Tess Gerritsen Quotes

What do people fear most about death? I asked the reb. "Fear?" he thought for a moment. 'Well, for one thing, what happens next? Where do we go? Is it what we imagined?" That's big. "Yes. But there's something else." What else? He leaned forward. "Being forgotten," he whispered.

My biggest fear in life is to be forgotten.

After I die, I'll be forgotten.

When we die we are only stories in the minds of others, I thought

I could still be forgotten when I'm dead. I don't really care what happens when I'm dead.

Tell me the truth about death. I don't know what it is. We have them, then they are gone but they stay in our minds. Their stories are part of us as long as we live and as long as we tell them or write them down.

We're not really afraid to die. We're only afraid of being forgotten. We know that we'll be forgotten, and the idea is unbearable, don't you agree? As time passes we become infrequent visitors in the minds of those left behind. The ones who clear out the house & divide up the belongings. Throw away the rubbish. And forget. If we knew that every evening someone lit a candle and sat down to think – thought about is if only for a few seconds – then we could depart this earth in peace. No-one will light a candle for me. Who would do that?

"When the dead are done with the living, the living can go on to other things," Franny said. "What about the dead?" I asked. "Where do we go?"

At death our friends and relatives either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart farther from us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.

Nothing is stronger than the position of the dead among the living.

It's a taboo subject. How the dead are betrayed by the living. We who are living--we who have survived--understand that our guilt is what links us to the dead. At all times we can hear them calling to us, a growing incredulity in their voices, You will not forget me -- will you? How can you forget me? I have no one but you.

I kept thinking how they were all names of dead people, and how names are basically the only thing dead people keep.

We live, we die, we are remembered, we are forgotten.

I wanted desperately to go on living in someone's memory. If we are not remembered, we are more than dead, for it is as if we had never lived

There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

The only 'afterlife' is what other people remember of you.

I think that's what we're all most terrified about: that we'll just die and disappear and we'll leave no trace.

Behind every citizen lies a graveyard.

Nobody wants to be nameless. Nobody wanna be forgotten.

I want to be remembered.

I think it's crucial that we remember the lives of people, not their deaths. Our deaths are not our lives.

I would just like to be remembered.

When I'm dead are they going to remember me ? I don't really think about it, it's up to them. When I'm dead, who cares ? I don't.

Only our memories allow that some people ever existed. That they mattered, or mattered too much.

Remember me when I am gone away, gone far away into the silent land.