Quotes & Sayings About Quick Death

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

But death is not always a bad outcome, you know, and a quick death can be better than a slow one. — Henry Marsh

For the wise man delights in establishing his merit, the brave man likes to show his courage in action, the covetous man is quick at seizing advantages, and the stupid man has no fear of death. — Sun Tzu

I'm so happy dancing while the grim reaper
cuts, cuts, cuts, but he can't get me.
I'm as clever as can be, and I'm very quick but don't forget;
we've only got so many tricks.
no one lives forever. — Danny Elfman

But if the world is watching, we might as well tell the truth. And the truth is, the church doesn't offer a cure. It doesn't offer a quick fix. The church offers death and resurrection. The church offers the messy, inconvenient, gut-wrenching, never-ending work of healing and reconciliation. The church offers grace. Anything else we try to peddle is snake oil. It's not the real thing. — Rachel Held Evans

Trudging on foot, loaded with sacks, bundles, and babies, young mothers who had lost their milk, driven out of their minds by the horrors of the journey, abandoned their children, shook the corn out of their sacks onto the ground, and turned back. A quick death, they had decided, was preferable to a slow death by starvation. Better to fall into the clutches of the enemy than to be torn to pieces by some beast in the forest. — Boris Pasternak

I'm like a machine being run over its RPM limit: The bearings are overheating - a minute longer, and the metal is going to melt and start dripping and that'll be the end of everything. I need a quick splash of cold water, logic. I pour it on in buckets, but the logic hisses on the hot bearings and dissipates in the air as a fleeting white mist.
Well, of course, it's clear that you can't establish a function without taking into account what its limit is. And it's also clear that what I felt yesterday, that stupid "dissolving in the universe," if you take it to its limit, is death. Because that's exactly what death is - the fullest possible dissolving of myself into the universe. Hence, if we let L stand for love and D for death, then L = f (D), i.e., love and death ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Corbin wanted, quite simply, to die.
He had wished for death many times over his long lifespan, but never as fervently as he did while Beth Adams rattled off breastfeeding statistics, her baby sucking industriously, mouth fully around the entire areola, as Sam was quick to point out, finger outlining the area in question. Corbin was speechless.
-Corbin at Baby Boot Camp — Erin McCarthy

Opium makes you quick-witted - perhaps only because it calms the nerves and stills the emotions. Nothing, not even death, seems so important. — Graham Greene

He was past the jitters about her age, her uncle. He was moving on this. And when it was over, he was going to be shot, he was pretty sure. But he was into her; she had him. He hoped his death would be quick and painless. — Robyn Carr

Bonnie Rae, you've got a visitor downstairs. And if you don't show your face right away, he's going to kill me. And it won't be a quick death. It will be a mauling. Do you understand?"
"Huh?"
"Bear's here, and he's loaded for . . . well, bear."
"Bear's here?" she shot straight up in bed, immediately awake, and made for the door, bare legs flying, oversized T-shirt slipping off her slim shoulders.
"Bonnie!" She halted and turned in question. "If you want me to live, pull on some pants and do something with your hair. Please. — Amy Harmon

Into these pavilions he admitted the elect, and there, says Marco Polo, gave them to eat a certain herb, which transported them to Paradise, in the midst of ever-blooming shrubs, ever-ripe fruit, and ever-lovely virgins. What these happy persons took for reality was but a dream; but it was a dream so soft, so voluptuous, so enthralling, that they sold themselves body and soul to him who gave it to them, and obedient to his orders as to those of a deity, struck down the designated victim, died in torture without a murmur, believing that the death they underwent was but a quick transition to that life of delights of which the holy herb, now before you, had given them a slight foretaste." "Then," cried Franz, "it is hashish! I know that - by name at least. — Alexandre Dumas

We are not playing hide-and-seek, Harry," said Voldemort's soft, cold voice, drawing nearer, as the Death Eaters laughed. "You cannot hide from me. Does this mean you are tired of our duel? Does this mean that you would prefer me to finish it now, Harry? Come out, Harry . . . come out and play, then . . . it will be quick . . . it might even be painless . . . I would not know . . . I have never died. . . ." Harry — J.K. Rowling

To be injured on this tundra would lead to a quick and painful death - or at the very least abject humiliation before the popping flashes of the tourist season's tail end, which was slightly less painful than a painful death, but lasted longer. — Eoin Colfer

Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're always looking towards the top and you feel happy, but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death at the end of it all. It's slow going up and quick going down. — Guy De Maupassant

Someone's killed 100,000 people. We're almost going, "Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning! I can't even get down the gym. Your diary must look odd: 'Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death - lunch - death, death, death - afternoon tea - death, death, death - quick shower ... ' " — Eddie Izzard

Sometimes I felt the bloated Toad, hideous and pampered with the poisonous vapours of the dungeon, dragging his loathsome length along my bosom: Sometimes the quick cold Lizard rouzed me leaving his slimy track upon my face, and entangling itself in the tresses of my wild and matted hair: Often have I at waking found my fingers ringed with the long worms which bred in the corrupted flesh of my Infant. — Matthew Gregory Lewis

To gain a true understanding of human experience, we must understand both our conscious and our unconscious selves, and how they interact. Our subliminal brain is invisible to us, yet it influences our conscious experience of the world in the most fundamental of ways: how we view ourselves and others, the meanings we attach to the everyday events of our lives, our ability to make the quick judgment calls and decisions that can sometimes mean the difference between life and death, and the actions we engage in as a result of all these instinctual experiences. — Leonard Mlodinow

In October 1941, Mahilue became teh first substantial city in occupied Soviet Belarus where almost all Jews were killed. A German (Austrian) policeman wrote to his wife of his feelings and experiences shooting the city's Jews in the first days of the month. 'During the first try, my hand trembled a bit as I shot, but one gets used to it. By the tenth try I aimed calmly and shot surely at the many women, children, and infants. I kept in mind that I have two infants at home, whom these hordes would treat just the same, if not ten times worse. The death that we gave them was a beautiful quick death, compared to the hellish torments of thousands and thousands in the jails of the GPU. Infants flew in great arcs through the air, and we shot them to pieces in flight, before their bodies fell into the pit and into the water.'
pp. 205-206 — Timothy Snyder

I close my eyes to escape the burn. His eyes are so hot right now, I feel like I could be incinerated. The intense heat pouring off his body makes me think of Dax's cool touch. I'm sure it could kill, too, but it would be a quiet death, lulling you to sleep, promising life is better on the other side. Turner's touch, it simply sears and sizzles, melting me into nothing. Quick, painful, intense. I love it even though I don't want to. — C.M. Stunich

Calm down. I'm a demon, Nick. Hematite doesn't like my genetics. It doesn't mean anything other than I have really bad parentage."
"Then why am I having flashes of you killing me?"
"What'd you eat this morning?"
Nick didn't care for that answer. Not one little bit. "I saw it happen. You were choking the life out of me."
Caleb rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah. That is definitely a figment of your overactive, over-Hollywood-stimulated imagination. I assure you. I don't kill people that way. Takes too long. I'm not into torture. I prefer a quick death so that I can move on to something more satisfying."
Strangely enough, that he believed. Patience wasn't a virtue Caleb practiced. "You sure?"
"Dude, look at me. You think I'd have let the demons pound all over me last night so that you could escape if I had any intention of killing you? Really? — Sherrilyn Kenyon

It is unity that doth enchant me. By her power I am free though thrall, happy in sorrow, rich in poverty, and quick even in death. — Giordano Bruno

In a typical desperation for quick answers, easily understood, people had turned to primitive worship as the solution. With less than success. Not only had they died as quickly as the rest of the people, but they had died with terror in their hearts, with a mortal dread flowing in their very veins. — Richard Matheson

It's what you do, unthinking, that makes the quick tear start; the tear may be forgotten ... but the hurt stays in the heart. — Ella Higginson

Esther loses her virginity, hemorrhages during the process, and almost bleeds to death - like Catherine in A Farewell to Arms - and I do wonder why women are always hemorrhaging in American literature. — Matthew Quick

When you are strong and healthy, You never think of sickness coming, But it descends with sudden force, Like a stroke of lightning. When involved in worldly things, You never think of death's approach; Quick it comes like thunder, Crashing round your head. — Milarepa

Do the uncomfortable. Become comfortable with these acts. Prove to yourself that your limiting beliefs die a quick death if you will simply do what you feel uncomfortable doing. — Darren Rowse

This is the way that it goes. In your mid forties you have your first crisis of mortality (death will not ignore me); and ten years later you have your first crisis of age (my body whispers that death is already intrigued by me). But something very interesting happens to you in between.
As the fiftieth birthday approaches, you get that sense that your life is thinning out, and will continue to thin out, until it thins out into nothing. And you sometimes say to yourself; That went a bit quick. That went a bit quick. In certain moods you may want to put it a bit more forcefully. As in: OY!! That went a BIT FUCKING QUICK!!! ... Then fifty comes and goes, and fifty-one, and fifty-two. And life thickens out again. Because there is now an enormous and unsuspected presence within your being, like an undiscovered continent. This is the past. — Martin Amis

I didn't expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers but at the same time I sort of hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected. — Harper Lee

I should be getting back to the bonfire. They're going to think I've been kidnapped." He pulled me toward him in one quick motion.

"Kidnapped insinuates some sort of struggle." He said in a low voice with a sexy grin. "You'd enjoy being captured by me." My heart jumped in my throat, but I tried to remain cool.

"I'd like to see you try," I threw back at him, "but first you'll have to escape your own sandy death trap" I wiggled my feet out of the sand, stood up and washed my hands off in the water. He followed my every move with curious eyes.

"Sweet dreams, Anastasia." I wasn't sure if there was an underlying meaning to his words. "Sweet dreams, Finn," I responded, breathlessly. — Kristen Day

The Cross is the approbation of our existence, not in words, but in an act so completely radical that it caused God to become flesh and pierced this flesh to the quick; that, to God, it was worth the death of his incarnate Son. — Pope Benedict XVI

Only it was complicated, she wasn't thinking only of herself but me too, since we'd both been through so many of the same things, she and I, and we were an awful lot alike - too much. And because we'd both been hurt so badly, so early on, in violent and irremediable ways that most people didn't, and couldn't, understand, wasn't it a bit ... precarious? A matter of self-preservation? Two rickety and death-driven persons who would need to lean on each other quite so much? not to say she wasn't doing well at the moment, because she was, but all that could change in a flash with either of us, couldn't it? the reversal, the sharp downward slide, and wasn't that the danger? since our flaws and weaknesses were so much the same, and one of us could bring the other down way too quick? and though this was left to float in the air a bit, I realized instantly, and with some considerable astonishment, what she was getting at. — Donna Tartt

Basically there are two types of animals: animals, and animals that have no brains; they are called plants. They don't need a nervous system because they don't move actively, they don't pull up their roots and run in a forest fire! Anything that moves actively requires a nervous system; otherwise it would come to a quick death. — Rodolfo Llinas

Creativity always dies a quick death in rooms that house conference tables. — Bruce Herschensohn

It has been that way ever since the Greeks - a blind fuck in the mud and then a quick spawn and then death. — Henry Miller

true apothecary thy drugs art quick — William Shakespeare

One of my predecessors used to have people torn to death by wild tortoises. It was not a quick death. — Terry Pratchett

So many things are lost in the dark. A slight misstep and we lose our footing. A quick hand in a pocket and we lose our money. A coat hanger in a womb and we lose a fetus. A swift puncture and we lose a life. — Pat Henshaw

Some days in the camp you prayed to live; some days you prayed to die quick. Some days you didn't bother praying, knowing there was no sense to anything. — Allan Dare Pearce

Any chance of an appointment? I know it's a bit unusual and nervy, but I have been given a death sentence and have to get my affairs in quick order. — Virginia Aird

You were so quick to judge, weren't you? Ah, you revealed so much with that contemptuous utterance. And I admit to being amused at my own instinctive response to your words. Naive. Errant take me, I wanted to rip your head from your body, like decapitating a swamp-fly. I wanted to show you true contempt. Mine. For you and your kind. I wanted to take that dismissive expression on your face and push it through an offal grinder. You think you have all the answers? You must, given the ease of your voiced judgement. Well, you pathetic little creature, one day uncertainty will come to your door, will clamber down your throat, and it will be a race to see which arrives first, humility or death. Either way, I will spare you a moment's compassion, which is what sets you and me apart, isn't it? — Steven Erikson

Ben Adaephon Delat," Pearl said plaintively, "see the last who comes. You send me to my death."
"I know," Quick Ben whispered.
"Flee, then. I will hold them enough to ensure your escape no more."
Quick Ben sank down past the roof.
Before he passed from sight Pearl spoke again. "Ben Adaephon Delat, do you pity me?"
"Yes" he replied softly, then pivoted and dropped down into darkness. — Steven Erikson

If there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it up;
So quick bright things come to confusion. — William Shakespeare

Life is so quick that it's all played out at the gates of death, and the value of resolution is that it quickens life. — Mark Helprin

I could picture how Caprice was before we lost her. Dark hair, beautiful smile, intelligent hazel eyes, quick wit.
Now gone.
Just gone.
Like a chessboard where suddenly one of the knights disappeared. A blank spot on the board of life that could never truly be replaced because no two things were alike, no two beings alike. — Cheyenne McCray

I heard this girl worked for Bishop,' said one of the guys, who had a tire iron resting on his shoulder. 'Carrying around his death warrants. Like one of those Nazi collaborators.'
'You heard wrong,' Shane said. 'She's my girl. Now back off.'
'Let's hear from her,' said the leader of the pack, and locked stares with Claire. 'So? You working for the vamps?'
Shane sent her a quick, warning glance.
Claire took in a deep breath and said, 'Absolutely.'
'Ah hell,' Shane breathed. 'Okay, then. Run. — Rachel Caine

Or if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound Swift as a shadow, short as any dream Brief as the lightening in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth; And ere a man hath power to say "Behold!" The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.'" "Brava! — Jean Hegland

Later, he would ask later who Attila was. Now he only wanted Belial's kiss. His heat. His passion. A quick gallop. Frenzied eternity. Insanity multiplied. A perfect, mind-numbing, bone-shattering small death. He wanted it all. Now. Now. Now. — Ciaran O. Dwynvil

A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man. — E. M. Forster

When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Some deaths were long, the decay so gradual the rotted end was nothing more than a sigh disappearing in the wind.
Others were quick, the abrupt cut of a life in mid-phrase leaving unanswered questions lingering like an unresolved harmony. — Emma Raveling

In quick succession, Qhuinn reviewed his answers: No, of course not, the knife was acting of its own volition. I was actually trying to stop it ... No, I only meant to give him a shave ... No, I didn't realize that slicing open someone's jugular was going to lead to death. — J.R. Ward

Robert held back in the press, letting others go after the rebels fleeing before the charge. Their orders were to slaughter anyone found in the streets to provoke a quick surrender, after which mercy would be granted to those left alive. He had seen death throughout his life, but the duel he'd had with Guy was the closest he'd come to ending someone's life and even then there had been rules imposed. There were no such boundaries here. The freedom to kill was a dizzying, precipitous feeling. But the veteran knights were pushing in behind him, forcing the issue. With a snarl of frustration at his own hesitation, Robert fixed on one man darting away down an alley and spurred his horse out of the crush in pursuit. — Robyn Young

There's a difference in our ages [with Leonardo DiCaprio], but we were both in the same sort of position [on The Quick and the Death movie].Everyone below us in a casting position were all these really famous character actors like Keith David. And they were looking at the two of us going, 'Who are these guys?' So that naturally kind of put us together in a way where we'd just hang out together because we didn't care about status. We just wanted to enjoy the experience. The two things that have changed about Leo [ DiCaprio] since that time: he can drink legally and he's no longer a virgin. — Leonardo DiCaprio

Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that. — Mark Twain

Boast of Quietness
Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious
and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.
My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.
They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,
the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away
he doesn't expect to arrive. — Jorge Luis Borges

If quick, I survive. If not quick, I am lost. This is death. — Sun Tzu

My childhood ambition was to be an Olympic swimmer like my aunt, but that died a quick death when I discovered other sports. I swam very competitively till I was 15, then I swam for fun until I was 18. But athletics remain a very big part of my life. — Teddy Sears

Death Race was a very modern action movie and it used all of those modern action techniques with lots of hand-held camera, lots of punchy zooms, and lots of quick movements and quick cuts. In 3D, I didn't want to do that anymore. — Paul W. S. Anderson

As he watches the sun rise, what grieves him is that he failed her. He thinks of the terror she felt. They tell him it was quick, as if that will somehow confine the horror. — Nancy Horan

So where are we headed?" "Since the near-death portion of the evening is over, I thought I'd take you out." He risked a quick glance at me. "That's okay, right?" I — Ann Aguirre

We owe them [animals] a decent life and a decent death, and their lives should be as low-stress as possible. That's my job. I wish animals could have more than just a low-stress life and a quick, painless death. I wish animals could have a good life, too, with something useful to do. People were animals, too, once, and when we turned into human beings we gave something up. Being close to animals brings some of it back. — Temple Grandin

Give us detailed, testable, mechanistic accounts for the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code, the origin of ubiquitous bio macromolecules and assemblages like the ribosome, and the origin of molecular machines like the bacterial flagellum, and intelligent design will die a quick and painless death. — William A. Dembski

Are you not afraid of death?'
I am not in the least afraid! ... I would rather die than drink that bitter medicine.'
At that moment the door of the room flew open, and four rabbits as black as ink entered carrying on their shoulders a little bier.
What do you want with me?' cried Pinocchio, sitting up in bed in a great fright.
We are come to take you,' said the biggest rabbit.
To take me? ... But I am not yet dead! ... '
No, not yet: but you have only a few minutes to live, as you have refused the medicine that would have cured you of the fever.'
Oh, Fairy, Fairy!' the puppet then began to scream, 'give me the tumbler at once ... be quick, for pity's sake, for I will not die
no ... I will not die ... — Carlo Collodi

they told her, "fear the reaper."
she laughed to herself and muttered, 'baby, death ain't nothing' more than a quick fuck.
a little bit of silence after he comes. — Taylor Rhodes

Outside the street's on fire In a real death waltz Between what's flesh and fantasy And the poets down here Don't write nothin at all They just stand back and let it all be And in the quick of the night They reach for their moment And try to make an honest stand But they wind up wounded Not even dead Tonight in Jungle Land. - Bruce Springsteen — Stephen King

You're fucked. You thought you were going to be someone, but now it's obvious you're nobody. You haven't got as much talent as you thought you had, and there was no Plan B, and you got no skills and no education, and now you're looking at forty or fifty years of nothing. Less than nothing, probably. That's pretty heavy. That's worse than having the brain thing, because what you got now will take a lot longer to kill you. You've got the choice of a slow, painful death, or a quick, merciful one. — Nick Hornby

what if there was an uncanny moment when all the birds were grounded from Cape Town to Juneau, and everywhere between--all feathers frozen in a universal stutter, so quick as to make a snail of light, and even Stephen Hawking's mind would miss it? — Kristen Henderson

She had not died there. A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which society would measure the quick motions of man. — E. M. Forster

Everybody believes that capital punishment is wrong, but when they look at certain cases, they're quick to say, 'Put them to death,' or scream 'capital punishment.' — Jeff Lindsay

He wanted to scream at his parents, to hit them, to elicit from them something - some melting into grief, some loss of composure, some recognition that something large had happened, that in Hemming's death they had lost something vital and necessary to their lives. He didn't care if they really felt that way or not: he just needed them to say it, he needed to feel that something lay beneath their imperturbable calm, that somewhere within them ran a thin stream of quick, cool water, teeming with delicate lives, minnows and grasses and tiny white flowers, all tender and easily wounded and so vulnerable you couldn't see them without aching for them. — Hanya Yanagihara

Every day, the pretty boys ask how I'm doing and if anyone is messing around with me - as if anyone else would torture me. It's kind of weird and I think I liked it better when they were just mean to me all the time, as strange as that sounds. Their being nice is like eternally having a boa constrictor around your neck and pretending that it will never choke you to death. — Matthew Quick

I think about how fragile people are, how anyone can disappear in a second and be gone forever. — Matthew Quick

Hey Americans," he screamed furiously at the drones.
"Brothers of the wolf, sisters of the wind, children of the Sun! Send the Choctaw warrior a quick and merciful death, instead of abandoning us into slavery or shameful capture. — George Sorbane

The body politic: the slow agonizing death of demarcation & the quick Caesarian section birth of chaos. — Dean Cavanagh

Life is better than death. But death comes eventually to everyone. It is something which many in their prime may prefer not to think about. But at 89, I see no point in avoiding the question. What concerns me is: How do I go? Will the end comes swiftly, with a stroke in one of the coronary arteries? Or will it be a stroke in the mind that lays me out in bed for months, semi-comatose? Of the two, I prefer the quick one. — Lee Kuan Yew

But maybe it's only been a brief separation that feels like years. Like a solo car ride that takes all night but feels like a lifetime. Watching all those highway dashes flying by at seventy miles an hour, your eyes becoming lazy slits and your mind wandering over the memory of a whole lifetime-past and future, childhood memories to thoughts of your own death-until the numbers on the dashboard clock do not mean anything more. And then the sun comes up and you get to your destination and the ride becomes the thing that is no longer real, because that surreal feeling has vanished and time has become meaningful again. — Matthew Quick

You must not die. You must not die by any hand, but least of all your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die. For if he is still with the quick Undead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy. By the day, or the night, in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not die. Nay, nor think of death, till this great evil be past. — Bram Stoker

My grandfather used to say the placement of a birthmark was the story of how a person lost the battle in their past life. I guess you got stabbed in the neck. Bet it was a quick death, though. — Colleen Hoover

Death can come slow. Death can come quick. If you've got one last breath, you better make the most of it. — A.H. Scott

Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks. They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will. — James Joyce

But now was not the time for second-guessing, nor was it the time for compassion. Now was the time for death, quick and brutal and terrible. — James Hunter

Do you remember the first time we made love?" He touched his lips to hers as he said it. "We rode up in the elevator like this and couldn't keep our hands off each other, couldn't get to each other quick enough. I was mad for you. I wanted you more than I wanted to keep breathing. I still do." He deepened the kiss as the elevator doors opened. "It's never going to change. — J.D. Robb

Yes, there is death in this business of whaling - a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. CHAPTER — Herman Melville

Maybe we're like the cherry blossom, Rune. Like shooting stars. Maybe we loved too much too young and burned so bright that we had to fade out." She pointed behind us, to the blossom grove. "Extreme beauty, quick death. We had this love long enough to teach us a lesson. To show us how capable of love we truly are. — Tillie Cole

As a kid, I imagined lots of different scenarios for my life. I would be an astronaut. Maybe a cartoonist. A famous explorer or rock star. Never once did I see myself standing under the window of a house belonging to some druggie named Carbine, waiting for his yard gnome to steal his stash so I could get a cab back to a cheap motel where my friend, a neurotic, death-obsessed dwarf, was waiting for me so we could get on the road to an undefined place and a mysterious Dr. X, who would cure me of mad cow disease and stop a band of dark energy from destroying the universe. — Libba Bray

Since we'd both been through so many of the same things, she and I, and we were an awful lot alike - too much. And because we'd both been hurt so badly, so early on, in violent and irremediable ways that most people didn't, and couldn't, understand, wasn't it a bit ... precarious? A matter of self-preservation? Two rickety and death-driven persons who would need to lean on each other quite so much? not to say she wasn't doing well at the moment, because she was, but all that could change in a flash with either of us, couldn't it? the reversal, the sharp downward slide, and wasn't that the danger? since our flaws and weaknesses were so much the same, and one of us could bring the other down way too quick? — Donna Tartt

Death is quick. What is important is the happiness that came before it. — Michelle Moran

Working-class families in the north of England used to hear the 1611 Bible regularly at church and at home ... for us, the language didn't seem too difficult. I especially liked 'the quick and the dead' - you really get a feel for the difference if you live in a house with mice and a mousetrap. — Jeanette Winterson

Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power," Tuek said. "You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick. — Frank Herbert

Teresa Lewis, the only woman on death row in Virginia, says she doesn't deserve the death penalty because she only hired the killers of her husband and stepson, she didn't actually pull the trigger herself. You know, she has a point. I think we should let her be able to hire the person who executes her, and not do yourself in! How's that, doll? Yeah! Get it over with quick, maybe Charlize Theron will sign up to play you. — Dennis Miller

He could find out if Tasev was guilty, then make him wish he'd never been born. A quick death for Tasev would be too easy.
No way in hell would that happen. The man would suffer for a long time before he took his last breath. That part of Levi had changed and he knew it. He'd never relished death or suffering before. Then he'd lost everything that mattered. — Katie Reus

Death is so quick, so certain. — Veronica Roth

That youthful enthusiasm for the Resistance was killed off quick in new recruits, if they were not killed off first. — Dean F. Wilson

LULL
(November, 1939)

The winds of hatred blow
Cold, cold across the flesh
And chill the anxious heart;
Intricate phobias grow
From each malignant wish
To spoil collective life.
Now each man stands apart.

We watch opinion drift,
Think of our separate skins.
On well-upholstered bums
The generals cough and shift
Playing with painted pins.
The arbitrators wait;
The newsmen suck their thumbs.
The mind is quick to turn
Away from simple faith
To the cant and fury of
Fools who will never learn;
Reason embraces death,
While out of frightened eyes
Still stares the wish to love. — Theodore Roethke

He's a boy who must learn to be a warrior and a king,' I said, 'and death is his destiny. He must learn to give it.' I patted Aethelstan's shoulder. 'Make it quick, boy,' I told him. 'He deserves a slow death, but this is your first killing. Make it easy for yourself. — Bernard Cornwell

And when, in the evening of life, the golden clouds rest sweetly and invitingly upon the golden mountains, and the light of heaven streams down through the gathering mists of death, I wish you a peaceful and abundant entrance into that world of blessedness, where the great riddle of life will be unfolded to you in the quick consciousness of a soul redeemed and purified. — J.G. Holland

Rike gave him a look as if he'd gone mad. Fat Burlow covered a chuckle. "I have spoken about that, Makin," I said. "I will break the cycle." I drew my sword and laid it across my knees. "You know how to break the cycle of hatred?" I asked. "Love," said Gomst, all quiet-like. "The way to break the cycle is to kill every single one of the bastards that fucked you over," I said. "Every last one of them. Kill them all. Kill their mothers, kill their brothers, kill their children, kill their dog." I ran my thumb along the blade of my sword and watched the blood bead crimson on the wound. "People think I hate the Count, but in truth I'm a great advocate of his methods. He has only two failings. Firstly, he goes far, but not far enough. Secondly, he isn't me. He taught me valuable lessons though. And when we meet, I will thank him for it, with a quick death. — Mark Lawrence

Well, we better be quick and not become human popsicles. I'm going to be really upset at you if I freeze to death. (Shahara) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

A brother's love? You don't know him at all, do you. What's a death but easy, quick. It's supposed to haunt you forever that the one time he beat you was the one time that mattered. — C.S. Pacat