with every last bit of strength the goddess could summon in this land.
Then Aelin was upon Manon Blackbeak, and the witch lifted hate-filled eyes to her. Aelin hauled off stone after stone from her body, the island beneath them buckling.
"You're too good a fighter to kill," Aelin breathed, hooking an arm under Manon's shoulders and hauling her up. The rock swayed to the left-but held. Oh, gods. "If I die because of you, I'll beat the shit out of you in hell."
She could have sworn the witch let out a broken laugh as she got to her feet, nearly dead weight in Aelin's arms. — Sarah J. Maas

I missed my mother's father. Is that even possible? Maybe I had fallen asleep for a while. Maybe I was like her, just waking up and looking for him to be there. I wondered how it would have changed things for all of us if he had stayed home the day he was supposed to die in his car. How his decision to go out for something small, something like coffee or orange juice which everyone could have done without, had changed things for all of us. — Ann Patchett

I think about the work I've landed, and I think to myself, 'If I never land a job again, I could still die happy.' — Grey Damon

We? 'Twas me who found the marks, not you, not any of you Aegean fools. And your king is the biggest fool of all, for if he'd deigned to unbind me before he sent us here to die, I could have listened for what we seek and followed it that way. Now I am as impotent as you.
If considerably less ugly and stupid. — Rachel Haimowitz

I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether, could they choose between, They would not rather die. — Emily Dickinson

Then it's a deal, we're friends."
[ ... ]
"Can we just make one conditional rule here? That if we get into a situation where we know - absolutely - that we're going to die, we can have - "
She pulled her hand away. "Don't say it!"
He did. "Sex."
She glared her disbelief. "You are such and asshole!"
"I am," Ian agreed. I'm afraid that accepting me for who I am comes with the territory when talking friendship."
"Stay in the shadows, asshole," she said, then turned to stalk up the lawn toward the deck.
"Thank you," he said as he headed for the shrubs. "I appreciate our open-minded acceptance of my asshole-ishness."
And he wasn't sure, but he could've sword that he heard Phoebe laugh. — Suzanne Brockmann

When I bring an army against a country, the people of that land choose one of their own to be a watchman. 3When the watchman sees the enemy coming, he sounds the alarm to warn the people. 4Then if those who hear the alarm refuse to take action, it is their own fault if they die. 5They heard the alarm but ignored it, so the responsibility is theirs. If they had listened to the warning, they could have saved their lives. 6But if the watchman sees the enemy coming and doesn't sound the alarm to warn the people, he is responsible for their captivity. They will die in their sins, but I will hold the watchman responsible for their deaths. — Anonymous

It was the most monotonous day of my life," he replied without a second's hesitation. Then his rigid face broke and re-formed itself into the best smile ever, so that for a moment he really did look as if he had slipped through the bars of whatever confined him. "As a matter of fact, I thought you quite excellent," he said. This time she did not object to his choice of adjective. "Will you crash the car now, please, Jose? This will do me fine. I'll die here." And before he could stop her, she had grabbed his hand and kissed him hard on the knuckle of his thumb. — John Le Carre

You have only to lift your hand,' Thorkel Fostri said. And after a moment, 'What else were you born for?'
'Why not happiness, like other men? Thorfinn said.
'You have that,' said his foster-father. 'But if you try to trap it, it will change. Why do you resist? It is your right.'
'I resist because it is no use resisting,' Thorfinn said. 'Do you not think that is unfair? I shall be King because I was King; and I shall die because I did die; and did I remember them, I could even tell what are the three ways it might befall me. — Dorothy Dunnett

You ask me what I'd like to do that I haven't done and I say 'Nothin'!' I haven't any mountains to climb or oceans to swim. I've been an extremely blessed individual ... I'm not clamorin' for more trinkets. If I were to die tomorrow, I could say I've had a good life. — Ray Charles

I'd breathe for her. I'd see for her, hear for her, and feel for her. I'd even die for her. Thousands of times. If I could see her smile at me one more time, it would all be worth it. Just one more time. Before I completely fell apart. — Tiana Dalichov

I'm alright," Loki assured me with a grin and stepped out into the hall, so we could have some privacy from onlookers. "What can I do for you, Princess?"
"Can I cut off your head?" I asked.
"Are you asking for my permission?" Loki tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow. "Because I'm going to have to say no to this one request, Princess."
"No, I mean, can I?" I asked. "As in, am I capable of it? Would you die if I did?"
"Of course I would die." Loki put one hand against the wall and leaned on it. "I'm not a bloody cockroach. What's all this about? What are you trying to find out? — Amanda Hocking

He stepped close to her; she could feel his breath on her neck. "Eve, you make me not want to die."
She turned to see his face. "I didn't want to be this, and now it's all I am."
He put his hands on her cheeks. The look on his face did her in. He was kind, caring, and mourning her losses. Tears wet his cheeks. Eve felt a very deep sob choke her. If he was mourning, so could she.
He pulled her into his arms. "Cry. It's okay. Cry."
Eve felt her knees give. He caught her and carried her to his couch. He petted her hair and let her empty her pain and guilt onto his chest. He kissed the top of her head. For the first time, his actions toward her seemed to have no sexual intent whatsoever.
Eve let go of a rope she'd clung to for too long. And she fell. She fell right into him. Wrong or right, she gave up judging. Her lips found his, and he kissed her gently, not demanding any more than she was willing to offer. — Debra Anastasia

My death could, in fact, save him.
If it can't, no matter. It's enough to die of spite. To punish Haymitch, who, of all the people in this rotting world, has turned Peeta and me into pieces in his Games. I trusted him. I put what was precious in Haymitch's hands. And he has betrayed me. — Suzanne Collins

What would you do if I died?
If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you.
Okay. — Cormac McCarthy

If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy. — Ian McEwan

Walker and Timothy sat quietly for a very long time. "Why do so many people make it so hard for anyone to help them or to love them?" Walker asked finally.
Timothy chuckled. "Ah, Walker - if I could explain all of humanity's foibles, I'd be a rich man indeed, at least as far as money goes. I believe people are like that because of fear. They fear being loved because they fear that if they're loved, they'll have to love back. And if they love back, they may get hurt. And many people aren't ready to put their hearts on the line like that. Mostly because they don't have anything to fall back on. It's quite a shame, really, because they hurt themselves by trying to avoid getting hurt. But we have to be willing to die many times if we're ever going to get on with this business of living. — Tom Walsh

I was told that my diet was so poor that I could not repair the bones that were broken and operated on. So I have just had an Xradiograph taken; and lo! perfectly mended solid bone so beautifully white that I have left instructions that, if I die, a glove stretcher is to be made of me and sent to you as a souvenir — George Bernard Shaw

Who sent you?" Sicarius asked.
Amaranthe considered carefully before answering. If he simply meant to scare her into providing information, he could have started with a knife against her throat. No, he had almost broken her neck. He had intended to kill her but stopped mid-motion. Why? And would he continue where he had left off if she answered incorrectly?
"Commander of the Armies Hollowcrest."
Given the previous demonstration of how he could see through lies, the truth seemed a safer choice. Besides, she found herself reluctant to die to protect Hollowcrest's anonymity.
"Why?"
"To kill you."
"That I gathered. Why did he send you? What did you do to anger him?"
"I ... Uhm, what?"
"It was a suicide mission. You must have suspected. — Lindsay Buroker

If I could
choose, a place to die,
it would never have been in your arms, old darling — Sharon Olds

I always prayed the same way at night: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Please bless my mother, father, sister, everyone in the word, and me. And please make my father quit drinking."
As a child growing up in a family battling alcoholism, this is what I know: Something bad is coming; it always does. I can't ask for help; I'm too ashamed. I can't talk about our secrets; no one understands. I can't trust anyone; they always leave.
Questions bounced off my self-constructed wall of values
a barricade I'd made from the fears I'd pushed into my darkness.
How could Ryan, a professional baseball player, really resist all those women? How could I really trust Jerry, my childhood friend? I'd barely awakened to sex and already boys were the seventh wonder of the world. Did anyone really trust another person? I needed proof. That proof hadn't revealed itself ... yet. — Pamela Taeuffer

You realize I had half my guard out searching for you?" Eddard Stark said when they were alone. "Septa Mordane is beside herself with fear. She's in the sept praying for your safe return. Arya, you know you are never to go beyond the castle gates without my leave."
"I didn't go out the gates," she blurted. "Well, I didn't mean to. I was down in the dungeons, only they turned into this tunnel. It was all dark, and I didn't have a torch or a candle to see by, so I had to follow. I couldn't go back the way I came on account of the monsters. Father, they were talking about killing you! Not the monsters, the two men. They didn't see me, I was being still as stone and quiet as a shadow, but I heard them. They said you had a book and a bastard and if one Hand could die, why not a second? Is that the book? Jon's the bastard, I bet. — George R R Martin

The plain shiprock walls, and the painted statue of Lord Pas (from which the paint was peeling) will remain with me until the day I die, always somewhat colored by the wonder I felt as a small boy at seeing a black cock struggling in the old man's hands after he had cut its throat, its wings beating frantically, beating as if they might live after all, live somehow somewhere, if only they could spray the whole place with blood before they — Gene Wolfe

He wanted to know if the master sergeant had read Auden, the twentieth century's most influential Christian poet, "English majors in the army, not many of them, not many of us, am I right, Top." Burnette, nonplussed, wondered if he should mention Eliot or the eccentric religious impulses of JD Salinger, but instead mumbled the only line he could recall from Auden's work, "We must love one another or die." Bingo, said the colonel. Son of a bitch had the wrong conjunction. — Bob Shacochis

He took his hands off the oars and pulled in the mooring rope. If I make a couple of loops, he thought, I can strap the axe on to my back.
He had a mental picture of what could happen to a man who plunged into the cauldron below a waterfall with a sharp piece of metal attached to his body.
GOOD MORNING.
Vimes blinked. A tall dark robed figure was now sitting in the boat.
'Are you Death?'
IT'S THE SCYTHE, ISN'T IT? PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE.
'I'm going to die?'
POSSIBLY.
'Possibly? You turn up when people are possibly going to die?'
OH, YES. IT'S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT'S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.
'What's that?'
I'M NOT SURE.
'That's very helpful. — Terry Pratchett

I opened my mouth to tell her that nothing could kill me, not now, but she said, 'Not kill you. Destroy you. Dissolve you. You wouldn't die in here, nothing ever dies in here, but if you stayed here for too long, after a while just a little of you would exist everywhere, all spread out. And that's not a good thing. Never enough of you all together in one place, so there wouldn't be anything left that would think of itself as an "I." No point of view any longer, because you'd be an infinite sequence of views and points ... — Neil Gaiman

I would love to love something, especially if I could do it without feeling like I was watching it die right in front of me. — Vanessa Veselka

You told me that the children of the forest had the greensight. I remember."
"Some claimed to have that power. Their wise men were called greenseers."
"Was it magic?"
"Call it that for want of a better word, if you must. At heart it was only a different sort of knowledge."
Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and
their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so
they seem ... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink
beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.
So long as there was magic, anything could happen. Ghosts could walk, trees could talk, and broken boys could grow up to be knights. — George R R Martin

I think you just complimented me," said Jane. "You should take better care next time."
The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane's arm and whisper, "Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you." He took a breath. "There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again."
Jane's mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, "But ... but surely you wouldn't banish all the food."
He considered, then nodded once. "Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic."
And he spun her into the middle of the dance. — Shannon Hale

Pete squeezed Jack's hand, hard as she could. "You're not alone," she told him. "If you've made up your mind to die, then I'll be with you here, until the end. I'd follow you into death if that's what you asked, Jack. Heaven, Hell. Anywhere at all. — Caitlin Kittredge

do you know what a dying declaration is?" I didn't, although I gave it a shot. "It's a declaration made by someone who is dying?" "It is a term of law," he said. "If a man whispers the name of his killer and then dies, it's considered good evidence because there's a belief - an understanding - that a person who is dying would not want to die with a lie upon his lips. No sin could be greater than a sin that cannot be rectified, the sin you never get to confess. — Allen Eskens

I wish I could tell my parents, If you want to help me, help me die. — Julie Anne Peters

Sometimes you may think you're doing the right thing, but it turns out to be the wrong thing. And you just have to live with it. If I'd known what I know now when I was young, I could have done a lot more right, but I didn't. That's the way life is: you figure it out right before you die. — K. Martin Beckner

I discover that it is possible to be angry with someone who has died. It is possible to hate yourself for being angry with someone who has died. It is possible to believe that you will die from grief, that somehow your breathing will catch itself up and simply stop. It is possible to believe that you could have stopped the terrible thing that happened at any time, if only you had known. — Anita Shreve

I briefly considered giving the Myerson kids the same lecture I'd given the other first graders on the playground:
Unicorns are man-eating monsters. They don't have wings, they aren't lavender or sparkly, and you could never catch one to ride without its goring you through the sternum. And even if it somehow managed to miss your major arteries - and it never missed - you'd still die from the deadly poison in its horn. But don't worry. My great-great-great-great-great-great-aunt Clothilde killed the last one a hundred and fifty years ago.
Except now I guessed it would be more like a hundred and sixty. How time doth fly in a unicorn-free world. — Diana Peterfreund

They asked a bunch of ninety-five-year-olds, I don't know where they found them all, Florida I guess, but anyway they asked them if they could do it all over again and live their life again what would they do differently. The three things that almost all of them said were: (1) They would reflect more. Enjoy more moments. More sunrises and sunsets. More moments of joy. (2) They would take more risks and chances. Life is too short not to go for it. (3) They would have left a legacy. Something that would live on after they die. — Jon Gordon

So long as men die, life will reassert its tragic interest from time to time with fresh energy, and to this interest Christianity alone can respond. If the scientific people could rid us of death, they might indeed hope to win over the heart and conscience of the world, permanently, to some form of non-theistic speculation. As it is, the tide ebbs, as I believe, only that it may flow again. — Henry Parry Liddon

I assure you, I am taking an inordinate amount of pleasure from this ball, but none of it has to do with any of these bumblers."
"I think you just complimented me," said Jane. "You should take better care next time."
The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane's arm and whisper, "Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you." He took a breath. "There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again."
Jane's mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, "But ... but surely you wouldn't banish all the food."
He considered, then nodded once. "Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic. — Shannon Hale

The truth is, I'd give it all up, the sentience, the endowments, and I'd go back to Scranton and work in that damned store and stock fucking Pez dispensers for the rest of my life if it meant that I could still be with you until I die. — Jennifer DeLucy

Arms around me in the dark. Lips against mine in the sunlight. Do you know why I love you?
He knew me. And loved me. And he had never asked me for anything. Even Shade wanted me to
die for him. Maybe I shouldn't forgive a monster just because he loved me that way - but
But loving me that way made him a monster. My doom was the price of saving Arcadia, and only
a monster would care more about me than saving thousands upon thousands of innocents. Shade was
the last prince; of course if he could save only one, he would choose Arcadia. I would do the same. — Rosamund Hodge

He would give anything if he could feel toward a lover one tenth of what he felt for Darling. Just for one heartbeat. But it wasn't meant to be. He'd accepted that a long time ago. Darling would always be heterosexual. Nothing would ever change that, and his best friend would die before sleeping with him. Why can't I walk away from Darling? Honestly, he'd tried. He'd gone from one man to another, hoping, aching that one of them would find a way into his jaded heart. And every one of them had disappointed him, and left him with scars that were deeper and uglier than the ones marring his body. But as he breathed Ture in, that part of him that he hated most surged forward. Hope was a fickle whore, and he hated the fact that he was her bitch. You've walked this path a million times, Mari. Only Darling was Darling. Everyone else was a poor substitution. Clenching — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I couldn't stand the waiting anymore. I couldn't stand how alone it made me feel."
And a part of you wished it would just end, said the monster, even if it meant losing her.
And the nightmare began. The nightmare that always ended with -
"I let her go," Conor choked out. "I could have held on but I let her go."
And that, the monster said, is the truth.
"I didn't mean it, though!" Conor said, his voice rising. "I didn't mean to let her go! And now it's for real! Now she's going to die and it's my fault!"
And that, the monster said, is not the truth at all. — Patrick Ness

I'll stay with her," Maude interrupted, just before
Grier could say the same thing.
"You can't. Not in intensive care. You can see her three
times a day, for no more than ten minutes each time," he
added firmly. "It's too serious. She has to be kept quiet.
No upsets."
Judd looked as if he'd die trying not to snap at the surgeon. But he finally just nodded defeatedly.
Coltrain put a rough hand on his shoulder. "Don't borrow trouble. Take it one hour at a time. You'll get through this."
"Think so?" Judd asked heavily.
"I know so. I'll keep a close watch on her. Try not to
worry." He nodded to the others and went back down the
hall.
Judd looked at the other three people with him. "I'm
glad you're all here. But if anybody gets into that room,
even for a minute, it's going to be me," he said shortly.
Cash looked inclined to argue, but the expression on
Judd's face made him back down. — Diana Palmer

Life is pure farce from beginning to end, with a little
black comedy thrown in for shade. If it was anything
else, mankind would have stuck his collective head in
the gas oyen years ago. No one could tolerate seventy
years of tragedy. When I die - probably of cancer -
Jane has prornised to put on my tombstone: "Here
lies Anne Cattrell who laughed her way through it.
The joke was on her but at least she knew it." (The Ice House) — Minette Walters

Everybody knows deep down that life is as much about the things that do not happen as the things that do and that's not something that ought to be glossed over or denied because without frustration there would hardly be any need to daydream. And daydreams return me to my original sense of things and I luxuriate in these fervid primary visions until I am entirely my unalloyed self again. So even though it sometimes feels as if one could just about die from disappointment I must concede that in fact in a rather perverse way it is precisely those things I did not get that are keeping me alive. — Claire-Louise Bennett

Of course, we could all die soon. I'm writing because Michael's patrolling the house and Shane and Claire are asleep. It may be the last chance I have to write anything down.
So in case that's true, I want to say that I love Shane and Claire, and I love Michael, and staying here in the Glass House has been the best time in my entire life ...
But if it all ends here, at least it's ending with the people I really love. — Rachel Caine

Life Is Fine"

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine! — Langston Hughes

My own tears caught me by surprise, and I turned away before he could see them. Everyone leaves. If I've learned one thing in life that it was that. They might die. They might betray your trust. They might stay until I've got too hard or inconvenient. But in the end, the people you cared about always leave. — Suzanne Johnson

I-I didn't ... " Derek began.
He scrambled from under Liam. The werewolf's body fell, limp, to the side, his head twisted, neck broken.
Derek swallowed. The sound echoed in the silence.
"I didn't
I just
I was trying to stop him."
"You didn't mean it," I said softly. "But he did."
He looked at me, eyes refusing to focus.
"He would have killed you," I said."Killed both of us, if it came down to it. You might not have meant to do it, but ... "
I didn't finish. I could have said the world was better off without Liam, but we both knew the point wasn't whether Liam deserved to die, but whether Derek deserved the guilt of killing someone. He didn't. — Kelley Armstrong

He pondered that a little while and then he asked, do Black people have to pay for their doctors, too? Because that's what TV programs had said. I smiled a little at this and told him it's not only Black people who have to pay for doctors and medical care; all people in America have to. Ah, he said. And suppose you don't have the money to pay? Well, I said, if you don't have the money to pay, sometimes you died. And there was no mistaking my gesture, even though he had to wait for the translator to translate it. We left him looking absolutely nonplussed, standing in the middle of the square with his mouth open and his hand under his chin staring after me, as in utter amazement that human beings could die from lack of medical care. It's things like that that keep me dreaming about Russia long after I've returned. — Audre Lorde