Top 100 Before We Die Quotes
#1. How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die? (88)
Stephen Levine
#2. That's the purpose of old age ... To give us a breathing space before we die, in which to see why we did what we did.
Colleen McCullough
#3. The BBC did a survey of the top 50 things to do before we die. Not while we're still alive, before we die.
Bill Bailey
#4. We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.
Douglas Coupland
#5. The only place we have to come before we die is the place of seeing God.
Ann Voskamp
#6. Our lives fade behind us before we die.
John Updike
#7. We should try to live a life of a human once before we die, because there is a difference between having a life and living a life.
M.H. Rakib
#9. There is always a gap between conception and execution. We keep writing in the burning hope of closing that gap before we die.
Janette Turner Hospital
#10. You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life
John Irving
#11. Every clock is a bomb, ticking away at the minutes of our lives, counting off the seconds one by one before we die.
At birth a heart it given a certain number of beats. The clock is counting them off one by one and will not allow a man any more than his allotted share.
Carolee Dean
#12. There was something frantic in their blooming, as if they knew that frost was near and then the bitter cold. They'd lived through all the heat and noise and stench of summertime, and now each widely opened flower was like a triumphant cry, "We will, we will make seed before we die."
Harriette Simpson Arnow
#13. But before we die, how shall we live? I say with hope and dignity; and if premature death is the result, that death has a meaning reactionary suicide can never have. It is the price of self-respect.
Huey Newton
#14. At our core, we are not made to be extensions of machines, or to find our personal validity in four decades of gutting it out just so we can sit on a beach for a few years before we die. In short, we are made to Make Meaning, not just money.
Chuck Blakeman
#15. We dream much of Paradise, or rather of a number of successive Paradises, but each of them is, long before we die, a Paradise lost, in which we should feel ourselves lost also.
Marcel Proust
#16. And see all sights from pole to pole, And glance, and nod, and hustle by; And never once possess our soul Before we die.
Matthew Arnold
#17. Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.
Neil Gaiman
#18. I regret the ending of our friendship and hope one day before we die, we'll make peace with each other ... No rush.
Paul Simon
#19. We do have trouble dealing with death, but it's the one thing that is guaranteed we are all going to have to do, and we are going to have to face it many times before we die ourselves.
Katherine Paterson
#20. We all eat a handful of dirt before we die, who cares if it tastes like cherries?
Thomas Siddell
#21. Call immediately. Time is running out. We both need to do something monstrous before we die.
Ralph Steadman
#22. Male initiation does not move toward machoism; on the contrary, it moves toward achieving a cultivated heart before we die.
Robert Bly
#23. I can't take it y'all
I can feel the city breathin
Chest heavin, against the flesh of the evening
Sigh before we die like the last train leaving
Mos Def
#24. Everybody dies ... The thing is, to have a life before we die.
John Irving
#25. Literature can teach us how to live before we live, and how to die before we die. I believe that writing is practice for death, and for every (other) transformation human beings encounter.
Jayne Anne Phillips
#26. Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.
Douglas MacArthur
#27. I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.
Natalie Goldberg
#28. Maybe that's what we look for all our lives, the worst possible grief, to make us truly ourselves before we die.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine
#29. Some of us die long before our last breath. We perish in the fire of love, reduced to ashes in the consuming blaze. No, we do not die when our hearts cease to beat, but when they start beating the first time
for somebody else.
Shakieb Orgunwall
#30. In the comic-book world, there tends to be an overblown sense of tradition. Bad habits die hard. There are ways I think the form could work more effectively if we lost the bad habits that were created before we were born.
Frank Miller
#31. Baby don't wake me, let me take you on an endless journey. We touch and the softest kiss explodes with lust. It's real and you can't deny the heat you feel. And if I die before I wake, baby that's all right.
Steve Vai
#32. How many men must die before we can really have a free and true and peaceful society? How long will it take?
Coretta Scott King
#33. It is a tragedy that most of us die before we have begun to live.
Erich Fromm
#34. Most of us are tiptoeing through life so we can reach death safely. We should be praying, "If I should wake before I die ... " Life can get away from you.
Tony Campolo
#35. Bastard had the bad manners to die before we were through talking to him.
Maya Banks
#36. I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry. When we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.
Benjamin Harrison
#37. George, she says it's the truth that matters. We live and die for the chance to maybe tell a little bit of the truth, maybe shame the Devil just a little bit before we go.
Mira Grant
#38. The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die - although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born.
Erich Fromm
#39. It'll be down to you, Harry, to show them that a Seeker has to have something more than a rich father. Get to that Snitch before Malfoy or die trying, Harry, because we've got to win today, we've got to." "So no pressure, Harry," said Fred, winking at him.
J.K. Rowling
#40. I firmly believe that when you die you will enter immediately into another life. They who have gone before us are alive in one form of life and we in another.
Norman Vincent Peale
#41. We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment disappear: we are torn from ourselves while living.
William Hazlitt
#42. I feel like I'm going to die,' he says.
'Could we talk for a few minutes before you die?'
'Only if you do it quietly.'
'I met this girl last night. I need your advice.'
'Come back later.'
'No. You might be dead.
Doug MacLeod
#43. The most important lesson we can learn is how to pray. Prayers do not die, prayers live before God, and God's heart is set on them.
Edward McKendree Bounds
#44. We are held back by too much caution. We are timid about venturing. We are not bold enough. And so we die before we reach middle age, although we will not be lowered into the ground until we pass three score and ten.
Og Mandino
#45. To live is nothing more than to come here to die, to be what we were before being born, but with apprenticeship, experience, knowledge of cause, and perhaps with will.
Juan Ramon Jimenez
#46. There is an answer, some day we will know
And you will ask her, why she had to go
We live and die, we laugh and we cry
You must take away the pain
Before you can begin to live again
Chris De Burgh
#47. Technology isn't the enemy, it is our ally, but only if we adopt a new model that puts people before profit. I realize that we seem far from that model, but I have seen it in action and it is a beautiful thing. So I'm not willing to give up yet. Hope is the last thing to die.
Justin Sane
#48. I want to know how long we have before he rises. If I cut off his head, will he stay down longer?"
The servant rolled his eyes. "He's not getting up! You killed him."
"My Tetlin ass! That's a god. Gods don't die. They're immortal."
"Really not so much," ...
Michael J. Sullivan
#50. I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind - how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall.
Pierce Brown
#51. The aim of life is to be fully born, though its tragedy is that most of us die before we are thus born.
Erich Fromm
#52. Now that you are here--now that we're together-- I can't imagine going back to the life I had before. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you now. I love you too much. ~Vincent Delacroix, Until I Die (ARC), Amy Plum p. 71
Amy Plum
#53. Things wither and die before us so that we may better savor that we live.
Ann Benson
#54. I was convinced that eventually I would die of heart disease, that we'd run out of time and out of treatment, the technology wouldn't keep ahead of my disease. And now all of the sudden, when you get the new heart, your life opens up before you again.
Dick Cheney
#55. You and I ought not to die,before we have explained ourselves to each other.
John Adams
#56. IF I HAD a dime for every time I've heard "We're all going to die" or "I'll kill you," I could afford a better apartment. You can only listen to so many threats of destruction, doom, or death before you start tuning them all out. So I followed the wolf out of the building, then went home.
J.C. Nelson
#57. Every seven years our bodies change, every cell. Every seven years, we disappear.
Jenny Downham
#58. Nature has granted man no better gift than the shortness of life. The senses grow dull, the limbs are numb, sight, bearing, gait, even the teeth and alimentary organs die before we do, and yet this period is reckoned a portion of life. - Pg. 82
Robert Harris
#59. He writes Before I die I want to and draws a line. He writes it again. Then he writes it a dozen more times. After we fill these up, we can keep going on the front of the building and down the other side. It's a good way to figure out just why we're here.
Jennifer Niven
#60. Between 6 and 8 percent of pigs die before they are trucked from the factory farm to slaughter. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 123 million pigs were slaughtered in 2006. That means 7 to 10 million died on their own before we could kill them.
Steven M. Wise
#61. Luce: "But what about all those other times, when I die before we kiss, before
"
Bill: "Before you even have a chance to see how toxic your relationship might become?
Lauren Kate
#62. A Drinking Song Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.
W.B.Yeats
#63. Some missionaries bound for Africa were laughed at by the boat captain. 'You'll only die over there,' he said. But a missionary replied, 'Captain, we died before we started.'
Vance Havner
#64. People say that your life flashes before your eyes before you die, but they're wrong. It's not your life that passes before you, it's the regrets that do.
Elise Valenti
#65. If by excessive labor we die before reaching the average age of man, worn out in the Master's service, then glory be to God. We shall have so much less of earth and so much more of heaven. It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus.
Charles Spurgeon
#66. [Anti-aging therapies will] never be perfect, but we'll be able to fix the things that 200-year-olds die of before we have any 200-year-olds, and the same for 300 and 400 and so on.
Aubrey De Grey
#67. We spend nine months in a nurturing darkness before we're born, and we aspire to the highest of all places when we die.
Dean Koontz
#68. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.
Sarah Orne Jewett
#69. You got a problem?"
"Aside from the fact that we are about to die? No. But I want to say thank you before it is too late.
Diana Pharaoh Francis
#70. We all come into the story halfway through, we all catch up as best we can, and we're all gonna die before it ends.
Peter Watts
#71. Maybe when we die, the first thing we'll say is, 'I know this feeling. I was here before.
Don DeLillo
#72. I think if I have one message, one thing before I die that most of the world would know, it would be that the event does not determine how to respond to the event. That is a purely personal matter. The way in which we respond will direct and influence the event more than the event itself.
Virginia Satir
#73. We only have so much life left. Before I do die, I want to do something good for people.
Michael Huffington
#74. I pray that we will not wait until we are ready to die before we truly learn to live.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
#75. This mind is a prison. It cannot find any freedom anywhere. It must die before freedom comes to you. But we have taken the mind as us, we are identified with it. This death of mind never happens to us, it never occurs to us.
Rajneesh
#77. Jill and I have known each other our whole lives. One house separates our houses but we act as if it doesn't exist. We met before we were born and we'll probably still know each other after we die. At least, that's the way we're planning it.
Alice Hoffman
#78. How many more tragedies does it take before we do something? How many more children have to die before this country realizes that No Gun Zones create perfect locations for violence? You can not stop criminals and mad men with laws, you can only stop violence with the fear of armed victims.
Alan Gottlieb
#79. Hope I die before I turn into Pete Townshend. It would look ridiculous to do what we're doing now when I'm 40. That's why I want to destroy my career before it's too late.
Kurt Cobain
#80. People try to put us down
(Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around
(Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold
(Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Hope I die before I get old.
Pete Townshend
#81. [...] we all die, and the length of our life has been set before the earth was formed. Sometimes God takes the little ones to keep the eyes of the rest of the family on Heaven. They will never forget where this road leads if one of their own has already come to the end of it.
Susan Claire Potts
#82. Thus the ideas, as well as children, of our youth, often die before us: and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away.
John Locke
#83. Tycho Brahe clung to a lousy idea, Hans. That's all it was. People like us - you must know this by now - we can't do that. We know damn well when we're right. We know a long time before anyone else even suspects it." He cleared his throat. "Or when we're wrong. That's how we live. That's how we die.
Ethan Canin
#84. I think now, looking back, that we all die, little by little, as each of those we love departs before us.
Brian Ruckley
#85. Be absolutely assured that we will die long before our own deaths if we ever allow the fear of adulthood to kill the wonder of childhood.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
#86. The fundamental fact about all of us is that we're alive for a while but will die before long. This fact is the real root cause of all our anger and pain and despair. And you can either run from this fact or, by way of love, you can embrace it.
Jonathan Franzen
#87. It's only a question of time before either you die or your motivation dies. Naturally we all hope to go first.
Sophie Schiller
#88. Hell, we spent $200 Billion to get a scared guy who needed a shave out of a fox-hole! And he may even die of prostate cancer before we even get a chance to try him, dammit!
Ted Turner
#89. This fifth and final sun will die,
Like every sun before
But for a moment we laughed in its light,
Like wind-blown petals
Sparkling near an exile's campfire
Before the flames take them.
David Bowles
#90. We all die, Damian. Before I do, I want to love with all my heart. Give all I have, experience all I can, and leave behind some piece of me that will never be forgotten. I want to enjoy the time I have left. I'm choosing life. Moments. Memories. For you.
D. Nichole King
#91. Why now? Why not? Live or die, a man and a woman need love. There is a need in the race. We need to share. To belong. Perhaps you will die before the year is out. But remember this: to have may be taken from you, to have had never. Far better to have tasted love before dying, than to die alone.
David Gemmell
#92. [...]life was simple, we were born and we were going to die. There was nothing for us before we were born, and there would be nothing for us after we died. While we were here we had choices. While we were alive we had choices. We could choose to be and do whatever we wanted.
James Frey
#93. What have we done to our images? What have we done to our embarrassed landscapes? I have said this before and will repeat it again as long as I am able to talk: if we do not develop adequate images we will die out like dinosaurs.
Werner Herzog
#94. I don't think we've got the gospel right yet. What does it mean to be 'saved'? When I read the Bible, I don't see it meaning, 'I'm going to heaven after I die.' Before modern evangelicalism nobody accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, or walked down an aisle, or said the sinner's prayer.
Brian D. McLaren
#95. Perhaps we are only forerunners. Twenty or even a hundred years may pass before the National Socialist idea is victorious; those who believe in the ideal today may die: but what is a man in the development of a people, of mankind.
Adolf Hitler
#96. Visit me before I die. We can enjoy one another's company. A funeral is a rather one-sided affair.
Ralph Webster
#97. Gays have rights, lesbians have rights, men have rights, women have rights, even animals have rights. How many of us have to die before the community recognizes that we are not expendable?
Octavia St. Laurent
#98. What does it mean to be born? After we die, will it be the same thing as it was before we were born? Or a different kind of nothingness? Because there might be knowledge then. Memory.
Joyce Carol Oates
#99. Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.
Alexander Pope
#100. Fear is a real enemy. What does it do?
It buys our coffin long before we are destined to die.
Sri Chinmoy
