Certain Death Quotes

All things being at God's disposal, and the decision of salvation or death belonging to him, he orders all things by his counsel and decree in such a manner, that some men are born devoted from the womb to certain death, that his name may be glorified in their destruction. ~ John Calvin

Puck swung the cannon around in anger. The nozzle spun and hit Sabrina in the chest. The force was so pawerful she was knocked right off the platform and fell backward off the tower. She saw sky above her and felt the wind in her hair. How ironic, she thought, as she fell to her certain death, that at that moment she would have given anything to be a giant goose again.
Air rushed past Sabrina's ears and suddenly she felt her back tingling again. A moment later she was hanging upside down, inches from the ground. She looked up to find her savior, only to find that her her wasn't a person but a long, furry tail sticking out of the back of her pants. It was wrapped around a beam in the tower a kept her swinging there like a monkey.
Puck floated down to her, his wings flapping softly enough to allow him to hover.
"I bet you think this is hilarious. Look what you did to me with your stupid pranks. I have a tail!" she raged.
Puck's face was trembling. "I'm sorry."
"What?" Sabrina said blankly.
"I almost killed you. I'm sorry, Sabrina," he said, rubbing his eyes on his filthy hoodie. He lifted her off the tower and set her on the ground.
"Since when do you care?" Sabrina said, still stunned by the boy's apology. ~ Michael Buckley

Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments and vaporisations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future. ~ George Orwell

A man falling off a cliff to certain death will stretch out a hand even to his worst enemy. ~ Robert Jordan

If there were no magnanimity in war, we'd go to it only when it was worth going to certain death, as now. . . . We must take this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. That's the whole point: to cast off the lie, and if it's war it's war, and not a game. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Our culture today confuses great attention with great success, assuming them to be the same thing, but they are not. You are great, already. Whether you realize it or not. Whether anybody else realizes it or not. And it's not because you launched an iPhone app, or finished school a year early, or bought yourself a sweet ass boat. These things do not define greatness. You are already great because in the face of endless confusion and certain death, you continue to choose what to give a fuck about and what not to. ~ Mark Manson

'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it. ~ Lord Byron

Lily closed her eyes and screamed at the top of her lungs as she made the scariest fall of her life, plunging to her certain death while clinging to her rescuer who really didn't rescue her at all. ~ Missy Lyons

CERTAIN DEATH: YOU ARE HERE! ~ Rick Riordan

As I have repeated incessantly throughout this book, there is no direction you can turn that does not face you toward certain death. ~ Nnedi Okorafor

How often have wonder and curiosity led men toward certain death? How many men have been condemned for turning right instead of left? ~ Wendy S. Russo

I realised that in refusing to take a vow man was drawn into temptation, and that to be bound by a vow was like a passage from libertinism to a real monogamous marriage. "I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself with vows," is the mentality of weakness and betrays a subtle desire for the thing to be avoided. Or where can be the difficulty in making a final decision? I vow to flee from the serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort may mean certain death. Mere effort means ignorance of the certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact, therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only, means that I have not yet clearly realised the necessity of definite action. "But supposing my views are changed in the future, how can I bind myself by a vow?" Such a doubt often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear perception that a particular thing must be renounced. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

My little donkey, if I hadn't shown up, your fate would have been sealed. Love has saved you. Is there anything else that could erase the innate fears of a donkey and send him to rescue you from certain death? No. That is the only one. With a call to arms, I, Ximen Donkey, charged down the ridge and headed straight for the wolf that was tailing my beloved. My hooves kicked up sand and dust as I raced down from my commanding position; no wolf, not even a tiger, could have avoided the spearhead aimed at it. It saw me too late to move out of the way, and I thudded into it, sending it head over heels. Then I turned around and said to my donkey, Do not fear my dear, I am here! ~ Mo Yan

Life flows on over death as water closes over a stone dropped into a pool ... Fate is certain; death is certain; but the courage and nobility of men and women matter more than these. ~ Winifred Holtby

For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Readers who keep pace. The journey may be long or short. Then the Readers die one by one and the Work continues on alone, although a new Criticism and new Readers gradually fall into step with it along its path. Then Criticism dies again and the Readers die again and the Work passes over a trail of bones on its journey toward solitude. To come near the work, to sail in her wake, is a sign of certain death, but new Criticism and new Readers approach her tirelessly and relentlessly and are devoured by time and speed. Finally the Work journeys irremediably alone in the Great Vastness. And one day the Work dies, as all things must die and come to an end: the Sun and the Earth and the Solar System and the Galaxy and the farthest reaches of man's memory. Everything that begins as comedy ends in tragedy. ~ Roberto Bolano

The complete stillness of my energy is something I have never felt before. I am full of light. I am confused. A strange mix of guilt and wonder swims inside me.
The thought of ruling Kenettra with Enzo at my side - Enzo, who had saved me from certain death, who brought my powers out with a mere touch of his hand on my back, whose own fire awakened my ambitions - thrills me. So why am I here, this close to a boy who is not my prince? Why am I reacting in this way to his touch? ~ Marie Lu

Winning means fame and fortune.
Losing means certain death.
The Hunger Games have begun ... ~ Suzanne Collins

You can't hide from certain death, so you shouldn't hide from uncertain life. ~ Megan McCafferty

Has she accepted you?"
"Not yet.She wants to discuss it with you first."
"Thank God.Because I'll tell her that it's the worst idea I've ever heard."
Leo arched a brow."You doubt I could protect her?"
"I doubt you could keep from murdering each other!I doubt she could ever be happy in such volatile circumstances.I doubt...no,I won't bother listing all my concerns,it would take too bloody long." Harry's eyes were ice-cold. "The answer is no,Ramsay.I'll do what is necessary to take care of Cat.You can return to Hampshire."
"I'm afraid it won't be that easy to get rid of me," Leo said."Perhaps you didn't notice that I haven't asked for your permission.There is no choice.Certain things have happened that can't be undone.Do you understand?"
He saw from Harry's expression that only a few fragile constraints stood between him and certain death.
"You seduced her deliberately," Harry managed to say.
"Would you be happier if I claimed it was an accident?"
"The only thing that would make me happy is to weight you with rocks and toss you into the Thames."
"I understand.I even sympathize.I can't imagine what it would be like to face a man who's compromised your sister,how difficult it would be to keep from murdering him on the spot.Oh, but wait.." Leo tapped a forefinger thoughtfully on his chin. "I can imagine.Because I went through it two bloody months ago."
Harry's eyes narrowed."That wasn't the same.Your sister was still a virgin w ~ Lisa Kleypas

He saved me in so many ways. I didn't see it at first. He saved me from certain death. He's the scariest person I've ever met, but for some reason I felt safe with him. Now I'm just a fading star amongst all the bright ones ... All I want is love and all I get is people trying to kill me and take away what peace I manage to find in between. ~ Michelle Horst

The true act of mourning is not to suffer from the loss of the loved object; it is to discern one day, on the skin of the relationship, a certain tiny stain, appearing there as the symptom of a certain death : for the first time I am doing harm to the one I love, involuntarily, of course, but without panic. ~ Roland Barthes

Life is uncertain; death is certain. ~ Gautama Buddha

You see, we black cats are the only thing between you and certain death. ~ Trevor Alan Foris

The world seemed to go red. He wanted to scream his outrage, to charge at Skarn and tear the murdering bastard's face off with his bare teeth. But he knew that meant certain death. No, he had to be ice. Not fire, but ice. ~ Luke Scull

Although the constant shadow of certain death looms over every day, the pleasures and joys of life can be so fine and deeply affecting that the heart is nearly stilled by astonishment. ~ Dean Koontz

Then, like ravening wolves in a black mist, when the belly's lawless rage has driven them blindly forth, and their whelps at home await them with thirsty jaws, through swords, through foes we pass to certain death, and hold our way to the city's heart; black night hovers around with sheltering shade. ~ Virgil

Take a soldier and put him right in front of a cannon in a battle and fire it at him, and he'll go on hoping, but read out a certain death sentence to that same soldier, and he'll go mad, or start to weep. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Ian's sense of right and wrong overwhelms me.
Not a single other person ... I know
possesses such an unshakable sense of morality.
Its more than unbelievable. It's frightening.
To offer without strings something all men crave,
and be rejected by him is incomprehensible.
Think I'll have to kick Kaeleigh's ass.
Does she have any idea what it means ... to be
so treasured? He has built a pedestal for her so tall
that she is afraid to be lifted atop it, because to fall
would mean certain death. But oh, she would rise
far, far beyond fear. ~ Ellen Hopkins

I often wondered why men will risk almost certain death in an attempt to save other men. I decided it was because men will do anything to give their lives some meaning and virtue. ~ Jonathan Hull

WWI is a romantic war, in all senses of the word. An entire generation of men and women left the comforts of Edwardian life to travel bravely, and sometimes even jauntily, to almost certain death. At the very least, any story or novel about WWI is about innocence shattered in the face of experience. ~ Anita Shreve

It is like a two-edged sword. It cuts into you. It causes you great pain, but if you can take the truth, it will cure you and save you from what otherwise be certain death. ~ Malcolm X

Most smart people tend to feel queasy when the conversation turns to things like "certain death" and "total failure" and the idea of a "doomed generation." But not me. I am comfortable with these themes. There is nothing new about them, except when they come all at once. Any conversation that can make smart people confront a mix of Death, Doom, and Failure with a straight face is probably worth listening in on. They don't come around real often, and when they do it almost always means that at least two of the people doing the talking are in very serious trouble. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I believe it is the true mark of a man's character in how he faces his end – whether it be a chicken bone in the Savoy Grill, an oncoming Kenworth on the 401, or a Sindhi pirate's knife pressed to his throat. An imperturbable composure and a ready smile imply both confidence and courage in the face of certain death.
Mind you, being a screamer has its advantages too. ~ Sean MacUisdin

Okay," he said slowly as his ulcer came back with friends. "To certain death, dismemberment, and undignified screams, let us march! ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Fame. Everyone dreams of fame. You long to live forever, to gain the power of light. But fame is fickle. One minute you're a young man alone in the universe; the next you're traveling beyond the stars and making grand discoveries; the next you're being ridiculed for proposing it might be possible to travel beyond the boundaries of time and causality and exist in other dimensions; the next you're being defrocked and imprisoned for cosmic heresy; the next you're being exonerated from execution and sent ironically, on a mission of certain death - all because some queen had a dream that a starfish spoke to her. It's all typical, really. ~ Matt Suddain

What's a friend for if not to face almost certain death with, eh? ~ Katie MacAlister

My cousin Helen, who is in her 90s now, was in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. She and a bunch of the girls in the ghetto had to do sewing each day. And if you were found with a book, it was an automatic death penalty. She had gotten hold of a copy of 'Gone With the Wind', and she would take three or four hours out of her sleeping time each night to read. And then, during the hour or so when they were sewing the next day, she would tell them all the story. These girls were risking certain death for a story. And when she told me that story herself, it actually made what I do feel more important. Because giving people stories is not a luxury. It's actually one of the things that you live and die for. ~ Neil Gaiman

When faced with certain death, running is sensible, but I think a man can make an unhealthy habit of it. Running can take on an importance of its own and become an excuse to avoid living a normal life. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Three things are certain: Death, taxes, and lost data. Guess which has occurred. ~ David Dixon

Death is the last fact of which we can be certain. ~ Geraldine Jewsbury

She turned to Jin now, sprawled by the fire, his hat pulled over his eyes. "I can tell you're awake. Are you coming with us?" He sighed, tipping his hat backward. "Yeah, yeah. Just trying to get some sleep before going to near certain death. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events
the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there
that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous. ~ Terry Pratchett

It wasn't you, it wasn't me,
Up there, two thousand feet above
A New York street. We're safe and free,
A little while, to live and love,

Imagining what might have been –
The phone-call from the blazing tower,
A last farewell on the machine,
While someone sleeps another hour,

Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye
And listen to each other's pain,
Send helpless love across the sky,
Knowing we'll never meet again,

Or jump together, hand in hand,
To certain death. Spared all of this
For now, how well I understand
That love is all, is all there is. ~ Wendy Cope

Do you believe people can change their fate, or do you think our lives are mapped out before us? I mean, do you think we're each doomed to die a certain death? ~ Joanne Owen

To be brave without compassion, generous without moderation, and rule without refraining from being first in the world, are certain deaths. ~ Laozi

Although we amplify our cognitive degree of awareness and enhance our appreciation for life experiences by maturing, it also brings us death. Facing a certain death forces a person to examine the worthiness of continuing to live. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

She'd passed the fear barrier, and she'd lived, and she'd discovered not certain death, as she'd imagined, but impossible splendor. What other beautiful things had fear been hiding from her? What else had the curse long kept her from discovering? For the first time in a long time, she wanted to find out. ~ Krystal Sutherland

So when I'm up here it feeds, for lack of a better word, nostalgia about my youth. Some people get that way when they see a baseball field or smell trout on the grill. I get that feeling from vertigo and the Freudian fantasy of falling to my certain death on the pavement. ~ Shane Kuhn

Kaldar almost never stops and thinks about the consequences of his actions. Something is fun or not fun, and my brother's fun often lands him in interesting places such as jails or castles belonging to California robber barons. Where other people see certain death, my brother sees an opportunity for a hilarious, thrilling adventure. But when I got the tattoo, Kaldar warned me that marrying her was a bad idea. ~ Ilona Andrews

By this time, around 0745, unknown others were doing the same, whether NCOs or junior officers or, in some cases, privates. Staying on the beach meant certain death; retreat was not possible; someone had to lead; men took the burden on themselves and did. Bingham put it this way: The individual and small-unit initiative carried the day. Very little, if any, credit can be accorded company, battalion, or regimental commanders for their tactical prowess and/or their coordination of the action. ~ Stephen E. Ambrose

You must understand that at that time, the concentration camps were prisons where opponents of the Nazi regime were detained. Von Schuschnigg was in a concentration camp; so was Bruno Bettelheim for a time. The inmates were made to work at hard labor and lived in dreadful conditions, but they often came back from these places. Not until the 1940s did the words "concentration camp" come to stand for monstrous cruelty and almost certain death. Nobody even imagined there would one day be a death camp like Auschwitz. ~ Edith Hahn Beer

None of the various 'language rules,' carefully contrived to deceive and to camouflage, had a more decisive effect on the mentality of the killers than this first war decree of Hitler, in which the word for 'murder' was replaced by the phrase 'to grant a mercy death.' Eichmann, asked by the police examiner if the directive to avoid 'unnecessary hardships' was not a bit ironic, in view of the fact that the destination of these people was certain death anyhow, did not even understand the question, so firmly was it still anchored in his mind that the unforgivable sin was not to kill people but to cause unnecessary pain. ~ Hannah Arendt

Draden drank in his surroundings with both appreciation and sorrow. The beautiful path led to a village that should have been thriving. Instead, it was now a path to certain death. ~ Christine Feehan

You are the only man I ever met," Tera growled, "who would smash the paws that are trying to free you from certain death. ~ Jim Butcher

Nehra frowned. "Do you always run headlong into certain death?" "Sometimes he walks," Dariana said. "Occasionally he shuffles. Once I'm pretty sure I saw him amble into certain death." Nehra rolled her eyes. "You risk your lives on foolish odds. ~ Sebastien De Castell

All right, kids. We're going to a party where they don't like us very much. Everyone know what they're doing? (Sin)
Not a clue, but I think certain death and dismemberment is in my forecast, followed by a light rain of guys and flayed skin. (Kish) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

You know you're supposed to call before you go running off to your certain death!" "I don't remember that rule." I ~ Seanan McGuire

Excerpt from Storm's Eye by Dean Gray

With a final drag and drop, Jordan Rayne sent his latest creation winging its way toward the publisher. He looked up, squinted at that little clock in the right hand corner of his monitor, and removed his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. His cover art was finished and shipped, just in time for lunch. He sighed and stood, rolling his shoulders and bending side to side, his back cracking in protest as the muscles loosened after having been hunched over the screen for so long. Sam raised his head, tilting it enquiringly at him, and Jordan laughed.
"Yeah, I know what you want, some lunch and a nice long walk along the beach, hmm?" Jordan smiled fondly at the furry ball of energy he'd saved from certain death. With his mom's recent death it was just Sam and him in the house. Sometimes he wondered what kept him here, now that the last thread tethering him to the island was severed.

Sam limped over and nuzzled at his hand. When Jordan had first found him out on the main road, hurt and bleeding, he hadn't been sure the pooch would make it. Taylor, his best friend and the local vet, had done what she could. At the time, Jordan simply didn't have the deep pockets for the fancy surgery needed to mend Sam's leg perfectly, he could barely afford the drugs to keep his mom in treatment. So they'd patched him up as well as they could, Taylor extending herself further than he could ever repay, and hoped for the best. The d ~ Dean Gray

It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war, and not a game ... If there were none of this magnanimity business in warfare, we should never go to war, except for something worth facing certain death for. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Being part of an attack was a strange thing, Marcus had always thought. It was like being a component in a larger organism, something that could live or die, stand or flee, all on its own and independent of the will of the men who made it up. Sometimes it drove you onward, into the face of what seemed like certain death, in spite of every instinct screaming for flight. Other times, you could feel it falling apart, turning at bay like a whipped dog, hunkering down or turning tail to run. ~ Django Wexler

Some things in life are certain; death, taxes, and that your family will piss you off. ~ Melanie Finn

She lived in the dream world of unreality, or else she would not admit reality; he did not know. In any case, he loved her as she was. It might never be used, but it would give her pleasure to have it. ~ Nevil Shute

A heckler once interrupted Nikita Khrushchev in the middle of a speech in which he was denouncing the crimes of Stalin. "You were a colleague of Stalin's," the heckler yelled, "why didn't you stop him then?" Khrushschev apparently could not see the heckler and barked out, "Who said that?" No hand went up. No one moved a muscle. After a few seconds of tense silence, Khrushchev finally said in a quiet voice, "Now you know why I didn't stop him." Instead of just arguing that anyone facing Stalin was afraid, knowing that the slightest sign of rebellion would mean certain death, he had made them feel what it was like to face Stalin - had made them feel the paranoia, the fear of speaking up, the terror of confronting the leader, in this case Khrushchev. The demonstration was visceral and no more argument was necessary. ~ Robert Greene

Except fang. I glared at him. "Go on, try to stop me, I dare you." It was like the old days when we used to wrestle, each trying to get the better of the other. I was ready to take him down, my hands curled into fist. "I was just going to say be careful," Fang told me. He stepped closer and brushed some hair out of my eyes. "And I've got your back." He motioned with his head toward the torpedo chamber. Oh my God. It hit me like a tsunami then, how perfect he was for me, how no one else would ever, could ever, be so perfect for me, how he was everything I could possibly hope for, as a friend, boyfriend, maybe even more. He was it for me. There would be no more looking. I really, really loved him, with a whole new kind of love I'd never felt before, something that made every other kind of love I'd ever felt feel washed out and wimpy in comparison. I loved him with every cell in my body, every thought in my head, every feather in my wings, every breathe in my lungs. and air sacs. Too bad I was going out to face almost certain death. Right there in front of everyone, I threw my arms around his neck and smashed my mouth against his. He was startled for a second, then his strong arms wrapped around me so tightly I could hardly breathe. "ZOMG," I heard Nudge whisper, but still fang and I kissed slanting our heads this way and that to get closer. I could have stood there and kissed him happily for the next millennium, but Angel, or what was left of her was still out there in the coul ~ James Patterson

There's nothing like a major emergency and the almost certain death of the whole damned world to concentrate the mind wonderfully. ~ Simon R. Green

Puerto Ricans who find they can no longer afford to keep their pets often choose to drop their dogs, sometimes even whole litters of puppies, at a beach - sometimes under cover of night, in secret - rather than surrender the animal to a city or state-run shelter where the animals will face grim conditions and almost certain death by euthanasia. ~ Juliana Hatfield

Brightbill had been Roz's son from the moment she picked up his egg. She had saved him from certain death, and then he had saved her. He was the reason Roz had lived so well for so long. And if she wanted to continue living, if she wanted to be wild again, she needed to be with her family and her friends on her island. So, as Roz raced through the sky, she began computing a plan.
She would get the repairs she needed.
She would escape from her new life.
She would find her way back home. ~ Peter Brown

A certain death of an artist is overconfidence. ~ Robin Trower

Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying ~ Thomas Paine

...there are many who want it but for whom the train of compulsion doesn't seem to stop. They never get that moment, that pause that will be long enough for them to get off. Because that's all it is - for some the train is too fast, some sleep through the stops, some jump off and jump right back on because they forget immediately that this is the death train. Me? I slept, went too fast, forgot... but then finally, stopped, limping on my broken toe, the lies falling off me, making me light, making me vulnerable. Making me strong. So strong that for one moment I could halt the whole fucking train. ~ Jowita Bydlowska

No follower of Christ knew the shape of the earth. For many centuries this great Peasant of Palestine has been worshiped as God. Millions and millions have given their lives to his service. The wealth of the world was lavished on his shrines.

His name carried consolation to the diseased and dying. His name dispelled the darkness of death, and filled the dungeon with light. His name gave courage to the martyr, and in the midst of fire, with shriveling lips the sufferer uttered it again and again. The outcasts, the deserted, the fallen, felt that Christ was their friend, felt that he knew their sorrows and pitied their sufferings.

All this is true, and if it were all, how beautiful, how touching, how glorious it would be.

But it is not all. There is another side.

In his name millions and millions of men and women have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. In his name millions and millions have been enslaved. In his name the thinkers, the investigators, have been branded as criminals, and his followers have shed the blood of the wisest and best.

In his name the progress of many nations was stayed for a thousand years. In his gospel was found the dogma of eternal pain, and his words added an infinite horror to death. His gospel filled the world with hatred and revenge; made intellectual honesty a crime; made happiness here the road to hell, denounced love as base and bestial, canonized credulity, crowned bigotry and destroyed ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from ... political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities. ~ Robert H. Jackson

O God, I confess I am not worthy to rock that little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of a child and its mother. How is it that I without any merit have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? Oh, how gladly will I do so. Though the duty should be even more insignificant and despised, neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor will distress me for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Neither death nor wisdom has a full stop. There are only commas-no destinations, only waiting rooms. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik

I'm fairly certain God takes notes out of my book. He should. If he knows what's good for him. ~ Sarah Noffke

Sometimes, I would have preferred be deaf not to hear negative words and all kinds of insanities.
Sometimes, I would have preferred be blind not to watch certain scenes of everyday life who dishonor humanity. ~ Joko Ono

If God really became incarnate, and if His Incarnation can with justice compel man to change his life,then we have no alternative but to conceive of this Incarnation as something which is still present and which will remain present for all future time ... What happens in the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist is something for which all religions of mankind have exressed longing, dimly sensed was coming, and as a rule even prefigured- the physical presence of the divine Logos made man, and the presence of his sacrificial death, in the midst of the congregation celebrating the mysteries. ~ Josef Pieper

Some ghosts just want a little attention. Some have unfinished business that they need to work through, emotions they have to process. A few..." She looked pointedly at Galen. "A few don't understand they're dead. You can see why I'd jump to conclusions about you. ~ Dani Harper

Shiva ... is the only hunter that will ever catch the wild swan; The prey she will take last is the wild white swan of the beauty of things. Then she will be alone, pure destruction, achieved and supreme, Empty darkness under the death-tent wings. She will build a nest of the swan's bones and hatch a new brood, Hang new heavens with new birds, all be renewed. ~ Robinson Jeffers

Poverty drove their parents to have them castrated as young children, hoping they would earn a better living at court. Usually the father would take the boy to a specialist castrator, who operated by the appointment of the court. After a contract was signed, absolving the castrator from any responsibility in case of death or failure (both highly likely outcomes), the unimaginably painful operation was performed. The castrator's fee was huge and had to be paid from future earnings. ~ Jung Chang

During certain hours, at certain years in our lives, we see ourselves as remnants from the earlier generations that were destroyed. So our job becomes to keep peace with enemy camps, eliminate the chaos at the end of Jacobean tragedies, and with 'the mercy of distance' write the histories. ~ Michael Ondaatje

YOU'RE NO ANGEL, you know how this stuff comes to happen: Friday is payday and it's been a gray day sogged by a slow ugly rain and you seek company in your gloom, and since you're fresh to West Table, Mo., and a new hand at the dog-food factory, your choices for company are narrow but you find some finally in a trailer court on East Main, and the coed circle of bums gathered there spot you a beer, then a jug of tequila starts to rotate and the rain keeps comin' down with a miserable bluesy beat and there's two girls millin' about that probably can be had but they seem to like certain things and crank is one of those certain things, and a fistful of party straws tumble from a woven handbag somebody brung, the crank gets cut into lines, and the next time you notice the time it's three or four Sunday mornin' and you ain't slept since Thursday night and one of the girl voices, the one you want most and ain't had yet though her teeth are the size of shoe-peg corn and look like maybe they'd taste sort of sour, suggests something to do, 'cause with crank you want something, anything, to do, and this cajoling voice suggests we all rob this certain house on this certain street in that rich area where folks can afford to wallow in their vices and likely have a bunch of recreational dope stashed around the mansion and goin' to waste since an article in The Scroll said the rich people whisked off to France or some such on a noteworthy vacation.

That's how it happens.

Daniel Woodrell

We are sisters. Despite all we've been through, all that we have held against each other, we are sisters until death comes for us. ~ Marie Lu

Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life. ~ Donald Barthelme

If you ever think you're the only person in the world feeling a certain way, just please know that you're not. ~ Taylor Swift

As a physician, I was trained to deal with uncertainty as aggressively as I dealt with disease itself. The unknown was the enemy. Within this worldview, having a question feels like an emergency; it means that something is out of control and needs to be made known as rapidly, efficiently, and cost-effectively as possible. But death has taken me to the edge of certainty, to the place of questions.

After years of trading mystery for mastery, it was hard and even frightening to stop offering myself reasonable explanations for some of the things that I observed and that others told me, and simply take them as they are. "I don't know" had long been a statement of shame, of personal and professional failing. In all of my training I do not recall hearing it said aloud even once.

But as I listened to more and more people with life-threatening illnesses tell their stories, not knowing simply became a matter of integrity. Things happened. And the explanations I offered myself became increasingly hollow, like a child whistling in the dark. The truth was that very often I didn't know and couldn't explain, and finally, weighed down by the many, many instances of the mysterious which are such an integral part of illness and healing, I surrendered. It was a moment of awakening.

For the first time, I became curious about the things I had been unwilling to see before, more sensitive to inconsistencies I had glibly explained or successfully ignored, more willin ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Each instrument has something to say to you. It's got its own character. Each horn has its own character and will say to you certain things. If you violate that, it's almost a sacrilege! ~ Jerome Richardson

The scheduling thing is really weird with TV shows. Certain projects haven't been able to work out because of the schedule, so some of it is out of your control. You don't have very many opportunities. There isn't much time, so you want to make sure you're going to be doing something that you really feel good about or that you're going to have a good creative experience doing. You're taking up vacation time from your job, so you want it to be meaningful. ~ Ty Burrell

As far as I can determine, the universe is made of ninety-five percent contradiction. And I'm not certain about the last five percent. ~ A.E. Marling

Typographical laziness was slowly destroying our culture, according to Lexa and her pals. Inexactitude was death. ~ Scott Westerfeld

And time is something we made up.
Digital clocks, quartz watches, atomic clocks don't measure 'time' they are just devices that exhibit change.
Clocks are navigational devices that we morphed into devices that somehow allow us to control time.
However no matter how you 'change' a clock or a watch - you can make a clock slower or faster, put it ahead or back – it doesn't affect the sunrise, or the galaxy speed, or death (or taxes). It's just a game.
Change is a constant. Whatever you do – change happens.
Time Control ~ Martin Gover

Sadness and boredom were more bearable than the effort of living a normal life. Perhaps the idea of death began to hover over her during that period, as a kind of higher order of lassitude in which she would not have to move the blood in her veins or the air in her lungs; her repose would be absolute- not to think, not to feel, not to be. ~ Isabel Allende

Our art is called 'Feruchemy,' and it grants the ability to store certain physical attributes inside bits of metal. ~ Brandon Sanderson

The bones cry for the blood of the white whale,
The fat flukes arch and whack about its ears,
The death-lance churns into the sanctuary, tears
The gun-blue swingle, heaving like a flail,
And hacks the coiling life out ... ~ Robert Lowell

The lessons I learned from my mother and her friends have guided me through death, birth, loss, love, failure, and achievement, on to a Fulbright scholarship and Harvard Business School. They taught me to believe that anything was possible. They have proven to be the strongest family values I could ever have imagined. ~ Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

And it is because they contain thus within themselves the hours of the past that human bodies have the power to hurt so terribly those who love them, because they contain the memories of so many joys and desires already effaced for them, but still cruel for the lover who contemplates and prolongs in the dimension of Time the beloved body of which he is jealous, so jealous that he may even wish for its destruction. For after death Time withdraws from the body, and the memories, so indifferent, grown so pale, are effaced in her who no longer exists, as they soon will be in the lover whom for a while they continue to torment but in whom before long they will perish, once the desire that owed their inspiration to a living body is no longer there to sustain them. Profound Albertine, whom I at once saw sleeping, and who was dead. ~ Marcel Proust

How could one create life with someone who represented death? ~ Erica Jong

Death had a habit of being permanent. ~ Victoria Lynn

Because glamour mythically opposes death and decay its ideal model of perfection is youth. The features of youth dictate many of the facets of glamour's criteria. Small snub noses, fair hair, smooth featureless skin, innocence, Picturing youth as a target of sexual lust inevitably encourages the sexual abuse of children. ~ Stefan Szczelkun

The death of the forest is the end of our life. ~ Dorothy Stang