Edmund White Quotes

I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying.

I take it, therefore, to be a fact, that one's existence ends with death. I think it possible to show how this fact can be emotionally acceptable.

About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.

I'm not scared of dying, because I'm an atheist. I won't even know I'm dead. You know why? Because I'll be fùckin' dead.

She died praying that she might die.

One idea I explore in my stand-up show is whether, if you try looking at the universe rationally and avoid coping mechanisms like mysticism or religion, you can still be happy knowing you are going to die after a brief time on this spinning ball.

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.

Sometimes I would make myself very still and try to imagine myself dead. I tried to invoke the feeling of the very last breath I would take.

One of the joys of being a Christian or being a person of faith is that you believe deep down that death isn't the worst thing, you know. Not living your life: that's the worst thing. And death is not, it's not all it's cracked up to be. It's not, it's not the end of the world.

I know that I am going to die, and I'm ready to do so.

I would hate the thought of dying full stop; I've got to be honest with you.

There are no atheists in foxholes, they say, and I was a foxhole atheist for a long time. But after going through a midlife crisis and having many things change very quickly, it made me realize my mortality. And when you start to think about death, you start to think about what's after it. And then you start hoping there is a God.

Death is the last enemy: once we've got past that I think everything will be alright.

I'm dying, and I'm having fun.

I guess on one hand I believe it doesn't matter if there is life after death.

If you die, you're not a failure.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

I'm not frightened of death.

Obviously, death is ahead of me. I don't look forward to dying one little bit. But, you know, I simply don't worry about it because it's going to happen to me as it does to anybody.

There's no point thinking about dying, because it's going to happen anyway, isn't it? I don't waste my time worrying about that.

I don't believe dying's a sad thing.

I don't want to die. I can't wrap my head around the concept of death because I'm totally atheist. There's nothing after life in my head, whether that's right or wrong.

In the presence of death I affirm and reaffirm the truth of all that I have said against the superstitions of the world. I would say that much on the subject with my last breath.

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.

I have good hope that there is something after death.