Last Words Before Death Quotes & Sayings

Who first, upon sensing the backward rush of memory said to signal the moment of death, was able to telegraph this apprehension to the family gathered around? Maybe the original gentleman descended from ape said the equivalent of "falling out of tree" to his common-law ape wife, and she interpreted his words as "just as he left for the dusty world beyond, his whole life passed before his eyes. Then he hit the ground." After all, falling out of the tree is the first and the last thing we do. — Gregory Maguire

Anything which is just born, which has just come into existence, has no past behind it. Birth, in other words, is the condition of having no past. And likewise, anything which now dies, which has just ceased to be, has no future left in front of it. Death is the condition of having no future. But we have already seen that this present moment has both no past and no future simultaneously. That is, birth and death are one in this present moment. This moment is just now being born - you can never find a past to this present moment, you can never find something before it. Yet also, this moment is just now dying - you can never find a future to this moment, never find something after it. This present, then, is a coincidence of opposites, a unity of birth and death, being and non-being, living and dying. As Ippen put it, Every moment is the last moment and every moment is a rebirth. — Ken Wilber

This isn't the first time I've faced death, and I don't intend for it to be the last," I said, repeating the same words he'd told me before fighting in that fateful duel. "I've chosen to live a dangerous life, but it's who I am, and that wouldn't change even if we'd never met. — Jeaniene Frost

Don't be scared," said a voice behind me.
Those must certainly fall into the category of Famous Last Words, the sort that are the last thing you hear before your death. (Along with "it isn't loaded" and "he only wants to play.") Of course I was terrible scared. — Kerstin Gier

If your last words are somehow meant to encapsulate your entire existence, Liz finds um strangely appropriate. Um means nothing. Um is what you say while you're thinking of what you'll really say. Um suggests someone interrupted before they'd begun. Um is a fifteen-year-old girl who gets hit by a taxicab in front of a mall on the way to help pick out a prom dress for a prom she isn't even going to, for God's sake. — Gabrielle Zevin

It is a dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of death; to know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and to sit and count the dreary hours through long, long, nights - such nights as only watchers by the bed of sickness know. It chills the blood to hear the dearest secrets of the heart, the pent-up, hidden secrets of many years, poured forth by the unconscious helpless being before you; and to think how little the reserve, and cunning of a whole life will avail, when fever and delirium tear off the mask at last. Strange tales have been told in the wanderings of dying men; tales so full of guilt and crime, that those who stood by the sick person's couch have fled in horror and affright, lest they should be scared to madness by what they heard and saw; and many a wretch has died alone, raving of deeds, the very name of which, has driven the boldest man away.
("The Drunkard's Death") — Charles Dickens

In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with our eyes closed, and all our stories end the same way, too, with all of us uttering some last words - or perhaps someone else's - before slipping back into darkness as our series of unfortunate events comes to an end. — Lemony Snicket

The universe is full of echoes and shadows, the afterimages and last words of dead civilizations that have lost the struggle against entropy. Fading ripples in the cosmic background radiation, it is doubtful if most, or any, of these messages will ever be deciphered. Likewise, most of our thoughts and memories are destined to fade, to disappear, to be consumed by the very act of choosing and living. That is not a cause for sorrow, sweetheart. It is the fate of every species to disappear into the void that is the heat death of the universe. But long before then, the thoughts of any intelligent species worthy of the name will become as grand as the universe itself. — Ken Liu