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

What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.

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

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.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

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

In dealing with the dead, if we treat them as if they were entirely dead, that would show a want of affection and should not be done; or, if we treat them as if they were entirely alive, that would show a want of wisdom and should not be done.

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

It is not my design to drink or sleep; my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.

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.

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

If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.

Death renders all equal.