Quotes & Sayings About Watching Someone Dying

I am standing on the seashore. A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. I stand watching her until she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says, She is gone. Gone where? The loss of sight is in me, not in her. Just at the moment when someone says, She is gone, there are others who are watching her coming. Other voices take up the glad shout, Here she comes! That is dying. — Henry Scott Holland

Maybe happiness didn't have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures. Wearing slippers and watching the Miss Universe contest. Eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Getting to level seven in Dragon Master and knowing there were twenty more levels to go.
Maybe happiness was just a matter of the little upticks- the traffic signal that said "Walk" the second you go there- and downticks- the itch tag at the back of your collar- that happened to every person in the course of the day. Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day.
maybe it didn't matter if you were a world-famous heartthrob or a painful geek. Maybe it didn't matter if your friend was possibly dying.
Maybe you just got through it. Maybe that was all you could ask for. — Ann Brashares

Everything Is Going to Be All Right
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right. — Derek Mahon

The president didn't ask me any questions. But I'm glad he didn't, because I was so shocked watching him that I don't think I could have made a sesible reply.' He turned to look Byrnes squarely in the eye. 'We've been talking to a dying man. — Andrei Cherny

Asters

Asters - sweltering days

old adjuration/curse,

the gods hold the balance

for an uncertain hour.


Once more the golden flocks

of heaven, the light, the trim -

what is the ancient process

hatching under its dying wings?


Once more the yearned-for,

the intoxication, the rose of you -

summer leaned in the doorway

watching the swallows -


one more presentiment

where certainty is not hard to come by:

wing tips brush the face of the waters,

swallows sip speed and night. — Gottfried Benn

She had taken him for granted, she thought with surprise and shame, watching the flickering candlelight. She had assumed his kindness was so natural and so innate, she had never asked herself whether it cost him any effort. Any effort to stand between Will and the world, protecting each of them from the other. Any effort to accept the loss of his family with equanimity. Any effort to remain cheerful and calm in the face of his own dying. — Cassandra Clare

Dreaming's shit, but dying's worse; and watching someone die, that comes somewhere between the two, I guess. It ain't good, but it's got to be better than the other thing, better than doing it yourself. Hasn't it? — Chaz Brenchley

Once in a very blue moon, John Tallow imagined his younger self standing down the timeline of his present life, bare toes curling in teenage beach sand, looking ahead to today and watching his future life collapse in on itself like a dying star. His future life becoming small and dark and dense, its gravity apparently grim and inescapable.
Once in a very blue moon, John Tallow spent some cash on a bottle of vodka and drank it at home within an hour. — Warren Ellis

Oh, Sam, this is Kate. Kate, meet Sam.' I wave my hand between the two of them, watching as Kate turns all angelic, putting her hand out to Sam, who grins before clasping it.

'Nice to meet you, Kate.' he says smoothly, maintaining his grin and running his free hand through his mousey waves.

'You too.' She arches a brow.

She's a brazen hussy! She's flirting with him. She giggles as Sam compliments her on her wild, red hair, their hands still linked. My phone declares a text. To escape the blatant flirting exchange going on in front of me, I pick it up and open the message with one eye closed.

There better be a GOOD f**king reason for you standing me up. Someone had better be dying. I'm going out of my f**king mind, lady. NO KISS — Jodi Ellen Malpas

Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.
Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory.
For Des the transformation came easily once the fighting started. Thanks to his abusive father, he'd been turning fear into anger and hate ever since he was a child. Maybe that was why he was such a good soldier. Maybe that was why the others looked to him for leadership. — Drew Karpyshyn

Death is fugitive; even when you're watching for it, the actual instant somehow slips between your fingers. You don't get that sudden drop of the head you see in movies. Instead you simply sit there, waiting for something to happen, and all at once you realize you've missed it. — Jonathan Stroud

"I...love you...Rylan. But do not fear...I'll be seeing you...again...I am...forever watching..."
She breathes her last. The fire races across her face and through her hair.
I watch as she lifted up with the rising smoke. — Colleen Boyd

Yeah', said Fats. 'Fucking and dying. That's it, innit? Fucking and dying. That's life.'
'Trying to get a fuck and trying not to die.'
'Or trying to die', said Fats. 'Some people. Risking it.'
'Yeah, Risking it.'
[ ... ]
'Ans music', said Andrew quietly, watching the blue smoke hanging beneath the dark rock.
'Yeah', said Fats, in the distance. 'And music. — J.K. Rowling

I am standing upon the seashore. a ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. she is an object of beauty and strength. i stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. then someone at my side says: "there, she is gone!" "gone where?" gone from my sight. that is all. she is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port. her diminished size is in me, not in her. and just at the moment when someone at my side says: "there, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "here she comes!" and that is dying. — Henry Van Dyke

I walk the straight lines. I walk through the summer nights. I walk the silver rope of dreams. I walk through dawns of dawns. There's not a lot that isn't dying. I see people parading in front of each other like insects in a killing jar, watching each other die. I walk the straight lines through the Christ machines. Through the eyes of the throwaway people. Through the wards and the shores and the cracks in the skulls of the sidewalks. Through love's howling vacancy. I am the freedom soil. I dig my own grave. I resurrect myself every night. I am all things to myself. I walk the straight lines. I walk the spider's jailhouse. I walk the think line, the thin line, the white line and all the lines in between. I wish I could trade in my eyes. — Henry Rollins

Watching your sadness is worse than dying. Do not die while you are still alive, my love. Do not fear to live and love again. — Kate Danley

I laugh with him. I imagine mixing poison into his tea, then watching his face turn purple and anguished; I picture myself leaning over him, looking on patiently, with my chin resting in my hands, admiring his dying, writhing body as I count out the minutes. — Marie Lu

I think the birds in the area are dying laughing watching me try not to crash. — Cynthia Hand

And yet here he was, looking at Jem Carstairs, a boy so fragile-looking that he appeared to be made out of glass, with the hardness of his expression slowly dissolving into tentative uncertainty. "You are not really dying," he said, the oddest tone to his voice, "are you?"
Jem nodded. "So they tell me."
"I am sorry," Will said.
"No", Jem said softly. He drew his jacket aside and took a knife from the belt at his waist. "Don't be ordinary like that. Don't say you're sorry. Say you'll train with me."
He held the knife to Will, hilt first. Charlotte held her breath, afraid to move. She felt as if she were watching something very important happen, though she could not have said what.
Will reached out and took the knife, his eyes never leaving Jem's face. His fingers brushed the other boy's as he took the weapon from him. It was the first time, Charlotte thought that she had ever seen him touch any other person willingly.
"I'll train with you," he said. — Cassandra Clare

Every day since waking up in the hospital I've wanted to die, but watching that man sink below the waves, I feel something inside me rise up. A Dragon doesn't surrender. A Dragon fights fate. This is not some loud, roaring feeling. It feels more like someone blew on an ember and found a slight orang glow. I have to hang on to my life - however ruined and useless. Mama's voice comes floating to me, reciting one of her favorite sayings, "There is no catastrophe except death; one cannot be poorer than a beggar." I want - need - to do something braver and finer than dying. — Lisa See

No one was watching. No one was there to hear the echo of the dying. But nothingness was still humiliating
that thingness of absence, like space. — E.J. Koh

I recall my life every day. I recall my sins and my acts of purity. I remind myself I was never a religious man. I remind myself that I have been dead for half of forever. I remind myself of nothing. I move along to the next minute. Next day. Next year. The earth doesn't change so much anymore. It doesn't change so quickly. With humans, the earth had to keep changing. But you can only replace a dying thing so many times before someone notices. There haven't been humans for years. Maybe a decade. Maybe more. I find myself loving their absence. The absence of humanity is the absence of violence. I love this peace. But then I remember my bones. My mind and my memories. I remember I'm human. I am the thing I detest. The creature that haunts my steps. It's my shadow I see watching me. It's my reflection in the water. I keep remembering. I live in fear. But still, I walk on. — F.K. Preston

He hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and wasn't even watching when she transformed herself in front of their eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes.
"Really, what has got into you all today?" said Professor McGonagall, turning back into herself with a faint pop, and staring around at them all. "Not that it matters, but that's the first time my transformation's not got applause from a class."
Everybody's heads turned toward Harry again, but nobody spoke. Then Hermione raised her hand. "Please, Professor, we've just had our first Divination class, and we were reading the tea leaves, and - "
"Ah, of course," said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning. "There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger. Tell me, which of you will be dying this year? — J.K. Rowling

I still don't really know what my style is. I like a lot of different kinds of comedy, I like watching it and I like being inventive and original. That's the problem with doing a longer set - you can't do every joke that you have because some stuff contradicts other stuff. Even when you know that the audience knows that you're joking and it's not true, you still can't do a joke about your family dying and then later talk about your Mom. I mean you want to keep some kind of cohesive order going. — Bonnie McFarlane

When I was a boy, I choked on a piece of candy outside the kitchen window for a few minutes while watching my parents making dinner. I thought I was going to die, but I didn't want to scare them. Our existence was so separate, a dying and a doing well, an outside and an inside. Trey Moody's poems hover in that cold, wet, refrigerator-lit place between the dying and the doing well, the outside and the inside. His poems are the thoughts of the person you love who is always standing behind you, slowly and silently suffocating. But they're not afraid to say hello, and please, and I'm scared. — Zachary Schomburg

The dying often have the sensation of rising up and floating above their own body while it is surrounded by a medical team, and watching it down below, while feeling comfortable. They experience the feeling of being in a spiritual body that appears to be a sort of living energy field. — Raymond Moody

I don't so much mind that newspapers are dying - it's watching them commit suicide that pisses me off. — Molly Ivins

When the world tells us that it is impossible and when the world is falling from underneath us, and we have no where to turn, I feel the safest. For I know that you are there, and you won't let anything happen to me. When that same world tells us that this isn't meant to be,
and that we aren't ready for a life of commitment and adulthood, I still feel the safest. Because I know that you will always be there with me, for you are committed to me, and I am committed to you. I swear to you, in this moment when all of the world is watching and filled with doubts, when the entire world is slowly dying, that I will never leave your side. I want to live my life with you, and I want to die with you. I vow to you to always be true, be faithful, and be not only a wife, but a friend and comforter. My heart is all I can give you; it is all that I own. Therefore I give you my all. I give you everything that I have."
-Lily Potter — Mordred

People think I watch TV too much, but they are wrong. There is a huge difference between merely "watching" TV and learning to respond aggressively to it. The difference, for most people, is the difference between the living and dying of their own brains. — Hunter S. Thompson

They loved scenes of righteous Godly vengeance on sinful mankind. They loved to show God's chosen people safe from harm, watching with happy faces as they were proved right to the world. But they never showed the aftermath. They never showed weeping humans, crushed and dying in pools of their own fluids. Young men smashed into piles of red flesh. A young woman cut in half because she was passing through a hatchway when catastrophe hit. This was Armageddon. This is what it looked like. Blood and torn flesh and cries for help. — James S.A. Corey

And do you know the story about Haydn's head? They cut it away from the still-warm cadaver so some insane scientist could take apart the brain and pinpoint the location of musical genius. And the Einstein Story? He'd carefully written his will with instructions to cremate him. They followed his orders, but his disciple, ever loyal and devoted, refused to live without the master's gaze on him. Before the cremation, he took the eyes of the cadaver and put them in a bottle of alcohol to keep them watching him until the moment he should die himself. That's why I said that the crematory fire is the only way our bodies can escape them. It's the only absolute death. And I don't want any other. Jean-Marc, I want an absolute death. — Milan Kundera

I once lay in a white hospital for the dying and the dying self, where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die, where on my knees I prayed for LIGHT, I prayed for l*i*g*h*t, and praying crawled like a blind slug into the web where threads of wind stuck against my mind and I died of pity for Man, for myself, on a cross without nails, watching in fear as the pig belches in his sty, farts, blinks and eats. — Charles Bukowski

To Jesus she already is somebody. Like the loving father of the prodigal son, Jesus is frantically scanning the horizon, watching for Madonna to return to him. He's absolutely convinced that she's so valuable that she's worth dying for. 'Greater love has no one than this,' said Jesus in John 15:13, 'that one lay down his life for his friends.' That's what He did for her on the cross! — Lee Strobel

Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night. — Haruki Murakami

The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind," he said in that dry factual tone, and everyone stared at him amazed. "Without the human presence it is just a collection of atoms, no different than any other random speck of matter in the universe. It's we who understand it, and we who give it meaning. All our centuries of looking up at the night sky and watching it wander through the stars. All those nights of watching it through the telescopes, looking at a tiny disk trying to see canals in the albedo changes. All those dumb sci-fi novels with their monsters and maidens and dying civilizations. And all the scientists who studied the data, or got us here. That's what makes Mars beautiful. Not the basalt and the oxides — Kim Stanley Robinson

It's the only way to know you're really in love, when you ask the question would it be harder to watch him die, or to know he'll watch me die? Is there more mercy in being the one who does the watching or in being the one who does the dying? It's when you realize what mercy-killing actually means, it's when you actually care to the point of tormenting worry. It's not roses and white horses, it's fucking brutal and it can send a person running for the hills. To love is brave. — Renee Carlino

All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.
Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory. — Drew Karpyshyn

Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I got a little lost in "Law & Order" and "Luther" and all those shows where it's basically women dying all the time, I had to stop watching that stuff because it fills me with anxiety. And I joined a gym. — Kevin Drew

I'm fine.My father's an arse, and my mum is dying and-oh my God,I'm so pissed." St. Clair looked at me again. His eyes were glassy like black marbles. "Pissed.Pissed.Pissed."
"We know you're pissed at your dad," I said. "It's okay. You're right, he's a jerk." I mean what was I supposed to say? He just found out his mother has cancer.
"Pissed is British for 'drunk,'" Mer said.
"Oh," I said. "Well. You're definitely that, too."
Meanwhile,The Couple was fighting. "Where have you been?" Rashmi asked. "You said you'd be home three hours ago!"
Josh rolled his eyes. "Out.We've been out. Someone had to help him-"
"And you call that helping? He's completely wasted. Catatonic. And you! God,you smell like car exhaust and armpits-"
"He couldn't drink alone."
"You were supposed to be watching out for him! What if something happened?"
"Beer. Liquor. Thatsswhat happened. Don't be such a prude,Rash. — Stephanie Perkins

Theism, as a way of conceiving God, has become demonstrably inadequate, and the God of theism not only is dying but is probably not revivable. If the religion of the future depends on keeping alive the definitions of theism, then the human phenomenon that we call religion will have come to an end. If Christianity depends on a theistic definition of God, then we must face the fact that we are watching this noble religious system enter the rigor mortis of its own death throes. — John Shelby Spong

I could have sworn that the man's eyes were no longer watching his daughter dying in agony, that instead the gorgeous colors of flames and the sight of a woman suffering in them were giving him joy beyond measure. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Falling in love is sudden, easy, and fun. It's like a child going down a playground slide. Falling out of love is slow, difficult, and painful. It's like watching a child die of cancer. ~ Ben Davis, Sr. — Jayden Hunter

Will only looked at her. There had been light in his eyes on the stairs, as he'd locked the door, when he'd kissed her
a brilliant, joyous light. And it was going now, fading like the last breath of someone dying. She thought of Nate, bleeding to death in her arms. She had been powerless then, to help him. As she was now. She felt as if she were watching the life bleed out of Will Herondale, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. — Cassandra Clare

Sissie could see it all. In her uncertain eyes, on her restless hands and on her lips, which she kept biting all the time.
But oh, her skin. It seemed as if according to the motion of her emotions Marija's skin kept switching on and switching off like a two-colour neon sign. So that watching her against the light of the dying summer sun, Sissie could not help thinking that it must be a pretty dangerous matter, being white. It made you feel awfully exposed, rendered you terribly vulnerable. Like being born without your skin or something. As though the Maker had fashioned the body of a human, stuffed it into a polythene bag instead of the regular protective covering, and turned it loose into the world.
Lord, she wondered, is that why, on the whole, they have had to be extra ferocious? Is it so they could feel safe here on the earth, under the sun, the moon and the stars? — Ama Ata Aidoo

Actually, watching television and surfing the Internet are really excellent practice for being dead. — Chuck Palahniuk