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

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. 

To desire immortality for the individual is really the same as wanting to perpetuate an error forever.

Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie.

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

I think it makes small difference to the dead if they are buried in the tokens of luxury. All this is an empty glorification left for those who live.

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

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

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

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

You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.