Jack Kevorkian Quotes

I would not want to live with a tube in my neck and not be able to move a finger. I wouldn't - that to me is not life.

A transfer of money should never be involved in this profound situation. Although illness is profound, too, but medicine's a business today. It's a business.

It's the boredom that kills you. You read until you're tired of that. You do crossword puzzles until you're tired of that. This is torture. This is mental torture.

In quixotically trying to conquer death doctors all too frequently do no good for their patients' "ease" but at the same time they do harm instead by prolonguing and even magnifying patients' dis-ease.

The public can tolerate a Nazi America.

Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button.

I'm not lying to myself like most people.

I think the Supreme Court does have the authority, which is not used, to declare a blanket right for all people, all adults.

Rotten travesty. Yeah. Send me to jail for contempt. Try that. Go ahead.

I always said all my life if I wasn't born and they gave me the question I'd say I don't want to be born.

I learned to smile by going through hell. Now I know what hell is and you don't. I can't tell you how it is, cause you can't do it with words.

Not one has shown an iota of fear of death. They want to end this agony.

The American people are sheep. They're comfortable, rich, working. It's like the Romans, they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right.

I knew I was getting into one of the most illegal things in the world. It was the right thing to do.

First of all, do any of you here think it's a crime to help a suffering human end his agony? Any of you think it is? Say so right now. Well, then, what are we doing here?

You can cite me for contempt, Your Honor. I don't care.

What are friends? Some people are nice. Some people aren't. There are some I'm fairly close with ... we talk.

Freedom has a price. Most people aren't willing to pay it.

I don't persuade to suicide.

Anytime you interfere with a natural process, you're playing God. God determines what happens naturally. That means when a person's ill, he shouldn't go to a doctor because he's asking for interference with God's will. But of course, patients can't think that way.

I suppose, if helping a patient die is killing, I suppose I'm a killer.

I can paint in jail.

The law is cruel.

I've seen schizophrenics who are so hopeless, you couldn't cheer them, and their lives are miserable and they end up as suicides. That's not right.

If a man is terrified, it's up to me to dispel that terror.

Liberty means more to me than life itself.

There are certain things that words on paper can never make a crime, .. There are certain acts that by sheer common sense are not crimes.

When you have nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire.

The single worst moment of my life ... was the moment I was born.

We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington.

This could never be a crime in any society which deems himself enlightened.

I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate.

I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.

This ( ... ) had made me aware for the first time of the well-disguised myth that they and the academic institutions they represent are bastions of a free exchange of ideas. They are -but only of those ideas that don't 'rock the boat', that refrain from challenging hallowed taboos.

The patient's autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary - the decision is contrary to best medical advice and what the physician wants.

I don't enjoy good food. I don't enjoy flashy cars. I don't care if I live in a dump. I don't enjoy good clothes. This is the best I've dressed in months.

I'm not radical.

The law doesn't create a right.

I want some colleague to be free to come help me when I say the time has come. That's what I'm fighting for, me. Now that sounds selfish. And if it helps somebody else, so be it.

You're basing your laws and your whole outlook on natural life on mythology. It won't work. That's why you have all these problems in the world. Name them: India, Pakistan, Ireland. Name them-all these problems. They're all religious problems.

I got to dislike parties, like Jefferson and Madison. I think they're harmful. But the system is flawed so badly. I like what Plato said, long ago. Democracy is fit only for a small country. Can't survive in a large country.

Listen, when you take my liberty away, you've taken away more-something more precious than life. I mean, what good is a life without liberty? Huh? None.

If Christ can die in a barn, I think the death of a human in a van is not so bad.

Many support what I am doing.

What I think a doctor should do is prevent disease, by any means necessary.

Five to six thousand people die every year waiting for organs, but nobody cares.

If you don't have liberty and self-determination, you've got nothing, that's what this is what this country is built on. And this is the ultimate self-determination, when you determine how and when you're going to die when you're suffering.

I have a natural right to do whatever I want with my body ... as long as it doesn't affect anybody else or any other property.