Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72.
Oncoming death is terrible enough, but worse still is oncoming death with time to spare, time in which all the happiness that was yours and all the happiness that might have been yours becomes clear to you. You see with utter lucidity all that you are losing.
Before me now there is only one real fact -- Death. The truth I have been seeking -- this truth is Death. Yet Death is also a seeker. Forever seeking me. So -- we have met at last. And I am prepared. I am at peace. Because I will conquer death with death.
When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. . . . Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you. After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it.
Death is not the problem; waiting around for it is.
The eunuch had looked death in the face, so near he might have kissed her on the lips.
The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes.
Long before you knew what death was you were wishing it on someone else.
In your twenties, you think you are immortal. In your thirties, you hope you are immortal.
Combat isn't where you might die -- though that does happen -- it's where you find out whether you get to keep on living. Don't underestimate the power of that revelation. Don't underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time.
Man reckons with immortality, and forgets to reckon with death.
Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.
When death comes too near, comedy and tragedy fall silent.
Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're always looking towards the top and you feel happy, but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death at the end of it all. It's slow going up and quick going down.
Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to stay alive as long as possible.
Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse.
The Fear of Death often proves Mortal.
I was confident that I was a special person. But time slowly chips away at life. People don't just die when their time comes. They gradually die away, from the inside. And finally the day comes when you have to settle accounts. Nobody can escape it. People have to pay the price for what they've received. I have only just learned that truth.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
The hospital is the antechamber to the tomb
...Proximity to a noose danger and death ... can make man or woman appreciate things.
It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid.
Man is unique in that, unlike animals, he knows he is going to die, and unlike animals he can do something about it.
It doesn't take that many years for a kid to realise that they're going to die. It's always there in the back of their mind the rest of their lives.
There is but one freedom, to put oneself right with death. After that everything is possible.
