Joyce Carol Oates Quotes

Where do you go when you die? The same place you were before you were born; nowhere! It's over!

Death does not exist.

I'm always curious about what happens when we die. And I'd like to think that somehow the spirit goes on. I'd rather not think that it's just about this.

Afterlife, in my mind, is pretty much nothing. This is it. This is what we get, for me.

Try to imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up... now try to imagine what it was like to wake up having never gone to sleep.

I believe in an immortal soul. Science has proved that nothing disintegrates into nothingness. Life and soul, therefore, cannot disintegrate into nothingness, and so are immortal.

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

How surely are the dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it.

Either death is a state of nothingness and utter consciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.

That which is the foundation of all our hopes and of all our fears; all our hopes and fears which are of any consideration; I mean a Future Life.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue.

But you're dead,' said Harry. 'Oh, yes,' said Dumbledore matter-of-factly. 'Then... am I dead too?' 'Ah,' said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. 'That is the question, isn't it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not.

We die, and we do not die.

I actually do believe in life after death.

Death is simply a break in our linear stream of consciousness.

Unbeing dead isn't being alive.

Because there is a larger awareness that transcends time and space, an awareness is available after death.

I think death is just a transition to another state of consciousness.

Everybody is going to die, so people are enthralled by the possibility that they don't have to completely die, that there is something that comes afterward. It's like if you're going to France for the summer, you're going to read up on it. Everyone just wants to know where they're going, or if they're going anywhere.

No man can pass into eternity, for he is already in it.

Consciousness after death demonstrates the possibility of consciousness operating independently of the body.

Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.

The study of consciousness that can extend beyond the body is extremely important for the issue of survival, since it is this part of human personality that would be likely to survive death.

I'm never afraid to die. I think that's the best thing that can happen to somebody is they get to move on and do something better.