Jacob K. Javits Quotes

Believe me, if a man doesn't know death, he doesn't know life.

Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.

There are only three events in a man's life; birth, life, and death; he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.

We all have two things in common, no matter who we are: We were born and we are going to die.

You've gotta know what death is to know life!

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

Birth and death; we all move between these two unknowns.

It is only in the light of the inescapable fact of death that a person can adequately engage and enter upon the mysterious fact of life.

To live is to die.

First our pleasures die - and then our hopes, and then our fears - and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust - and we die too.

Death is a very important part of life.

Human experience resembles the battered moon that tracks us in cycles of light and darkness, of life and death, now seeking out and now stealing away from the sun that gives it light and symbolizes eternity.

I'm just observing the world. I was born into it, like you were, and then I found out there were some really disturbing aspects to being alive, like the fact that you weren't going to be alive forever - that bothered me.

I know that I'm going to die and that you're going to die. I can't do anything about that. But I can explore it through a metaphor and make a kind of funny, dark story about it, and in doing so, really exhaust and research as many aspects of it as I can imagine. And in a way, that does give me some closure.

Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.

You realize that however much you don't think about death - or think that's for other people - you're just an organism living from day to day. I'm just grateful I'm here.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

For me, life and death are very important themes. There is no life without death. That's why it's very important to me.

We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish.

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

I'm not afraid of death, but I resent it. I think it's unfair and irritating. Every time I see something beautiful, I not only want to return to it, but it makes me want to see other beautiful things. I know I'm not going to get to all the places I want to go.

Death is an absolute mystery. We are all vulnerable to it, it's what makes life interesting and suspenseful.

To continue living, we have to die. That's the story of humanity - generation after generation - that we are going to die. There's nothing dramatic about death except that one loses one's life.

Death is an art, you know.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.