The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live.

La pensée de la mort nous trompe, car elle nous fait oublier de vivre.

When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.

Every thought about death takes a moment of life away.

How did I find out? I was deceiving him.

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat;
Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit,
Trust on and think to-morrow will repay;
To-morrow's falser than the former day.

When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:
To-morrow's falser than the former day;
Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possesst.

Without acknowledging the ever-present gaze of death, the superficial will appear important, and the important will appear superficial.

Many things that are true feel like a cheat.

To live strikes me as a metaphysical mistake of matter, a dereliction of inaction.

Much of the fear of death comes from an intuition that we will be revealed as having avoided encounters with the deep self within us.

So, yes, death. When you're young, you think about it… Well, you don't really think about it, you know - you have the intelligence of raspberry jam, you're not thinking about anything. But it's there, as a motive force, making you do things. Go and get a job. Go and find a flat. Find somebody else. Put them in the flat. Make them stay. Get a toaster. Go to work. Get on the bus. Look at your boss. Say, "fuck". Sit down. Pick up the thing. Go blank. Scream internally. Go home. Listen to the radio. Look at the other person. Think, "WHY? Why did this happen?" Go to bed. Lie awake! At night! Get up. Feel groggy. Put the things on - your clothes - whatever they're called. Go out the door, into work - same thing! Same people, again, it's real, it is happening, to you. Go home again! Sit, Radio, Dinner - mmm, GARDENING, GARDENING, GARDENING, death. And so, the young woman thinks that if she has the right curtains, she can keep death and all other problems at bay. But the young man knows that the only way to keep death at bay, is by having sex pretty much constantly. Now, because nature's so clever, it makes the couple compromise by giving them children, so they never have to have sex again, and then the children pull the curtains down so there was NEVER anything to worry about in the first place!

When you have been close to death it makes you think about life.

We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.