Mark Twain Quotes

I know what I'm having 'em put on my tombstone: 'I have nothing more to say'.

When you have a child, you think about your own mortality.

Go away. I'm all right. [last words]

Once someone asked me, "What do you want to be your epitaph?" So I said, "Paulo Coelho died when he was alive.

When I die, my epitaph or whatever you call those signs on gravestones is going to read: "I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like." I am so proud of that I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And when you come to my grave you will find me sitting there, proudly reading it.

How do people choose their final words? Do they realize their gravity? Are they fated to be wise?

My epitaph? My epitaph will be, 'Curiosity did not kill this cat'.

Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one. "That’s what I was supposed to say..." he gasped out. Those were his last words.

Last words are only words.

Until today, you may not have realized that your life provides the content of your obituary. Just for today, examine your life. Think about all of the things you want to leave behind. Remember, the good thing about doing this today is that you still have time to rewrite your life's content if necessary.

On my tombstone, I really hope that someday they will write: He was true but partial.

When the dust of death has choked a great man's voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins.

It is not dying, but living, that is a preparation for Death.

As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.

Speeches are for the younger men who are going places. And I'm not going anyplace except six feet under the floor of that little chapel adjoining the museum and library at Abilene.

Right, well, he'd been sick for a while and his nurse said to him, 'You seem to be feeling better this morning,' and Isben looked at her and said, 'On the contrary,' and then he died.

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.... [W]hat can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground?... [N]othing can we call our own, but death... [L]et us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings: - How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd.

Now when I die, I shall only be dead.

Get ready to die, tell God I say hi.

The trace I leave to me means at once my death, to come or already come, and the hope that it will survive me. It is not an ambition of immortality; it is fundamental. I leave here a bit of paper, I leave, I die; it is impossible to exit this structure; it is the unchanging form of my life. Every time I let something go, I live my death in writing.

I don't think anybody's necessarily ready for death. You can only hope that when it approaches, you feel like you've said what you wanted to say. Nobody wants to go out in mid-sentence.

When you approach the second half of your life, you start to unconsciously consider what you're passing on. As a writer, that's obviously part of what you're doing. And as a teacher, that's another way of passing on information, history, or whatever you have.

[Suggesting an epitaph for herself:] This is on me.