Polly Toynbee Quotes

Death is a fact of life, no matter where you live. Taking care of the dying is a necessity everywhere. Those are not conditions exclusive to small towns.

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.

I say to people who care for people who are dying, if you really love that person and want to help them, be with them when their end comes close. Sit with them - you don't even have to talk. You don't have to do anything but really be there with them.

Accepting death is a massive problem for everybody.

You can't tell a 6-year-old your sister is going to die.

I was destined to work with dying patients. I had no choice when I encountered my first AIDS patient. I felt called to travel some 250,000 miles each year to hold workshops that helped people cope with the most painful aspects of life, death and the transition between the two.

I think people don't think or talk about death very much. I don't think we're very open about it, at least in my experience.

I don't want to die in pain or in an undignified way, I don't want any of the people I love to die in, die painfully. But I'm aware of the fact that they may die before I do and I have to part with them and take the loss. The hardest thing of love is to let go. But I think I can get let go of almost anybody.

It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

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

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.

When you know that someone close to you is going to die, there's a natural tendency to want to spend as much time with them as you can.

The end of life has its own nature, also worth our attention.

Anna Deavere Smith's new one-woman show bills itself as being about health care, but the truth is that 'Let Me Down Easy' is mostly about the grimmer subject of death and dying.

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.

I am interested in the way advances in medicine and palliative care mean more people now have the opportunity to plan their own deaths, and also plan for those who are left behind. What does that do to the grieving process?

It's fashionable to speak about vulnerable populations in medicine and public policy, but it's harder to find a more vulnerable population than those who are dying.

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

Hospice has brought such a light in my life. It is something I will be involved with until I need hospice myself.

I've been there for a couple of people when they were dying; it didn't look like fun. But if I was gonna do it, I'd want someone like me around. And I will be there!

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.

Only the dying man can tell how much time he has left.

Why do dying people never shed tears?

My grandmother made dying her life's work.

Most people are not ready for death, theirs or anybody elses.