Terry Pratchett Quotes

He had never looked forward to the wisdom and other vaunted benefits of old age. Would he be able to die young—and if possible free of all pain? A graceful death—as a richly patterned kimono, thrown carelessly across a polished table, slides unobtrusively down into the darkness of the floor beneath. A death marked by elegance.

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I've - if it did occur - that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

Death doesn't frighten me; now I can think peacefully of ending a long life.

Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long.

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down .

I don't dwell on it. But I guess everybody hopes that they go in their sleep and that it won't be long and painful.

After a long day, folk rest at night. After a long summer, folk play games and sit about in the winter. After a long life folk sit about the fire and stay warm, for the chill of death is upon them, and even the thickest bearskin can't keep off the shivering.

So, what do you do when you know you have two days to live? Eat an entire Bitter Chocolate Death cake all by myself. Reread my favorite novel. Buy eight dozen roses from the best florist in town--the super expensive ones, the ones that smell like roses rather than merely looking like them--and put them all over my apartment. Take a good long look at everyone I love.

My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.

The other day, the way people [do] who are approaching their 80th birthday, I was thinking about all the last business - funerals and where do you want to be buried - and I thought if anything were to be inscribed on my tombstone, I said let it be that.

I hope to work, support my children and die quietly without pain.

Die - you will have to die. But die gracefully. I am not saying die like a stoic, I am not saying die like a very controlled man. No, I'm saying die gracefully, beautifully, as if a friend is coming, knocks at your door, and you are happy. And you embrace the friend and invite him in, and you have been waiting for him so long.

It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable.

She had died peacefully, in her sleep, after an evening of listening to all of her favorite Fred Astaire songs, one crackling record after another. Once the last chord of the last piece had died out, she had stood up and opened the French doors to the garden outside, perhaps waiting to breathe in the honeysuckle one more time.

For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, and who can rightly die needs no delay.

In my own life if I knew I was going to pass away I'd love to sit down and resolve every issue so I could go peacefully.

Do you want to die old and craven in your bed?- How else? Though not till I'm done reading.

Life is better than death. But death comes eventually to everyone. It is something which many in their prime may prefer not to think about. But at 89, I see no point in avoiding the question. What concerns me is: How do I go? Will the end comes swiftly, with a stroke in one of the coronary arteries? Or will it be a stroke in the mind that lays me out in bed for months, semi-comatose? Of the two, I prefer the quick one.

I'm not afraid of retirement. Retirement sounds like a blast.

An old man drinks tea and reads the newspaper--forgetting age for a moment.

And it is a great thing to die in your own bed, though it is better still to die in your boots.

Please give me fifty more years of work and fun, then an instant death when I'm sleeping.

When I die throw my body in the back and drive me to the junk yard in my Cadillac.

There's no retirement, there's just a few years of non-work by the fire with someone bringing you some tea and relative peace and playing with the grandchildren.