Edwin Arlington Robinson Quotes

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how many people remember you when you die.

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.

Posthumous reputations have little to do with real lives.

I hope when I'm dead I'll be considered an icon, though.

It's funny the way most people love the dead. Once you are dead, you are made for life.

When I'm dead, somebody can write my biography. I wrote a national hymn, an anthem, which I don't want to present to that country. But I have a deal with my wife - when I'm dead, she should offer it, because then I'm safe.

The only 'afterlife' is what other people remember of you.

Biography is one of the new terrors of death.

It's funny how most people love the dead, once you're dead, you're made for life.

I've had a wonderful life. What people are going to write about me 10 years after I'm dead - who cares?

I am not concerned about my posthumous fame. Monuments are no good to the dead.

Oh, you know, your legacy's all you're gonna be remembered by.

Legacy is something you talk about when you're dead - and I'm not dead yet.

Death is dreadful to the man whose all is extinguished with his life; but not to him whose glory never can die.

Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.

I don't think about my legacy, if indeed, I have one.

For children preserve the fame of a man after his death.

When I die, if the word 'thong' appears in the first or second sentence of my obituary, I've screwed up.

I suppose that every one of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world, whatever he may be doing, himself, in the next.

My audience is going to die before I do.

Age makes all things greater after their death; a name comes to the tongue easier from the grave.

I know if I were to drop dead now, people would probably write nice things in the obit.

Our deaths become a part of our lives in the sense that with our deaths we give something to those who are left behind, as we have given our lives to them.

With sincere modesty, if there is such a thing, I have never thought of legacy at all. I am always grateful if people like what I have done. A legacy is something no one can forsee.