Irvin D. Yalom Quotes

So the first thing: become aware of death. Think about it, look at it, contemplate it. Do not be afraid, do not escape the fact. It is there and you cannot escape it! It has come into existence with you.

I've worked very hard to become comfortable with how death works and why it happens. I now know that death isn't out to get me.

For the young, death is an enemy they wish to try their strength against. For those of us a little older, she is an old friend, an old lover, but one we are not eager to meet again soon.

Everyone knows they re going to die,' he said again, 'but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.

It's not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It's like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death's terror. We project ourselves into the future through our children; we grow rich, famous, ever larger; we develop compulsive protective rituals; or we embrace an impregnable belief in an ultimate rescuer.

Man reckons with immortality, and forgets to reckon with death.

The eunuch had looked death in the face, so near he might have kissed her on the lips.

Look out, Death: I am coming.-Art thou not glad? what talks we'll have.-What memories of old battles.-Come, bring the bowl, Death; I am thirsty.

I know that whenever I think about death, I come up against a stone wall.

There are two things which Man cannot look at directly without flinching: the sun and death.

I hope I am not too repetitive. However, coming to terms with death is part of the general human situation.

It is true that you can say that death is natural, but it is also natural to fight death. But if you stand up and say this is a big problem, we should do something about this, that makes people very uncomfortable, because they've made their peace with death.

Your body must become familiar with its death - in all its possible forms and degrees - as a self-evident, imminent, and emotionally neutral step on the way towards the goal you have found worthy of your life.

In this society, we don't like to face the future and the dying process and all of it. Most of us really don't want to think about it, but it's facing me in the mirror every day.

Death undoes us less, sometimes, than the hope that it will never come.

The Fear of Death often proves Mortal.

As one gets older, this question of death, becomes more vexing and urgent.

From the moment of my birth, the angels of anxiety, worry, and death stood at my side, followed me out when I played, followed me in the sun of springtime and in the glories of summer. They stood at my side in the evening when I closed my eyes, and intimidated me with death, hell, and eternal damnation.

When death comes too near, comedy and tragedy fall silent.

I am about to die. It is September 11, and every cell in my body is acutely aware of my looming demise. The certainty of it. The inevitability. Not years from now, not weeks nor days. Moments.

Every fear is fear of death.

Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door. Mirroring, softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness. Hidden in disguise, leaking out in a variety of symptoms. It is the wellspring of many of our worries, stresses, and conflicts.

There is but one freedom, to put oneself right with death. After that everything is possible.

I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die,” she said. “I can’t think about it. I don’t even know how I’m going to live.

He that shrinks from the grave with too great a dread, has an invisible fear behind him pushing him into it.