Rest When You're Dead Quotes & Sayings

I was with her when she died," Ned reminded the king. "She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father." He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister's eyes. Ned remembered the way she smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. — George R R Martin

We will fight a battle, and then we will rest. Alive or dead, we'll rest. - Jon Snow — George R R Martin

Why is it that we claim to want certainty? Only fools and cowards seek certainty. Certainty is a dead end; it's a rich old widow living out the rest of her days on the Upper East Side with a little dog and big memories. Unless you are a senior citizen, you'll go nuts after a few weeks of knowing what the rest of your life will bring. You'll die of boredom. But uncertainty is what keeps us alive. It is that flip of a coin, that brief moment when it's in the air or spinning on its side, that snaps us out of our daily stasis. Some invisible Odds Gods are giving you a chance to become better, smarter, richer. What fun it is to get paid if you earned it by the skin of your teeth, by the close call. And how dreadful it is to shoot fish in a barrel. Exposure to uncertainty earns you membership in a select tribe: You are a Padawan mastering the Force. Once the trade is on, once the die has been cast, you're in a parallel, auspicious universe. — Katya G. Cohen

If someone kills your family you don't rest until they are dead. — C.S. Pacat

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.

I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace! — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

When you're alive, you don't dwell on how you're going to spend your time once you're dead. You just figure you're gone, and the rest will pretty much take care of itself. Or you think you're not really going to die. You're going to be the first person in the history of the world who doesn't have to. Maybe that's some kind of lie our brains tell us to keep us from going crazy while we're alive. — Margaret Stohl

Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread.
The hunters are hunted, white water runs red.
The Gnawers will strike to extinguish the rest.
The hope of the hopeless resides in a quest.
An Overland warrior, a son of the sun,
May bring us back light, he may bring us back none.
But gather your neighbors and follow his call
Or rats will most surely devour us all.
Two over, two under, of royal descent,
Two flyers, two crawlers, two spinners assent.
One gnawer beside and one lost up ahead.
And eight will be left when we count up the dead.
The last who will die must decide where he stands.
The fate of the eight is contained in his hands.
So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps,
As life may be death and death life again reaps. — Suzanne Collins

Certainly she could never have exchanged pleasantries with anyone. What would there be for them to say anyway? Sorry? Sorry your daughter is dead, Sorry your daughter jumped off the roof of her school when you were on your way to pick her up. Sorry you were late. Too bad you'll be reliving that failure for the rest of your miserable life. — Kimberly McCreight

It all seems so worthless. Such a waste of lives. We've spent hundreds of years since the Return buffering the Dark City and trying to maintain it - scraping out a life that will soon be wiped out.
And what of the rest of the world that's already fallen? Stars blinking away, their light slowly fading? Somewhere out there a star's just dying and we'll never know about it. Somewhere another's being born whose light we'll never see.
The Earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothing ness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything-all of us-will simply cease to be. — Carrie Ryan

In the older view the goddess Universe was alive, herself organically the Earth, the horizon, and the heavens. Now she is dead, and the universe is not an organism, but a building, with gods at rest in it in luxury: not as personifications of the energies in their manners of operation, but as luxury tenants, requiring service. And Man, accordingly, is not as a child born to flower in the knowledge of his own eternal portion but as a robot fashioned to serve. — Joseph Campbell

You'll have time to rest when you're dead. — Robert De Niro

No Leslie, I'm not dead. I have finished building a world, and this is my Sabbath rest. — Vladimir Nabokov

Silence.
What's this what's this oh my god can a men ever get lower can a man ever be less?
Weariness and gasping convulsive exhaustion. All life dead all life wasted and becoming nothing less than nothing only the germ of nothing. A kind of sickness that comes from shame. A weakness like dying weakness and faintness and a prayer. God give me rest take me away hide me let me die oh god how weary how much already dead how much gone and going oh god hide me and give me peace. — Dalton Trumbo

Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two with his toes to the daisies ? No touching that. Seat of the affections. Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One fine day it gets bunged up and there you are. Lots of them lying around here : lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps : damn the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus!* And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure. — James Joyce

God is our Creator. He is loving, holy, and just. One day he will execute perfect justice against all sin. People are made in the image of God. We are beautiful and amazing creatures with dignity, worth, and value. But through our willful, sinful rebellion against God, we have turned from being his children to his enemies. Still, all people have the capacity to be in a restored loving relationship with the living God. Christ is the Son of God, whose sinless life gave him the ability to become the perfect sacrifice. Through his death on the cross, he ransomed sinful people. Christ's death paid for the sins of all who come to him in faith. Christ's resurrection from the dead is the ultimate vindication of the truth of these claims. The response God requires from us is to acknowledge our sin, repent, and believe in Christ. So we turn from sin, especially the sin of unbelief, and turn to God in faith, with the understanding that we will follow him the rest of our days. — J. Mack Stiles

Running isn't a sport for pretty boys ... It's about the sweat in your hair and the blisters on your feet. Its the frozen spit on your chin and the nausea in your gut. It's about throbbing calves and cramps at midnight that are strong enough to wake the dead. It's about getting out the door and running when the rest of the world is only dreaming about having the passion that you need to live each and every day with. It's about being on a lonely road and running like a champion even when there's not a single soul in sight to cheer you on. Running is all about having the desire to train and persevere until every fiber in your legs, mind, and heart is turned to steel. And when you've finally forged hard enough, you will have become the best runner you can be. And that's all that you can ask for. — Paul Maurer

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don't look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don't hold it up and say it's longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn't say for the rest of your life.
Say thank you. — Cheryl Strayed

Sometimes, there was no getting over it. Sometimes, you lived with the empty place inside of you until you imploded on it, loss as singularity, or until the empty place expanded and hollowed out the rest of you so thoroughly you became the walking dead, a ghost in your own life. — Caitlin Kittredge

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good. — W. H. Auden

I know to you she's just another dead prostitute, but she was my baby. Promise me you'll find her killer so we can put our baby to rest. Promise me, because if you don't find him, I will. — Toni Anderson

Yeah, but I guess sometimes it's easier to take responsibility for the dead instead of the living. The rest of us have to look after them, Harry. The living. After all, that's the responsibility that drives us. — Jo Nesbo

I know she'll hate him. She likes to be the only one, you know. She likes to dream that she's queen and that when the rest are dead there'll be no one who can order her to do anything. She said, dear, that she'd burn down the whole place, burn down Goremenghast when she was ruler and she'd live on her own, and I said she was wicked, and she said that everyone was- everyone and everything except rivers, clouds, and some rabbits. She makes me frightened sometimes. — Mervyn Peake

It often comes into my head That we may dream when we are dead, But I am far from sure we do. O that it were so! then my rest Would be indeed among the blest; I should for ever dream of you. — Walter Savage Landor

We are, each of us, alone. And this is the first law of masculinity. And it is the most important law. Your value is equal to the value which you bring to the tribe. We are not equal. You are not special. Respect is earned, not given. Your brothers will not love you unconditionally for who you are, just being yourself. They will criticise you, push you to your limits, bring out the best in you, and give you their respect when earned. And this isn't shocking at all. This is common knowledge to any man. Your childhood is over. The boy is dead. It's time to be a man for the rest of your life. — Jack Donovan

He drank a good deal at times. But the alcohol did not seem to affect him. His stony expression never changed. But sometimes a strange, flashing glance from his cold eyes would rest upon Anna, full of some burning fierceness that was like hatred, and he would force her to drink with him, force her to swallow a little glassful of fiery spirit at a single gulp.
'I ought to shoot you, really,' he said to her once, in a dead voice. 'Conscientiously, it would be the best thing for me to do.'
She saw from the grave concentration on his face that his conscience did actually require him to kill her. And this puzzled her because she could not understand why her death should be a conscientious necessity. The thought of being shot did not seem to cause her any concern. — Anna Kavan

They watch her when she comes to City Hall, they watch her at the social events, they watch the way she walks, hips rolling with no suggestion of provocation but with every sense that she knows more than any of the rest. A woman like that, they seem to be thinking, a woman like that has lived.
Their wives from Orange County, they come from Minnesota or Dallas or St.Louis. They come from places with families, with sagging mothers and fathers with dead eyes and heavy-hanging brows. They carry their own promise of future slackness and clipped lips and demands. They have sisters, sisther with more babies, babies with sweet saliva hanging and more appliance and with husbands with better salaries and two cars and club membership. They iron in housedresses in front of the television set or by the radio, steam rising, matting their faces, as the children with the damp necks cling on them, sticky-handed. They are this. And Alice ... and Alice ... — Megan Abbott

Kind of why I can't always go along with everyone's happy attitude all the time. Life sucks sometimes and most people don't get it. They think - well all of the people at this school anyway, they think everything is just handed to them. Real easy, ya know? Like, the day is never something you have to fight through.
I placed my hand on top of Tony's and let it rest there for a moment. What could I say? I was a death giver. Happy to do it. I had been so good at being dead. — Rebecca Maizel

There's a space at the bottom of an exhale, a little hitch between taking in and letting out that's a perfect zero you can go into. There's a rest point between the heart muscle's close and open - an instant of keenest living when you're momentarily dead. You can rest there. — Mary Karr

Hunter's dead," Taylor said without preamble. "It was these . . . these things. They came crawling up out of him and were eating him, oh God, I mean, it was like . . . I mean he was crying and Dekka prayed with him and he tried to fry his own brain just like he did with Harry only I guess it didn't work, I guess he couldn't do it, so Sam . . ." She swallowed. "Anyone have some water?"
"What about Sam?" Astrid demanded.
"He did it for him. Sam. I mean, he . . . Hunter was, you know . . . so Sam." She pantomimed raising her hands, like Sam, like he would do when using his power.
Astrid closed her eyes and crossed herself.
"Rest in peace," Edilio said and crossed himself as well.
"Sam burned the boy?" Howard asked. Then, bitterly sarcastic said, "Yeah, you all pray to Jesus. Because Jesus is really providing a lot of help here. Sounds to me like Sam was the one doing what had to be done. — Michael Grant

That was when the ones who smiled Were the dead, glad to be at rest. — Anna Akhmatova

Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places. I learned about these qualities during my bouts with depression. In that deadly darkness, the faculties I had always depended on collapsed. My intellect was useless; my emotions were dead; my will was impotent; my ego was shattered. But from time to time, deep in the thickets of my inner wilderness, I could sense the presence of something that knew how to stay alive even when the rest of me wanted to die. That something was my tough and tenacious soul. — Parker J. Palmer

Come not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou, go by. Child, if it were thine error or thy crime I care no longer, being all unblest; Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time, And I desire to rest. Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie: Go by, go by. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Honor to the earth," the abbot said, "honor to the dead in the passing of the year; honor to the living, in the coming of the new. A Great Year passes tonight. A new one begins. Let the good that is old continue and let the rest perish ... — C.J. Cherryh

To forget the past so easily seems scarcely loyal to oneself. I am so selfishly absorbed in my present self that I have grown not to care a damn about that ever increasing collection of past selves- those dear, dead gentlemen who one after the other have tenanted the temple of this flesh and handed on the torch of my life and personal identity before creeping away silently and modestly to rest. — W.N.P. Barbellion

The gospel brings tidings, glad tidings indeed,
To mourners in Zion, who want to be freed,
From sin and Satan, and Mount Sinai's flame,
Good news of salvation, through Jesus the Lamb.

What sweet invitations, the gospel contains,
To men heavy laden, with bondage and chains;
It welcomes the weary, to come and be blessed,
With ease from their burdens, in Jesus to rest.

For every poor mourner, who thirsts for the Lord,
A fountain is opened, in Jesus the Word;
Their poor parched conscience, to cool and to wash,
From guilt and pollution, from dead works and dross.

A robe is provided, their shame now to hide,
In which none are clothed, but Jesus' bride;
Though it be costly, yet is the robe free,
And all Zion's mourners, shall decked with it be. — William Gadsby

And exactly how does a miserable face help the war effort?" he asked sharply, his mood beginning to change. "Will a frown bring back the dead or fortify a town? If I allow myself to laugh in the face of misery, I rest my mind from the stress of it all, and then it'll work the better for you and your war. And if I'm really to be one of your advisers, Your Majesty, accept this piece of advise: Take happiness where and when you find it, because there is going to be precious little of it in the next few months! — Stuart Hill

A uniform cordoned off the area with crime scene tape. The M.E. pulled in and parked. There were two EMT trucks idling at the edge of the lot. I'd stayed close to the back door, and one of the Rangeman guys had taken a position two feet from me, standing at parade rest. No doubt in my mind he'd take a bullet for me rather than face Ranger over a dead Stephanie. — Janet Evanovich

When you put a man and a woman together, there are some things they simply have to do. They embrace, they warm each other. All the rest is dead and empty. — Ugo Betti

I'd never really thought past the whole dying-for-the-sake-of-the-world part of things. When you're alive, you don't dwell on how you're going to spend your time once you're dead. You just figure you're gone, and the rest will pretty much take care of itself. — Kami Garcia

So did you really mean all that stuff you said when I was a dead man?"
"Every word."
"Could you say it again?" he asks. "My memory's a little fuzzy."
"Which part?" The part where I said I wanted to stay with you forever?"
"Yeah," he murmurs, his face close to mine, his breath hot on my cheek.
"When I said that I love you?"
He pulls back a little, searches my eyes with his. "Yes. Say it."
"I love you."
He takes a deep, happy breath. "I love you," he says back. "I love you, Clara."
Then his gaze drops to my lips again, and he leans in, and the rest of the world simply goes away. — Cynthia Hand

Rest on laurels? I wish I could do that. No, you rest when you're dead — Lee Kuan Yew

HARPER: I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die. But there's still the rest of you. — Tony Kushner

I wasn't paying attention," said Myrtle dramatically. "Peeves upset me so much I came in here and tried to kill myself. Then, of course, I remembered that I'm
that I'm
" "Already dead," said Ron hopefully. Myrtle gave a tragic sob, rose up in the air, turned over, and dived headfirst into the toilet, splashing water all over them and vanishing from sight, although from the direction of her muffled sobs, she had come to rest somewhere in the U-bend. — J.K. Rowling

(Scarlett) Go on! Go on now! I want you to hurry. I don't want to ever see you again. I hope a cannon ball lands right on you. I hope it blows you to a million pieces. I
(Rhett) Never mind the rest. I follow your general idea. When I'm dead on the altar of my country, I hope your conscience hurts you. — Margaret Mitchell

The Princess Elizabeth, of England, was found dead with her head resting on her Bible, open at these words, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." So may we all fall asleep at last when the day's work for Jesus is over, and wake up in heaven to find ourselves in the delicious rest that remaineth for the people of God. — Theodore L. Cuyler

My dad, may he rest in
peace, taught me many wonderful things. And one of the things he taught me was never ask a guy what you do for a living.
He said "If you think about it, when you ask a guy, what do you do you do for a living," you're saying "how may I gauge the rest of your utterances." are you smarter than I am? Are you richer than I am, poorer than I am?"
So you ask a guy what do you do for a living, it's the same thing as
asking a guy, let me know what your politics are before I listen to you so
I know whether or not you're part of my herd, in which case I can nod
knowingly, or part of the other herd, in which case I can wish you dead. — David Mamet

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of fed up with realism. After all, there's enough reality already; why make more of it? Why not leave realism for the memoirs of drug addicts, the histories of salt, the biographies of porn stars? Why must we continue to read about the travails of divorced people or mildly depressed Canadians when we could be contemplating the shopping habits of zombies, or the difficulties that ensue when living and dead people marry each other? We should be demanding more stories about faery handbags and pyjamas inscribed with the diaries of strange women. We should not rest until someone writes about a television show that features the Free People's World-Tree Library, with its elaborate waterfalls and Forbidden Books and Pirate-Magicians. We should be pining for a house haunted by rabbits.
(from the review of Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners in The Guardian) — Audrey Niffenegger

Grief for a dead Wife, and a troublesome Guest, Continues to the threshold, and there is at rest; But I mean such wives as are none of the best — Benjamin Franklin

I'll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time wore on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry. There were broken bodies and dead m sweet hearts. Still, it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down, Saved you, I'd think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being-their physical shells-plummeted to the earth. All of them were like, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove, but still so cold. — Markus Zusak

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved. Again we see the contrast drawn so sharply between our ruin and God's remedy. In verses 1-3, Paul described us as dead in our sins, under the sway of Satan, captivated by the world, prisoners of our own sinful lusts, and objects of God's holy wrath. Could any picture be more dark, any background more contrasting? — Jerry Bridges

The king of comedy is dead. Richard Pryor was the king of comedy. The rest of them are the king of copycats. — Paul Mooney

There's some that came here never believing they were dead. They insisted all the way that they were alive, it was a mistake, someone would have to pay; made no difference. There's others who longed to be dead when they were alive, poor souls; lives full of pain or misery; killed themselves for a chance of a blessed rest, and found that nothing had changed except for the worse, and this time there was no escape; you can't make yourself alive again. — Philip Pullman

when I enter the Netherworld will rest be scarce? I shall lie there sleeping all down the years! 'Let my eyes see the sun and be sated with light! The darkness is hidden, how much light is there left? Sii 15' When may the dead see the rays of the sun? — Anonymous

I lied!' I spat my whisper at him. 'I knew you read my journal. I knew you read my dreams. I wrote there what I thought would hurt you most! I lied to hurt you. For letting him be dead while you lived. For being loved by him more than he loved me!' I took a breath. 'He loved you more than he ever loved any of the rest of us! — Robin Hobb

Hell was not for the living, it was for the dead, even the hallowed dead. Let the dead rest in peace. Someday Mack Bolan, too, would rest. For now, he had to find his way among the living. — Don Pendleton

I write lyrics. I play the guitar. If the rest of the band had to do my schedule, they would be dead — John Frusciante

When you and I are dead, and all the rest of us who served in the last war, in all the countries," she said, "there'll be a chance of world peace. Not till then. — Nevil Shute

Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It would've been easier to die. It's not that I want to be dead now. I don't. I have a lot in my life that I get satisfaction from, that I love. But some days, especially in the beginning, it was so hard. And I couldn't help but think that it would've been so much simpler to go with the rest of them. But you - you asked me to stay. You begged me to stay. You stood over me and you made a promise to me, as sacred as any vow. — Gayle Forman

I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault. — Charlotte Bronte

And I lie so composedly, Now in my bed (Knowing her love) That you fancy me dead - And I rest so contentedly, Now in my bed, (With her love at my breast) That you fancy me dead - That you shudder to look at me. Thinking me dead. But my heart it is brighter Than all of the many Stars in the sky, For it sparkles with Annie - It glows with the light Of the love of my Annie - With the thought of the light Of the eyes of my Annie. — Edgar Allan Poe

Shinji slowly fell forward onto his face. Debris bounced up on impact. It took less than thirty seconds for the rest of his body to die. The memento of his beloved uncle
the earring worn by the woman he loved
was now stained with the blood running down Shinji's left ear, reflecting the glow from the red flames of the farm building.
And so the boy known as the Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was dead. — Koushun Takami

Nobody knew I was done. Nobody cared. But I knew. I felt like a dragon I'd been fighting all my life had just dropped dead at my feet and gasped out its last sulfuric breath.

Rest in peace, motherfucker. — Steven Pressfield

As our economy faces up to potential labour shortages due to our ageing population and as it moves to a new level of sophistication to compete with the rest of the world, we're going to need every Australian on board pulling their weight, rejoining the workforce, gaining new skills. Writing off individuals and communities suffering from poverty just creates a dead weight for our economy to drag along. — Julia Gillard

Lindsey and I would lie down on the floor underneath it. I would pretend to be the knight that was pictured, and Holiday was the faithful dog curled up at his feet. Lindsey would be the wife he'd left behind. It always dissolved into giggles no matter how solemn the start. Lindsey would tell the dead knight that a wife had to move on, that she couldn't be trapped for the rest of her life by a man who was frozen in time ...
"You're dead, knight," she would say. "Time to move on. — Alice Sebold

And having returned from the woods, we remember with regret its restfulness. For all creatures there are in place, hence at rest. In their most strenuous striving, sleeping and waking, dead and living, they are at rest. In the circle of the human we are weary with striving, and are without rest. — Wendell Berry

In the old days, Christmas lights had come in short strings that were wired serially. If a single bulb burned out or even just loosened in its socket, the circuit was broken and the entire string went dark. One of the season's rituals for Gary and Chip had been to tighten each little brass-footed bulb in a darkened string and then, if this didn't work, to replace each bulb in turn until the dead culprit was found. (What joy the boys had taken in the resurrection of a string!) By the time Denise was old enough to help with the lights, the technology had advanced. The wiring was parallel, and the bulbs had snap-in plastic bases. A single faulty light didn't affect the rest of the community but identified itself instantly for instant replacement ... — Jonathan Franzen

Except for the occasional great person or hero, or tragedy, death has always been personal, affecting one individual and the handful of people who cared about that dead individual. The rest of society went on, and that had been true as far back as the ancient pyramids and great walls, and remained true, and would doubtless remain so into the far future. — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

But from morning to night Anne was with the king, as close to his side as a newly wed bride, as a chief counselor, as a best friend. She would return to our chamber only to change her gown or lie on the bed and snatch a rest while he was at Mass, or when he wanted to ride out with his gentlemen. Then she would lie in silence, like one who has dropped dead of exhaustion. Her gaze would be blank on the canopy of the bed, her eyes wide open, seeing nothing. She would breathe slowly and steadily as if she were sick. She would not speak at all. When she was in this state I learned to leave her alone. She had to find some way to rest from the unending public performance. She had to be unstoppably charming, not just to the king but to everyone who might glance in her direction. One moment of looking less than radiant and a rumor storm would swirl around the court and engulf her, and engulf us all with her. When — Philippa Gregory

My beautiful wife is dead. She meant everything to me. Her laughter, her tears and her joy will remain with me the rest of my life. — William Shatner

I was dead.I was so,so dead.I was going to be expelled and then I'd never get into Georgetown,and I'd work at the diner for the rest of my life and lend would marry the dyrad lab assistant and they'd have half-tree-and-one-quarter-water-thing babies,and no one would know quite what they were,but they'd be beautiful.And I'd serve them French fries when they came home to visit. — Kiersten White

I certainly know all about the Jersey jokes that amuse the rest of the country. You've probably heard them. Our state bird is the mosquito. Our state tree is dead. It doesn't help that we are represented on television by Tony Soprano and 'Jersey Shore.' — Sharon Kay Penman

Charlotte was in pain, Charlotte was in torment, but he himself had given her reason enough for that; and, in respect to the rest of the whole matter of her obligation to follow her husband, that personage and she, Maggie, had so shuffled away every link between consequence and cause that the intention remained, like some famous poetic line in a dead language subject to varieties of interpretation. What — Henry James

But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. — M.J. Rose

It cannot be described, this awesome chain of events that depopulated the whole Earth; the range is too tremendous for any to picture of encompass. Of the people of Earth's unfortunate ages, billions of years before, only a few prophets and madman could have conceived that which was to come - could have grasped visions of the still, dead lands, and long-empty sea-beds. The rest would have doubted ... doubted alike the shadow of change upon the planet and the shadow of doom upon the race. For man has always thought himself the immortal master of natural things ... — H.P. Lovecraft

Out in the sky, no one sleeps. No one, no one.
No one sleeps.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of an arid landscape in his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.
Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the snow's edge with the voices of dead dahlias.
But there is no oblivion; no dream:
only flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a tangle of new veins,
and those who hurt will hurt without rest
and those who are afraid of death will carry it on their shoulders. — Federico Garcia Lorca

As Pliable and Christian find themselves walking together toward the narrow gate, we see the stark contrast between the two pilgrims. One is burdened; the other is not. One is clutching a book that is a light to his path. The other is guideless. One is on the journey in pursuit of deliverance from besetting sins and rest for his soul. The other is on the journey in order to obtain future delights that temporarily dazzle his mind. One is slow and plodding because of his great weight and a sense of his own unrighteousness; the other is light-footed and impatient to obtain all the benefits of Heaven. One is in motion because his soul has been stirred up to both fear and hope; the other is dead to any spiritual fears,
longings, or aspirations. One is seeking God; the other is seeking self-satisfaction. One is a true pilgrim; the other is false and fading.
15. — John Bunyan

And I am weary of the anguish
Increasing winters bear;
Weary to watch the spirit languish
Through years of dead despair.
So, if a tear, when thou art dying,
Should haply fall from me,
It is but that my soul is sighing,
To go and rest with thee. — Emily Bronte

According to a 2014 Huffington Post article, Southern states are consistently behind the rest of the country in wages, economic mobility, education, and health care. However, they lead the country in incest, teen pregnancy, gun deaths, incarceration, poverty, obesity, intoxication, and general unhappiness. They're also still hooked on creationism, and freaked out over gay marriage. It's like evolution took a detour, crashed through a dead end sign and plunged into a swamp. But instead of calling for help, it mated with the swamp creatures and built a civilization. — Ian Gurvitz

Alive or dead, the truth won't rest. Rise up while you can. — Mira Grant

The dawn, even when it is cold and melancholy, never fails to shoot through my limbs as with arrows of sparkling piercing ice. I pull aside the thick curtains, and search for the first glow in the sky which shows that life is breaking through. And with my cheek leant upon the window pane I like to fancy that I am pressing as closely as can be upon the massy wall of time, which is for ever lifting and pulling and letting fresh spaces of life in upon us. May it be mine to taste the moment before it has spread itself over the rest of the world! Let me taste the newest and the freshest. From my window I look down upon the Church yard, where so many of my ancestors are buried, and in my prayer I pity those poor dead men who toss perpetually on the old recurring waters; for I see them, circling and eddying forever upon a pale tide. Let us, then, who have the gift of the present, use it and enjoy it ... — Virginia Woolf

The dead don't bear a grudge nor seek a blessing. The dead don't rest uneasy. Only the living. — Margaret Laurence

But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces - each seven in number - so fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high overhead: all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive faces, yet with a suspended - not an abolished - expression on them; faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped lids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, "THOU DIDST IT!" Seven — Charles Dickens

When Grand Masters play, they see the logic of their opponent's moves. One's moves may be so powerful that the other may not be able to stop him, but the plan behind the moves will be clear. Not so with Fischer. His moves did not make sense - at least to all the rest of us they didn't. We were playing chess, Fischer was playing something else, call it what you will. Naturally, there would come a time when we finally would understand what those moves had been about. But by then it was too late. We were dead. — Mark Taimanov

The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, yet its inhabitants are strikingly unhappy. Accordingly, we present to the rest of mankind, on a planet rife with suffering and tragedy, the spectacle of a clown civilization. Sustained on a clown diet rich in sugar and fat, we have developed a clown physiognomy. We dress like clowns. We move about a landscape filled with cartoon buildings in clownmobiles, absorbed in clownish activities. We fill our idle hours enjoying the canned antics of professional clowns ... Death, when we acknowledge it, is just another pratfall on the boob tube. Bang! You're dead! — James Howard Kunstler

Alone each heart must cover up its dead; Alone, through bitter toil, achieve its rest. — Bayard Taylor