Norman Cousins Quotes

Some people should die that's just unconscious knowledge.

When I die, people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity. As though they were the people most concerned!

The right time to die is never exactly now.

I'm dying, but otherwise I'm in very good health.

Life is better than death. But death comes eventually to everyone. It is something which many in their prime may prefer not to think about. But at 89, I see no point in avoiding the question. What concerns me is: How do I go? Will the end comes swiftly, with a stroke in one of the coronary arteries? Or will it be a stroke in the mind that lays me out in bed for months, semi-comatose? Of the two, I prefer the quick one.

Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime

People is themselves when they are children, and not again till they know they'm dying.

Bravest thing about people is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying.

Better to live or die, once and for all, than die by inches.

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.

Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die.

Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.

People--stupid when they lived; potentially stupid when they died.

If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up. It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up. That's what people meant when they talked about going to heaven. It was like waking up.

Must be yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please.

Dying ain't in people's plans, is it?

When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never.

Old men when they begin to hear the last trumpet, on the morning breeze, often have a kind of absent-minded smile; like people listening. And their smiles are just politeness.

Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make.

I don't mind pointing out some of the failings of old age, because we are all headed in that direction, unless of course we take our own lives before we become a burden. I'm not advocating suicide, oh wait, I guess I am.

People are born soft and weak. They die hard and stiff.

If people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention.

People's whole lives do pass in front of their eye before they die. The process is called "Living".

Naturally, there's got to be a limit for I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

People do terrible things all the time, but we don’t regularly disown our humanity. We disavow the terrible things.