The play is the tragedy “Man,” And its hero the conqueror worm.

Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.

I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him.

I imagined it was more difficult to die. 

There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen.

Death keeps no calendar.

I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

Anyone who’s never watched somebody die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity.

Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and, looking at each other with grief and despair, await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.

Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking. 

It is noble to die before doing anything that deserves death.

We and the dead ride quick at night. 

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.