Lawrence Durrell Quotes

I have not often seen much dignity in the process by which we die.

I would like to avoid dying if possible. I do like living! The worst, I think for me, though, would be a really bedridden death.

The tricky part of illness is that, as you go through it, your values are constantly changing... You may decide you want to spend your time working as a neurosurgeon, but two months later, you may want to learn to play the saxophone or devote yourself to the church. Death may be a one-time event, but living with terminal illness is a process.

Many, if not most, Americans can imagine a fate worse than death, and it is a seemingly interminable process of dying. For them, it is frightening that politicians can find ways to interject themselves into this sad process.

My ultimate aim is to make euthanasia a positive experience.

My mother begged doctors to end her life. She was beyond the physical ability to swallow enough of the weak morphine pills she had around her. When she knew she was dying I promised to make sure she could go at a time of her choosing, but it was impossible. I couldn't help.

I have not seen much dignity in the process by which we die. The quest to achieve true dignity fails when our bodies fail.

If I had terminal cancer, I had a few weeks to live, I was in tremendous amount of pain - if they just effectively wanted to turn off the switch and legalise that by legalising euthanasia, I'd want that.

My father was in terrible pain towards the end because of his bed sores, and he did go into hospice, and I think that was better in some ways. You know, I think his death was peaceful, and it was all right. He was just in terrible pain.

My father's death from prostate cancer in 1993 was tragic. He never complained about pain. He was a fighter. By the time he was ready to die he wasn't able to die in the way that he wanted to, which seemed an outrage to me.

Americans of all ages deserve quality end-of-life medical care.

I know that there are people who believe that if they get to the stage where life is absolutely intolerable because of pain and indignity... they would like to end their life before nature intended, and we think they should have the choice to do so.

I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their own life, and those that help them should be free from prosecution.

Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button.

I think some people do want to die, and they will get a disease. There are people who know their lives are so troubled, and their bodies are getting them out of here.

We don’t have a right to die; we have a duty to die.

I think a lot of us share a fear that we and people we love will lose control of our own destinies at the end of life.

We could keep his body going, but it was trying its hardest to die.

Would you require a wretched being, whose life is slowly wasting under a lingering disease, to despatch himself at once by the stroke of a dagger? Does not the very disorder which consumes his strength deprive him of the courage to effect his deliverance?

Each man is master of his own death, and all that we can do when the time comes is to help him die without fear of pain.

I said to myself, 'I want to die decently'.

I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.

A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don't necessarily want to be alive.

I believe it should be possible for someone stricken with a serious and ultimately fatal illness to choose to die peacefully with medical help, rather than suffer.

Soon you won't even have the choice to live or die as you wish!