Death and Mourning

I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.

I feel like an egg, of which only the shell remains; at 75 years old, one can’t expect anything else. One should prepare a person for his death.

I want to be cremated so people won’t come to worship at my bones.

I have firmly resolved to bite the dust, when my time comes, with a minimum of medical assistance, and up to then I will sin to my wicked heart’s content.

I’ve been so preoccupied with what would happen in the event of my death that I’m surprised to find myself still alive.

Life is the desert, life the solitude;

She lived unknown, and few could know

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,

I have lost friends, some by death … others through sheer inability to cross the street.

Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;

Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

One of us must go.

Ah, well, then, I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.

For he who lives more lives than one

LORD ILLINGWORTH : The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed,

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young.

I know death hath ten thousand several doors

This is no time for making new enemies.

Facilis descensus Averno:

Stabant orantes primi transmittere cursum