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

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.

I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide—because he kills not merely a man but a near relative—without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself. 

Let my epitaph be, “Here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he undertook.”

I imagined it was more difficult to die. 

Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.

Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?

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

Nobody, sir, dies willingly.

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.

We and the dead ride quick at night. 

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.