Untimely Death Quotes

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If untimely death came only those who deserved that fate, Keturah, where would choice be? No one would do good for its own sake, but only to avoid an early demise. No one would speak out against evil because of his own courageous soul, but only to live another day. The right to choose is man's great gift, but one thing is not his to choose--the time and means of death.
Martine Leavitt (Keturah and Lord Death)
I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.
Shan Sa (Empress)
Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
He’s not going to die, you know. It’s only nice, saintly people who suffer untimely deaths.” She gave a quiet laugh. “Whereas selfish bastards like St. Vincent live to torment other people for decades.
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3))
The tragedy of Tupac is that his untimely passing is representative of too many young black men in this country....If we had lost Oprah Winfrey at 25, we would have lost a relatively unknown, local market TV anchorwoman. If we had lost Malcolm X at 25, we would have lost a hustler named Detroit Red. And if I had left the world at 25, we would have lost a big-band trumpet player and aspiring composer--just a sliver of my eventual life potential.
Quincy Jones
Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
The greatest tragedies in life is not untimely death, but to live a life for emptiness
Topsy Gift
Spending the next nine hours with a crying woman wal real close to the top of his "Avoid at All Costs" list right under untimely death and a desk job.
Tara Janzen (Crazy Kisses (Steele Street, #4))
MADELINE SHEEHAN WILL BE PUBLISHING ALL HER BOOKS IN ALL FORMATS FROM NOW UNTIL HER UNTIMELY DEATH BY HEART ATTACK (AT A VERY YOUNG AGE) DUE TO GOODREADS!
Madeline Sheehan
There is nothing more painful than the untimely death of someone young and dear to the heart. The harrowing grief surges from a bottomless well of sorrow, drowning the mourner in a torrent of agonizing pain; an exquisite pain that continues to afflict the mourner with heartache and loneliness long after the deceased is buried and gone.
Jocelyn Murray (Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt)
He was their father, her husband, and the reason they all died a brutal, untimely death. And some days i wonder why I insist on keeping myself alive.
Tahereh Mafi (Unite Me (Shatter Me, #1.5-2.5))
So what do you call something that our body has no need for and that, when we take it in, creates toxic by-products in our bodies resulting in debilitation, disease, and untimely death? Well, doctors call that a poison.
Eve O. Schaub (Year of No Sugar)
The Voyager We are all lonely voyagers sailing on life's ebb tide, To a far off place were all stripling warriors have died, Sometime at eve when the tide is low, The voices call us back to the rippling water's flow, Even though our boat sailed with love in our hearts, Neither our dreams or plans would keep heaven far apart, We drift through the hush of God's twilight pale, With no response to our friendly hail, We raise our sails and search for majestic light, While finding company on this journey to the brighten our night, Then suddenly he pulls us through the reef's cutting sea, Back to the place that he asked us to be, Friendly barges that were anchored so sweetly near, In silent sorrow they drop their salted tears, Shall our soul be a feast of kelp and brine, The wasted tales of wishful time, Are we a fish on a line lured with bait, Is life the grind, a heartless fate, Suddenly, "HUSH", said the wind from afar, Have you not looked to the heavens and seen the new star, It danced on the abyss of the evening sky, The sparkle of heaven shining on high, Its whisper echoed on the ocean's spray, From the bow to the mast they heard him say, "Hope is above, not found in the deep, I am alive in your memories and dreams when you sleep, I will greet you at sunset and with the moon's evening smile, I will light your path home.. every last lonely mile, My friends, have no fear, my work was done well, In this life I broke the waves and rode the swell, I found faith in those that I called my crew, My love will be the compass that will see you through, So don't look for me on the ocean's floor to find, I've never left the weathered docks of your loving mind, For I am in the moon, the wind and the whale's evening song, I am the sailor of eternity whose voyage is not gone.
Shannon L. Alder
Cruel, Clever Cat. Sally, having swallowed cheese, Directs down holes the scented breeze, Enticing thus with baited breath Nice mice to an untimely death.
Geoffrey Taylor
When you lose someone untimely; all left is never ending guilt, fear, and pain.
Nikita Dudani
You put us on pedestals and wrap us in cotton wool, cluck over us as being too precious and too fragile for any real labor of the mind, yet where is the concern for the Yorkshire woman working herself into an early grave in a coal mine? The factory girl who chokes herself to an untimely death on bad air? The wife so worn by repeated childbearing that she is dead at thirty? No, my dear Stoker, your sex has held the reins of power for too long. And I daresay you will not turn them loose without a fight.
Deanna Raybourn (A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell, #1))
We hadn’t spoken one word to each other since the death glare last night, and I couldn’t help but check both of her hands for knives and shivs, hoping that if she had one, I would be able to wrestle it away from her before meeting my untimely death. I was far too young and fun to die at the hands of my mother, and she was way too pretty to end up in prison. It would only take a matter of minutes for her to become someone’s bitch, and I didn’t want the responsibility for that kind of thing on my shoulders.
Laurel Ulen Curtis (A is for Alpha Male (A is for Alpha Male, #1))
Flaxfield died on a Friday which was a shame, because he always ate a trout for dinner on Friday, and it was his favourite.
Toby Forward (Dragonborn)
Mayflies have the shortest life span on earth. Like, twenty-four hours. Wouldn’t you feel terrible if you caused an even more untimely death?
Jodi Picoult (The Book of Two Ways)
When you realize you've evolved from the mentored to the Mentor it gives much more to the meaning and lessons learned in life as well as untimely death. -CPT Dominic Garcia-
Donavan Nelson Butler
untimely death is a common but really quite inane expression. When ever was a death timely?
Bill Bryson (Troublesome Words)
I WANT her though, to take the same from me. She touches me as if I were herself, her own. She has not realized yet, that fearful thing, that I am the other, she thinks we are all of one piece. It is painfully untrue. I want her to touch me at last, ah, on the root and quick of my darkness and perish on me, as I have perished on her. Then, we shall be two and distinct, we shall have each our separate being. And that will be pure existence, real liberty. Till then, we are confused, a mixture, unresolved, unextricated one from the other. It is in pure, unutterable resolvedness, distinction of being, that one is free, not in mixing, merging, not in similarity. When she has put her hand on my secret, darkest sources, the darkest outgoings, when it has struck home to her, like a death, "this is _him!_" she has no part in it, no part whatever, it is the terrible _other_, when she knows the fearful _other flesh_, ah, dark- ness unfathomable and fearful, contiguous and concrete, when she is slain against me, and lies in a heap like one outside the house, when she passes away as I have passed away being pressed up against the _other_, then I shall be glad, I shall not be confused with her, I shall be cleared, distinct, single as if burnished in silver, having no adherence, no adhesion anywhere, one clear, burnished, isolated being, unique, and she also, pure, isolated, complete, two of us, unutterably distinguished, and in unutterable conjunction. Then we shall be free, freer than angels, ah, perfect. VIII AFTER that, there will only remain that all men detach themselves and become unique, that we are all detached, moving in freedom more than the angels, conditioned only by our own pure single being, having no laws but the laws of our own being. Every human being will then be like a flower, untrammelled. Every movement will be direct. Only to be will be such delight, we cover our faces when we think of it lest our faces betray us to some untimely fiend. Every man himself, and therefore, a surpassing singleness of mankind. The blazing tiger will spring upon the deer, un-dimmed, the hen will nestle over her chickens, we shall love, we shall hate, but it will be like music, sheer utterance, issuing straight out of the unknown, the lightning and the rainbow appearing in us unbidden, unchecked, like ambassadors. We shall not look before and after. We shall _be_, _now_. We shall know in full. We, the mystic NOW. (From the poem the Manifesto)
D.H. Lawrence
What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the beginning of television's dominance of our culture-- for television is at its most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden. It is as witness to the butchery of heroes in their prime-- and of all holy-seeming innocents-- that televisions achieves its deplorable greatness.
John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany)
Do not be deceived by the outside appearance of order in our plutocratic society. It fares with it as it does with the older norms of war, that there is an outside look of quite wonderful order about it; how neat and comforting the steady march of the regiment; how quiet and respectable the sergeants look; how clean the polished cannon ... the looks of adjutant and sergeant as innocent-looking as may be, nay, the very orders for destruction and plunder are given with a quiet precision which seems the very token of a good conscience; this is the mask that lies before the ruined cornfield and the burning cottage, and mangled bodies, the untimely death of worthy men, the desolated home.
William Morris
Special Agent Pallas. Just the man I was looking for.' Cameron went to fold her arms across her chest, then seemed to realize - nope, no room there. 'What is this I hear about someone saying that my employees need to stay out of my way or risk an untimely death by paper clip?' Next to Jack, Agent Sam Wilkins looked up at the ceiling, speaking under his breath. 'I told you that would not go over well...' Jack held up his hands. 'It was a joke.' 'A joke.' Cameron's gaze went to Sam. 'Agent Wilkins. Was Agent Pallas scowling or smiling at the time of this alleged joke?' 'I plead the fifth.' 'A paralegal practically dove headfirst into a cubicle to get out of my way, Jack. So no more jokes.
Julie James (Love Irresistibly (FBI/US Attorney, #4))
Zu früh, befürcht ich; denn mein Herz erbangt Und ahnet ein Verhängnis, welches, noch Verborgen in den Sternen, heute Nacht Bei dieser Lustbarkeit den furchtbarn Zeitlauf Beginnen und das Ziel des läst'gen Lebens, Das meine Brust verschließt, mir kürzen wird Durch irgendeinen Frevel frühen Todes. Doch er, der mir zur Fahrt das Steuer lenkt, Richt' auch mein Segel! I fear, too early. For my mind misgives Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night's revels, and expire the term Of a despisèd life, closed in my breast, By some vile forfeit of untimely death. But He that hath the steerage of my course Direct my sail! Romeo: Act I, Scene 4
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
If I really cared about Matt, I wouldn’t want him to be unhappy. And I was fairly sure that mourning the untimely death of a live-in lover was likely to be a bit of a downer, at least for a day or two.
J.L. Merrow (Hard Tail (Southampton Stories #2))
There is no greatness in dying for love, Raakha, she wanted to say. Those who die untimely, violent deaths don’t become ashes. They become guilty scars on the flesh of the living. They become wounds that never heal no matter how much time passes.
Manjul Bajaj (Come, Before Evening Falls)
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always be seen as untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of 'Success.
James Baldwin
Special Agent Pallas. Just the man I was looking for.' Cameron went to fold her arms across her ches, then seemed to realize - nope, no room there. 'What is this I hear about someone saying that my employees need to stay out of my way or risk an untimely death by paper clip?' Next to Jack, Agent Sam Wilkins looked up at the ceiling, speaking under his breath. 'I told you that would not go over well...' Jack held up his hands. 'It was a joke.' 'A joke.' Cameron's gaze went to Sam. 'Agent Wilkins. Was Agent Pallas scowling or smiling at the time of this alleged joke?' 'I plead the fifth.' 'A paralegal practically dove headfirst into a cubicle to get out of my way, Jack. So no more jokes.
Julie James (Love Irresistibly (FBI/US Attorney, #4))
When you loose someone untimely; all left is never ending guilt, fear, and pain.
Nikita Dudani
I do not want you children to use my untimely death, or any setback that life may deliver, as an excuse not to take responsibility for yourselves.
Ethan Hawke
My stories were not very good. They didn't have much of a story line, and, in the way of all serious fiction, they ended with the untimely deaths of everyone.
Catherine Lowell (The Madwoman Upstairs)
After the third or fourth meeting that leaves Juniper facedown on her agenda, praying for the sweet release of her untimely death[…]
Alix E. Harrow (The Once and Future Witches)
for every untimely death, every man cut down in his vigour and strength without time for repentance and reparation, is one corpse too many.
Ellis Peters (One Corpse Too Many (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #2))
The man who to untimely death is doomed Vainly would hedge him in from the assault of harm; He bears the seed of ruin in himself.
Matthew Arnold (Merope, to which is appended the Electra of Sophocles, tr. by Robert Whitelaw; ed. by J. Churton Collins)
You look as if you're planning my untimely death." [...] "You have a problem though—I'm your top assassin by far, and I don't work for you any more.
Eve Ocotillo (Esperanza)
Save your mind from a premature death by always learning something new no matter your age! Think every day, but make sure it's not within the perimeter of the box! Think outside the box!
Israelmore Ayivor (The Great Hand Book of Quotes)
Volumes have been written only to enumerate the miseries of the learned, and relate their unhappy lives and untimely deaths. To these mournful narratives I am about to add the Life of Richard Savage...
Samuel Johnson
These solitary ones who are free in spirit know thatin one thing or another they must constantly put on an appearance that is different from the way they think; although they want nothing but truth and honesty, they are entangled in a web of misunderstandings. And despite their keen desire, they cannot prevent a fog of false opinions, of accommodation, of halfway concessions, of indulgent silence, of erroneous interpretation from settling on everything they do. And so a cloud of melancholy gathers around their brow, for such natures hate the necessity of appearances more than death, and their persistent bitterness about this makes them volatile and menacing. From time to time they take revenge for their violent selfconcealment, for their coerced constraint. They emerge from their caves with horrible expressions on their faces; at such times their words and deeds are explosions, and it is even possible for them to destroy themselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Untimely Meditations)
Thank you,” Evie whispered, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes once more. “Oh, Evie…” Lillian’s face softened with an expression of compassion that Evie had never seen on her before. She reached out and hugged Evie once more, and spoke into the wild tangles of her hair. “He’s not going to die, you know. It’s only nice, saintly people who suffer untimely deaths.” She gave a quiet laugh. “Whereas selfish bastards like St. Vincent live to torment other people for decades.
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3))
But the reality is that one would have to be an utter idiot to marry one of the Folk. There are perhaps a handful of stories in which such a union ends well and a mountain of them in which it ends in madness or an untimely and unpleasant death. I am also, of course, constantly aware of the ridiculousness of my being the object of a marriage offering by a faerie monarch.
Heather Fawcett (Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2))
Sometimes the worst tidings come as an absence. A friend who does not visit at the usual time, and who quickly thereafter withdraws from the friendship. An awaited letter that does not arrive, followed at some distance by news of an untimely death.
Alma Katsu (The Taker (The Taker, #1))
An unphilosophical but nonetheless effective help to putting death in its place is to run over the list of those who have clung long to life. What did they gain over the untimely dead? In truth, the distance we have to travel is small: and we drag it out with such labor, in such poor company, in such a feeble body. No great thing, then. Look behind you at the huge gulf of time, and another infinity ahead. In this perspective what is the difference between an infant of three days and a Nestor of three generations?
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Join the mob or go for what you want. Give yourself plenty of quiet time alone in order to get in touch with who you are...Focus power of thought. Remind yourself that the world is yours for the asking. The non-risker does not grow, you just get older. When you have decided which ideas, beliefs, relationships, and situations no longer work for you, it is time to release them. Let go of negative thoughts - view them as a flight of birds crossing your path. See them fly into view and continue on their way.' - from Joan Root's diary
Mark Seal (Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa)
My father always said my big mouth would be the death of me someday. I had thought he was kidding, but the joke was on me because here I was, a twice-over prisoner in an enemy kingdom, headed toward what was sure to be my untimely demise. All because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
Robin D. Mahle (Tarnished Crown (The Lochlann Feuds, #2))
promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
He died, as the Spanish phrase has it, full of illusions. He had not had time in his life to lose any of them, nor even, at the end, to complete an act of contrition. He had not even had time to be disappointed in the Garbo picture which disappointed all Madrid for a week." (The Capital of the World)
Ernest Hemingway (The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War)
I’ll have one of my men drop a car off for you.” “Thanks. I’ll try not to lose it.” “If you can manage to keep it intact for a week, it’s yours. If it gets stolen, blown up, crushed by a garbage truck, set on fire, filled with cement, or dies an untimely death by any other means, I’ll expect you to spend the night with me.
Janet Evanovich (Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum, #24))
A will can save one’s family from being put into a quagmired pit of legal conundrum, in case of death (which may even be untimely).
Henrietta Newton Martin
Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Robert Bryndza (Dark Water (Detective Erika Foster, #3))
We are all the architects of our own demise.
JD Rutherford (The Eighth Master: Art, Architecture, and an Untimely Death)
All loss, from the untimely death of a loved one, through to the loss of innocence, all the way to having a bag stolen, feels as though it is specific to us, but is actually universal. I began to see that in sharing our suffering and acknowledging the pain of being human, we not only ease the burden on ourselves, but also help those around us to see themselves as part of the same whole.
Cathy Rentzenbrink (A Manual for Heartache)
Instead, morality must be boiled down to mere competition of interests, and the desire of human beings to avoid suffering and untimely death. In a state of nature, “nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law; where no Law, no Injustice.”5 If moral relativism began anywhere, it began in Hobbes.
Ben Shapiro (The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great)
My youth was the most stubborn, peremptory part of myself. In my most relaxed moments, it governed my being. It pricked up its ears at the banter of eighteen-year-olds on the street. It frankly examined their bodies. It did not know its place: that my youth governed me with such ease didn't mean I was young. It meant I was divided as if housing a stowaway soul, rife with itches and yens which demanded a stern vigilance. I didn't live thoughtlessly in my flesh anymore. My body had not, in its flesh, fundamentally changed quite so much as it now could intuit the change that would only be dodged by an untimely death, and to know both those bodies at once, the youthful, and the old, was to me the quintessence of being middle-aged. Now I saw all my selves, even those that did not yet exist, and the task was remembering which I presented to others.
Susan Choi (My Education)
Tom would have come out eventually, although I suspect that if I’d had the chance to tell him my Really Bad News before he told me his, he probably would have kept his secret under wraps until after I’d died. How convenient that would have been for him. I could just imagine him telling people, “I loved my wife so much that after her untimely passing, I just couldn’t feel that way about another woman again—ever. So now I date men.” But
Camille Pagán (Life and Other Near-Death Experiences)
What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the beginning of television’s dominance of our culture—for television is at its most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden. It is as witness to the butchery of heroes in their prime—and of all holy-seeming innocents—that television achieves its deplorable greatness.
John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany)
And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, The Element of fire is quite put out; The Sun is lost, and th'earth, and no mans wit Can well direct him where to looke for it ... 'Tis all in peeces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all Relation.
John Donne (An Anatomy of the World: Wherein, by Occasion of the Untimely Death of Mistris Elizabeth Drury ...)
Thou whose injustice hath supplied the cause That makes me quit the weary life I loathe, As by this wounded bosom thou canst see How willingly thy victim I become, Let not my death, if haply worth a tear, Cloud the clear heaven that dwells in thy bright eyes; I would not have thee expiate in aught The crime of having made my heart thy prey; But rather let thy laughter gaily ring And prove my death to be thy festival. Fool that I am to bid thee! well I know Thy glory gains by my untimely end.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote)
The only public memorials ever raised to the two most tragically linked of this saga’s protagonists are miserable, niggardly affairs. William Minor has just a simple little gravestone in a New Haven cemetery, hemmed in between litter and slums. George Merrett has for years had nothing at all, except for a patch of grayish grass in a sprawling graveyard in South London. Minor does, however, have the advantage of the great dictionary, which some might say acts as his most lasting remembrance. But nothing else remains to suggest that the man he killed was ever worthy of any memory at all. George Merrett has become an absolutely unsung man. Which is why it now seems fitting, more than a century and a quarter on, that this modest account begins with the dedication that it does. And why this book is offered as a small testament to the late George Merrett of Wiltshire and Lambeth, without whose untimely death these events would never have unfolded, and this tale could never have been told.
Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary)
I shall definitely die. There is no way to prevent my body from finally decaying. Day by day, moment by moment, my life is slipping away. I have no idea when I shall die; the time of death is completely uncertain. Many young people die before their parents, some die the moment they are born – there is no certainty in this world. Furthermore, there are so many causes of untimely death. The lives of many strong and healthy people are destroyed by accidents. There is no guarantee that I shall not die today.
Kelsang Gyatso (Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra)
We were always looking for the perfect man. Even those of us who were not signed up for the traditional, heteronormative experience were nevertheless fascinated with the anthropological, unicorn-like search for one. Married or single, we were either searching for him or trying to mold him from one we already had. This perfect specimen would consist of the following essential attributes: He shared his food and always ordered dessert. When we recommended a book, he bought it without needing a friend to second our suggestion first. He knew how to pack a diaper bag without being told. He was a Southern gentleman with a mother from the East Coast who fostered his quietly progressive sensibilities. He said “I love you” after 2.5 months. He didn’t get drunk. He knew how to do taxes. He never questioned our feminist ideals when we refused to squish bugs or change oil. He didn’t sit down to put on his shoes. He had enough money for retirement. He wished vehemently for male-hormonal birth control. He had a slight unease with the concept of women’s shaved vaginas, but not enough to take a stance one way or another. He thought Mindy Kaling was funny. He liked throw pillows. He didn’t care if we made more money than him. He liked women his own age. We were reasonable and irrational, cynical and naïve, but always, always on the hunt. Of course, this story isn’t about perfect men, but Ardie Valdez unfortunately didn’t know that yet when, the day after Desmond’s untimely death, Ardie’s phone lit up: a notification from her dating app.
Chandler Baker (Whisper Network)
Men are very foolish to take airs on themselves, because they are rich. After all, money cannot do much for its owners. It will not enable a man to redeem either his brother or himself from untimely or sudden death. "A million of money for a moment of time!" cried Queen Elizabeth on her deathbed.
F.B. Meyer
After many years of knowing her, she died. Instead of leaving me with a heartbreak, she left behind wonderful memories. Memories of teasing me and pretending to fall asleep when I walk into her room. There are no tears to be shed. Instead, I celebrated our friendship. Twenty-two years of smiles and laughter. Unhurried narration of her life stories and hugs. Rewarding me with birthday cards and Christmas greetings. Scolding me with a smile before each departure, and winks by the door before she left my office. Each time, I stood and watched her struggle to get into her car. Even with all her physical struggles, she never missed the chance to visit me every three months until she was taken away from me permanently. Her death. Her departure from earth. As much as I struggle with the event, I would not call it untimely. I said my farewell, but I still cherish what we had. A sempiternal friendship
Fidelis O. Mkparu
It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room. By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week. It is not only in finished undertakings that we ought to honour useful labour. A spirit goes out of the man who means execution, which outlives the most untimely ending. All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at once tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such a termination? and does not life go down with a better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas? When the Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort of death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it overtake the man, this is to die young. Death has not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual land.
Robert Louis Stevenson (Æs Triplex and Other Essays)
I don't like these outdated traditions. I don't like this love for tombs, I don't like this kind of respect, I don't like it I don't want this untimely honor, I'd never change one moment of my life For thousands of golden deaths. I'd never change one ounce of respect while alive For thousands of tombs when I'm dead.
Jabir Novruz
Because life must go on. We have to keep up appearances. We can't risk doing anything suspicious. All the greatest superheroes had other identities. They had real, everyday lives to keep them grounded and their sects safe. They had people to lice and fight for in the real world. Superman had Lois Lane. Spider-Man had--" "Mary Jane." "I was going to say Gwen.
M.G. Buehrlen (The Untimely Deaths of Alex Wayfare (Alex Wayfare, #2))
Personally, I like my gods old, grizzled and *here*. I'll take Dylan; the pirate raiding party of the Stones; the hope-I-get-very-old-before-I-die, present live power of the Who; a fat, still-mesmerizing-until-his-death Brando—they all suit me over the alternative. I would've liked to have seen that last Michael Jackson show, a seventy-year-old Elvis reinventing and relishing in his talents, where Jimi Hendrix might've next taken the electric guitar, Keith Moon, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and all the others whose untimely deaths and lost talents stole something from the music I love, living on, enjoying the blessings of their gifts and their audience's regard. Aging is scary but fascinating, and great talent morphs in strange and often enlightening ways.
Bruce Springsteen (Bruce Springsteen -- Born to Run: Piano/Vocal/Chords)
Historic burials. Every forensic anthropologist handles these cases. Old bones unearthed by dogs, construction workers, spring floods, grave diggers. The coroner’s office is the overseer of death in Quebec Province. If you die inappropriately, not under the care of a physician, not in bed, the coroner wants to know why. If your death threatens to take others along, the coroner wants to know that. The coroner demands an explanation of violent, unexpected, or untimely death, but persons long gone are of little interest. While their passings may once have cried out for justice, or heralded warning of an impending epidemic, the voices have been still for too long. Their antiquity established, these finds are turned over to the archaeologists. This promised to be such a case. Please.
Kathy Reichs (Déjà Dead (Temperance Brennan, #1))
compare that with the statistics for murderous death without bullets. The US comes twenty-fifth, the UK is twenty-seventh. And now the overall bullets and no-bullets untimely death rate. The US is seventeenth, below Slovakia and Poland. The UK is thirty-first. Less murderous than peaceful little Switzerland, though just a tidge more maniacal than New Zealand. So, statistically, you’re more likely to be murdered on the laid-back holiday haven of Barbados than in America, with or without a gun. There are other ways of looking at this list. Eight of the top ten gun-crime countries are from the New World, and so speak Spanish, the language of inarticulate anger. All are notably religious, and all predominantly Christian, though half-and-half Catholic and Protestant. Perhaps more telling is that all of them were colonies.
A.A. Gill (To America with Love)
In the ferment of our civil societies, from which the guardian angels seem to depart, we see many every moment sliding at the brink. What anguishes are rankling in the lees of the soul, the heart-nipping unkindness of a man's friends, his defeated endeavours ! betwixt the birth and death of the mind, what swallowing seas, and storms of mortal miseries ! And when the wildfire is in the heart and he is made mad, the incontinent hands would wreak the harm upon his own head, to blot out the abhorred illusion of the world and the desolate remembrance of himself. Succoured in the forsaken hour, when his courage swerved, with the perfume of human kindness, he might have been to-day alive. Many have looked for consolation, in the imbecility of their souls, who found perhaps hardness of face and contra-diction ; they perished untimely in default of our humanity.
Charles M. Doughty (Travels in Arabia Deserta, Volume 1)
Not for an instant did he flinch from the mere fact of dying to-day…To die ‘untimely,’ as men called it, was the timeliest of deaths for one who had carved his youth to greatness. What perfection could he, Dorset, achieve beyond what was already his? Future years could but stale, if not actually mar, that perfection. Yes, it was lucky to perish leaving much to the imagination of posterity. Dear posterity was of a sentimental, not a realistic, habit.
Max Beerbohm (Zuleika Dobson)
Her eyeballs sail north, toward the top of her head, and we can all learn something from an untimely tragic death. What a danger, blaming other people for your problems. What a waste of a life. Had she disowned her cunty family and moved to one of her sunny foreign havens and been a bartender or a Pilates instructor, anything, doesn’t matter, she could have settled down with a nice, like-minded girl and paid respects for all her blessings—health, brains, muscles—by being true to herself.
Caroline Kepnes (You (You, #1))
the disparity between Eastern and Western spirituality resembles that found between Eastern and Western medicine—with the arrow of embarrassment pointing in the opposite direction. Humanity did not understand the biology of cancer, develop antibiotics and vaccines, or sequence the human genome under an Eastern sun. Consequently, real medicine is almost entirely a product of Western science. Insofar as specific techniques of Eastern medicine actually work, they must conform, whether by design or by happenstance, to the principles of biology as we have come to know them in the West. This is not to say that Western medicine is complete. In a few decades, many of our current practices will seem barbaric. One need only ponder the list of side effects that accompany most medications to appreciate that these are terribly blunt instruments. Nevertheless, most of our knowledge about the human body—and about the physical universe generally—emerged in the West. The rest is instinct, folklore, bewilderment, and untimely death.
Sam Harris (Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion)
Insane asylums are deliberate and premeditated receptacles of black magic, and it is not only that doctors encourage magic with their untimely and hybrid therapies, it is that they practice it. If there had been no doctors there would never have been patients, no skeletons of the diseased dead to butcher and flay, for it is through doctors and not through patients that society began. Those who live, live off the dead. And it is likewise necessary that death live; and there is nothing like an insane asylum for calmly incubating death, and for keeping dead people in incubators.
Antonin Artaud
It Rained for Two Days Straight Yesterday, Ryan told me his grandfather was admitted to the hospital. It was raining the way it rains in the movies, like whoever does the dishes left the faucet running, heavy drops polishing everything in the city dark. We ran from one drooling awning to the next, quicker, then slower, quicker, slower. If one had watched from the sky, our bodies would have looked like two small needles being pulsed forward by some invisible machine, stitching the streets together. Today, Patric was left by a girl he did not love but did not not love. He told me it was impossible to imagine himself both alone and whole. It was still raining--the sky's silly metaphor for sadness, untimely, startling, the way it makes the whole world more honest. Death is like this, too. Heartache, also. The sudden absence of what was there but now not. I touched Patrick's shoulder, attempting to pass my human to his. I sent Ryan a poem. I cannot do more than this art of bearing witness, to be both the bucket and the mirror, to say, yes, you are here but I am here also, to say you won't be here forever, or to say nothing and just walk beside each other in the rain.
Sierra DeMulder (Today Means Amen)
I needed a story. Something local, but juicy. And more than just newsworthy. I was holding out for gasp-worthy. And I found it. Or rather, it found me. Yup, your humble J-school grad was pretty much handed a tale that had it all: sex and drugs (not the regular kinds), multiple deaths (untimely, natch), rich folks and rituals and loads o' lawsuits- even a celebrity cherry on top. My newbie journo peers might be settling for three inches of coyotes in the subway, some spry centenarian's weightlifting regime or a bucket of campylobacter in the church supper salad, but I was planning to debut large and with oomph. The story was mine. I just had to figure out how to tell it.
Elyse Friedman (The Answer to Everything)
When it comes to people we admire, it is in our nature to be selective with information, to load with personal associations, to elevate and make heroic. That is especially true after their deaths, especially if those deaths have been in any way untimely and/or shocking. It is hard to hold onto the real people, the true story. When we think of the Clash, we tend to forget or overlook the embarrassing moments, the mistakes, the musical filler, the petty squabbles, the squalid escapades, the unfulfilled promises. Instead, we take only selected highlights from the archive-the best songs, the most flatteringly-posed photographs, the most passionate live footage, the most stirring video clips, the sexiest slogans, the snappiest soundbites, the warmest personal memories-and from them we construct a near-perfect rock 'n' roll band, a Hollywood version of the real thing. The Clash have provided us with not just a soundtrack, but also a stock of images from which to create a movie we can run in our own heads. The exact content of the movie might differ from person to person and country to country, but certain key elements will remain much the same; and it is those elements that will make up the Essential Clash of folk memory. This book might have set out to take the movie apart scene by scene to analyse how it was put together; but this book also believes the movie is a masterpiece, and has no intention of spoiling the ending. It's time to freeze the frame. At the very moment they step out of history and into legend: the Last Gang In Town.
Marcus Gray (The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town)
Police have announced the untimely and gruesome death of local poet and Leeds historian Michael Dooley. Mr. Dooley’s piteous remains were found in the pond of Langford Primary School, in the lunch bags of four children who attend the self-same school, in the confessional at Leeds Catholic Church, in the lanterns that line the catwalk that stretches between McCauliffe Park and Tremens Terrace, in a collection of small metal lock-boxes owned by local box collector Ruth Swaddleston, and wound around the trunks of ancient trees in the loneliest reaches of Look Park. Two toes each were found in stewpots in the kitchens of Mary Lowerton, Richard Frogtoucher, Susan Diggle, Nathaniel Ronstadt, and Robert Grain-Toggle. The poor man’s face was found hanging from a coat-hanger of local doctor Elias Stonehearse. It expected that more of Mr. Dooley will turn up when, once again, spring thaws the rivers and roads of our lovely city.
Matthew M. Bartlett (Creeping Waves)
If you’re hoping for a good meal, you’ve come to the wrong place. Miss Cameron has already attempted to sacrifice herself on the altar of domesticity this morning, and we both narrowly escaped death from her efforts. I’m cooking supper,” he finished, “and it may not be much better.” “I’ll try my hand at breakfast,” the vicar volunteered good-naturedly. When Elizabeth was out of earshot, Ian said quietly, “How badly is the woman hurt?” “It’s hard to say, considering that she was almost too angry to be coherent. Or it might have been the laudanum that did it.” “Did what?” The vicar paused a moment to watch a bird hop about in the rustling leaves overhead, then he said, “She was in a rare state. Quite confused. Angry, too. On the one hand, she was afraid you might decide to express your ‘tender regard’ for Lady Cameron, undoubtedly in much the way you were doing it when I arrived.” When his gibe evoked nothing but a quirked eyebrow from his imperturbable nephew, Duncan sighed and continued, “At the same time, she was equally convinced that her young lady might try to shoot you with your own gun, which I distinctly understood her to say the young lady had already tried to do. It is that which I feared when I heard the gunshots that sent me galloping up here.” “We were shooting at targets.” The vicar nodded, but he was studying Ian with an intent frown. “Is something else bothering you?” Ian asked, noting the look. The vicar hesitated, then shook his head slightly, as if trying to dismiss something from his mind. “Miss Throckmorton-Jones had more to say, but I can scarcely credit it.” “No doubt it was the laudanum,” Ian said, dismissing the matter with a shrug. “Perhaps,” he said, his frown returning. “Yet I have not taken laudanum, and I was under the impression you are about to betroth yourself to a young woman named Christina Taylor.” “I am.” His face turned censorious. “Then what excuse can you have for the scene I just witnessed a few minutes ago?” Ian’s voice was clipped. “Insanity.” They walked back to the house, the vicar silent and thoughtful, Ian grim. Duncan’s untimely arrival had not bothered him, but now that his passion had finally cooled he was irritated as hell with his body’s uncontrollable reaction to Elizabeth Cameron. The moment his mouth touched hers it was as if his brain went dead. Even though he knew exactly what she was, in his arms she became an alluring angel.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
I miss Diana more than I can express. The world seems a colder place without her luminous presence. To had had Diana’s friendship, to have known her personally, has been a gift beyond comparison. She brought joy and pride and a touch of glamour to my life for years. I loved and admired her without reservation. When Patrick recognized her picture on magazine covers, I thought how incredible it was that we actually knew the beautiful, famous Diana. Best of all, we knew she was even lovelier inside. I read her letters, feeling deeply touched that she continued to care for us. Seeing her in person--warm, unpretentious, and radiant--was a thrill that lasted a long, long time. It truly was, “like being brushed by angels’ wings,” as my friend at the funeral had said. Whoever would have thought when I called for a nanny so many years ago, that magic would enter my life. My family and I watched her dazzling progress from a shy teenager to a multi-faceted and charismatic woman. She fulfilled her many roles so beautifully. Yet to me, Diana was a beloved friend, not the world-famous Princess of Wales. Behind the glamour, I saw the qualities I’d always admired in her--kindness, integrity, and grace in all she did. Above all, Diana was born to be a mother. Showing affection was as natural to her as breathing. I saw her tender care for my young son. I know she was an utterly devoted mother to her own boys, giving them unconditional love and deriving her greatest joy in life from them. I’ve wished so often that her life had been a fairytale, that Diana had been spared the pain and loneliness she suffered. But without the despair, she might not have developed the strength and humanity that reached out to people everywhere. Diana instinctively looked beyond her own problems to ease the pain and distress of others. She touched so many people in her short lifetime. I never thought it would end this way--that she would die so young. I will always remember, as the last hymn faded into silence at her funeral, the solemn tread of the soldiers’ boots--so haunting, so final--as they carried her casket through the Abbey. I couldn’t bear that she was leaving forever. For months now, I’ve searched for some solace in this tragedy. I hope that Diana’s untimely death and the worldwide mourning for her have silenced forever those who belittled her values and doubted her appeal. She rests peacefully now beyond reproach--young and beautiful. Diana, you were greater than we realized. We will never, never forget you.
Mary Robertson (The Diana I Knew: Loving Memories of the Friendship Between an American Mother and Her Son's Nanny Who Became the Princess of Wales)
You know, Silas shouldn’t have something so indecent like this lying about,” Ann said. “One of the children might see it.” She brightened. “I know! We should put some clothes on it! That would make it all right, don’t you think?” “Oh, by all means. Do clothe the woman,” Louisa said, laughter bubbling up from the back of her throat. Ann flitted around the room looking for something appropriate. “Ah, this’ll be fine,” she said, her back to Louisa. She fooled with the thing a bit, then turned and held it up for Louisa’s approval. It took Louisa a second to recognize what Ann had chosen to clothe the poor beleaguered fertility goddess in, but as soon as she did, she burst into laughter. Silas’s drawers. Ann had clothed the carving in Silas’s dirty drawers. After that, Louisa couldn’t stop laughing. Ann had tied the legs around the carving’s neck so that the back side of the unlaced drawers covered her front. It was truly a site to behold. And when Ann looked at her in all innocence, obviously unaware that the lady’s clothing was as indecent as the lady herself, Louisa laughed so hard her sides hurt. “Louisa, are you alright?” Ann asked as she went to her friend’s side. “I swear, you’re behaving strange today. Really strange.” Louisa couldn’t even speak. All she could do was laugh and point at the carving. “This?” Ann asked as she held the carving up. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like her fine woolen dress?” Louisa erupted in more peals of laughter. Unfortunately, it was just at that moment, when Louisa was laughing herself to death and Ann was waving the carving about in the air, that Silas chose to make his untimely entrance. “What are you females going in here?” his raspy male voice roared from the doorway, making them both jump. Ann dropped the carving at once, watching as it rolled across the wooden floor, losing its exotic gown in the process. Louisa managed to rein in her laughter, though a few chuckles still bubbled out of her. “We wasn’t doin’ nothin’, truly,” Ann began to babble. “Louisa said . . . I mean . . . we thought . . .” “It’s all right, Ann.” Louisa faced Silas, laughter still in her eyes. But when she saw his livid expression and reddened face, she sobered at once. “I’m sure Silas knows better than to blame you.” “We was just tryin’ to help.” Bending to pick up the carving, Ann held it out to Silas. “Honestly, Mr. Dumm—” Silas made a choking sound as he saw what Ann held in her hands. “Get out.” Snatching the carving from her, he tossed it across the room. “I said get out of here! Now!
Sabrina Jeffries (The Pirate Lord)
The heart of rock will always remain a primal world of action. The music revives itself over and over again in that form, primitive rockabilly, punk, hard soul and early rap. Integrating the world of thought and reflection with the world of primitive action is *not* a necessary skill for making great rock 'n' roll. Many of the music's most glorious moments feel as though they were birthed in an explosion of raw talent and creative instinct (some of them even were!). But ... if you want to burn bright, hard *and* long, you will need to depend on more than your initial instincts. You will need to develop some craft and a creative intelligence that will lead you *farther* when things get dicey. That's what'll help you make crucial sense and powerful music as time passes, giving you the skills that may also keep you alive, creatively and physically. The failure of so many of rock's artists to outlive their expiration date of a few years, make more than a few great albums and avoid treading water, or worse, I felt was due to the misfit nature of those drawn to the profession. These were strong, addictive personalities, fired by compulsion, narcissism, license, passion and an inbred entitlement, all slammed over a world of fear, hunger and insecurity. That's a Molotov cocktail of confusion that can leave you unable to make, or resistant to making, the lead of consciousness a life in the field demands. After first contact knocks you on your ass, you'd better have a plan, for some preparedness and personal development will be required if you expect to hang around any longer than your fifteen minutes. Now, some guys' five minutes are worth other guys' fifty years, and while burning out in one brilliant supernova will send record sales through the roof, leave you living fast, dying young, leaving a beautiful corpse, there *is* something to be said for living. Personally, I like my gods old, grizzled and *here*. I'll take Dylan; the pirate raiding party of the Stones; the hope-I-get-very-old-before-I-die, present live power of the Who; a fat, still-mesmerizing-until-his-death Brando—they all suit me over the alternative. I would've liked to have seen that last Michael Jackson show, a seventy-year-old Elvis reinventing and relishing in his talents, where Jimi Hendrix might've next taken the electric guitar, Keith Moon, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and all the others whose untimely deaths and lost talents stole something from the music I love, living on, enjoying the blessings of their gifts and their audience's regard. Aging is scary but fascinating, and great talent morphs in strange and often enlightening ways. Plus, to those you've received so much from, so much joy, knowledge and inspiration, you wish life, happiness and peace. These aren't easy to come by.
Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
During homeroom, before first period, I start a bucket list in one of my notebooks. First on the list? 1) Eat in the cafeteria. Sit with people. TALK TO THEM. 2) And…that’s all I can come up with for now. But this is good. One task to work on. No distractions. I can do this. When my lunch period rolls around, I forgo the safety of my bag lunch and the computer lab and slip into the pizza line, wielding my very own tray of semi-edible fare for the first time in years. “A truly remarkable sight.” Jensen cuts into line beside me, sliding his tray next to mine on the ledge in front of us. He lifts his hands and frames me with his fingers, like he’s shooting a movie. “In search of food, the elusive creature emerges from her den and tries her luck at the watering hole." I shake my head, smiling, moving down the line. “Wow, Peters. I never knew you were such a huge Animal Planet fan.” “I’m a fan of all things nature. Birds. Bees. The like.” He grabs two pudding cups and drops one on my tray. “Pandas?” I say. “How did you know? The panda is my spirit animal.” “Oh, good, because Gran has this great pattern for an embroidered panda cardigan. It would look amazing on you.” “Um, yeah, I know. It was on my Christmas list, but Santa totally stiffed me." I laugh as I grab a carton of milk. So does he. He leans in closer. “Come sit with me.” “At the jock table? Are you kidding?” I hand the cashier my lunch card. Jensen squints his eyes in the direction of his friends. “We’re skinny-ass basketball players, Wayfare. We don’t really scream jock.” “Meatheads, then?” “I believe the correct term is Athletic Types.” We step out from the line and scan the room. “So where were you planning on sitting?" “I was thinking Grady and Marco were my safest bet.” “The nerd table?” I gesture to myself, especially my glasses. “I figure my natural camouflage will help me blend, yo.” He laughs, his honey-blond hair falling in front of his eyes. “And hey,” I say, nudging him with my elbow, “last I heard, Peters was cool with nerdy.” He claps me gently on the back. “Good luck, Wayfare. I’m pulling for ya.
M.G. Buehrlen (The Untimely Deaths of Alex Wayfare (Alex Wayfare, #2))
The differences were plain enough, and yet I saw that they were as nothing compared with what we had in common. As I lay in bed at night, the sky outside my window reflecting the city's dim glow, I thought about Abuelita’s fierce loyalty to blood. But what really binds people as family? The way they shore themselves up with stories; the way siblings can feud bitterly but still come through for each other; how an untimely death, a child gone before a parent, shakes the very foundations; how the weaker ones, the ones with invisible wounds, are sheltered; how a constant din is medicine against loneliness; and how celebrating the same occasions year after year steels us to the changes they herald. And always food at the center of it all.
Sonia Sotomayor (My Beloved World)
Is God like the Greek god, Zeus, sending down lightning bolts to cause catastrophic events? Does God decree when tragic or untimely deaths occur? Does God have a list and when your time is up, you die? Is it “God’s will” these events happen? On the other hand, do tragic events happen because of laws of nature or the law of averages?
David Walton Earle
her untimely death. Death for her meant death for us both.
Edna O'Brien (The Light of Evening)
Notwithstanding the very prevalent impression, indeed we might say the practically universal persuasion, that there was nothing worth while talking about in any department of education in America before the nineteenth century, except what little there was in the English colonies, and while it is confidently assumed that above all science received no attention from our Southern neighbors, Spanish America not only surpassed English America in education, but far outdistanced English America in what was accomplished for scientific research and the evolution of the knowledge of a large number of scientific subjects in a great many ways. Even those among us who thought themselves well read in American history have, as a rule, known almost nothing of this until comparatively recent years. Professor Bourne of Yale, whose untimely death deprived the United States of a distinguished historical scholar, was the first to point out emphatically how far ahead of the English were the Spanish colonies in every mode of education, but particularly in the cultivation of science. In many places Prescott had more than hinted at this, but the materials for the whole story were not available until our time.
James Joseph Walsh (The Popes and Science The History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time)
If your are an expatriate, a 'will' is required because, the laws of the country in which you reside would be different from that of your home country, and when the inevitable (death) occurs (untimely), your property /possessions may be exposed to the discretion of the state laws for the allocation of your property to someone, you may have never wished that they possess your property and be an heir to your assets.
Henrietta Newton Martin
Life insurance is an essential foundation of a family’s financial security. It represents a loving and wise commitment to your family, and even your business partners or key employees, by recognizing the need to meet future financial responsibilities in the event of an untimely death or disabling illness.       In other words, life insurance helps remove the financial uncertainty of life for you and whoever depends on you at home and at work.
Par Yang (How To Protect What Matters Most: Can't Miss Advice From a Heroic Young Woman Who Overcame the Tragic Loss of Her Husband, Home, and Million-Dollar Business)
The name and accomplishments of Oscar J. Dunn have faded so much over time, he has all but disappeared from the history books. The controversy surrounding his untimely death remains unresolved. No one knows why his family refused the autopsy, or why considering the numbers of other Republicans who claimed to have had the same symptoms, Dunn was the only one to die.
Beverly Jenkins (Winds of the Storm (Le Veq Family #2))
Ivy... I am utterly bored... For goodness' sake, let something interesting be announced this assembly." - Scarlet "Like what?" - Ivy "Perhaps an untimely death." - Nadia
Sophie Cleverly (The Dance in the Dark (Scarlet and Ivy, #3))
We may not be happy to hear about our death, but contemplating and meditating on death is very important for the effectiveness of our Dharma practice. This is because it prevents the main obstacle to our Dharma practice – the laziness of attachment to the things of this life – and it encourages us to practise pure Dharma right now. If we do this we shall accomplish the real meaning of human life before our death. HOW TO MEDITATE ON DEATH First we engage in the following contemplation:     I shall definitely die. There is no way to prevent my body from finally decaying. Day by day, moment by moment, my life is slipping away. I have no idea when I shall die; the time of death is completely uncertain. Many young people die before their parents, some die the moment they are born – there is no certainty in this world. Furthermore, there are so many causes of untimely death. The lives of many strong and healthy people are destroyed by accidents. There is no guarantee that I shall not die today. Having repeatedly contemplated these points, we mentally repeat over and over again ‘I may die today, I
Kelsang Gyatso (Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom, Volume 1: Sutra)
Attending Diana’s funeral was the saddest thing I’ve ever done. The image of her solitary coffin and the haunting echo of the guards’ footsteps will stay with me always. I prayed for her young sons, for whom she will be irreplaceable. I looked across the square at the thousands of people who remained, listening to the Abbey bells, unwilling to leave. Men and women alike were still blinking back tears, biting trembling lips, or openly crying after seeing Diana’s casket being borne away. The funeral service had been truly sublime--a funeral fit for a queen. Yet, Diana would have been more deeply touched by the unprecedented and heartfelt expressions of love and loss from ordinary people. She had said she wanted to be a “princess for the world.” The world’s sorrow for her untimely death made it undeniably clear that she was, indeed, “the people’s princess,” as Tony Blair had so eloquently called her. On that mournful day, her lonely path away from royal convention had been completely vindicated. But the cost had been too high.
Mary Robertson (The Diana I Knew: Loving Memories of the Friendship Between an American Mother and Her Son's Nanny Who Became the Princess of Wales)
She had said she wanted to be a “princess for the world.” The world’s sorrow for her untimely death made it undeniably clear that she was, indeed, “the people’s princess,” as Tony Blair had so eloquently called her.
Mary Robertson (The Diana I Knew: Loving Memories of the Friendship Between an American Mother and Her Son's Nanny Who Became the Princess of Wales)
Shades are different from ghosts because a ghost is just the shadow of someone who lived in the past marking a place, whereas a shade is the spirit of a person that’s left its body prematurely, usually during tragic and untimely deaths.
Emma L. Adams (Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey, #1))
You did a fine job with those science nerds over the course of this past year, John. Very fine job. Nothing but praise from the lot of them. Well done.” His thick English accent had a soothing effect every time he spoke. John remembered him fondly as a young man. His father and the Admiral had gone to the academy together and served side by side for many years before John’s father met an untimely death. Sitting here with him now and listening to him speak brought him back to those simpler times. “I was just doing my duty, Sir.” “Oh come now. You know and I know that there isn’t a bloody captain in this entire fleet that wanted that assignment. There isn’t a bit of action when you have the lot of them aboard. And on a bloody science mission besides. No, no, you are a real hero for saving all of us from having to do such a duty. And for a year! Bloody hell.” He opened up a drawer and pulled out two thick, stubby glasses, and then extracted a bottle of rum. Of course he brought out the rum. “I suppose you heard that we’ve been hard at work getting our first Deep Space Class starship ready to launch this year?” he asked as he filled both glasses half full with the amber liquid. He Offered one glass to John who took it with reluctance. He had never been one who liked liquor. “Heard she’s a beauty. The engine is something of a marvel as well?” “Damn straight,” he said as he downed his first glass in one pull. He filled his glass up half full for round two. “Currently our fastest ship will get you to the Wild Space region in twenty years. This buggers going to do it in six months and I’d like you to take her out on her maiden voyage.” John sat back in shock. The thought of taking out the prototype of the future… it was a great honor and one that hundreds of captains in star fleet would give anything for. He certainly wasn’t worthy of such an honor. He didn’t have nearly the amount of years as everyone else in the fleet. “I don’t think it’d be right to accept, would it? I mean… there are some captains who’ve…” “Bumshnickles!” he shouted. “Your father was the captain of the first Earth Starship Independence. It’s only right that the second to bear her name should have an Avery in the chair.
Jason M. Brooks (Wild Space: Onslaught (Wild Space Series 1))
Other unsolved murders or untimely deaths were readily blamed on the supposedly sinister Jews: If a Jewish doctor failed to save a life, the whole Jewish community might be attacked and fined.
Robert Winder (Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain)
Here we go, step two of the Great Grief Showcase: I Knew Him Better Than You. Whoever is being carted off to the morgue is now becoming best friends with dozens of people who wouldn’t have lent them cab fare a week ago. Upon hearing the victim’s name, Lyle and his kind will suddenly remember months, years, decades they had spent bonding and growing with the deceased, cherishing them and sharing intimacies. Not because they actually give a shit about them but because that intimacy will bump them up higher on the grieving pecking order. Their tears will hurt more, their lives will matter more because a bigger hole has been torn into it by this untimely, tragic death.
S.G. Redling (Baggage)
will go on record right here and now and state that I would never kill myself, and if my untimely death occurs it will be because I was removed by the exact same people I have reported on in this book. I love my family, friends and country way too much to take my own life, and my work is far from over. It’s just beginning. The
J. Micha-el Thomas Hays (Rise of the New World Order: The Culling of Man)