c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
We did not make ourselves, nor did we fashion a world that could not work without pain, and great pain at that, with a little pleasure, very little, to string us along--a world where all organisms are inexorably pushed by pain throughout their lives to do that which will improve their chances to survive and create more of themselves. Left unchecked, this process will last as long as a single cell remains palpitating in this cesspool of the solar system, this toilet of the galaxy. So why not lend a hand in nature's suicide? For want of a deity that could be held to account for a world in which there is terrible pain, let nature take the blame for our troubles. We did not create an environment uncongenial to our species, nature did. One would think that nature was trying to kill us off, or get us to suicide ourselves once the blunder of consciousness came upon us. What was nature thinking? We tried to anthropomorphize it, to romanticize it, to let it into our hearts. But nature kept its distance, leaving us to our own devices. So be it. Survival is a two-way street. Once we settle ourselves off-world, we can blow up this planet from outer space. It's the only way to be sure its stench will not follow us. Let it save itself if it can--the condemned are known for the acrobatics they will execute to wriggle out of their sentences. But if it cannot destroy what it has made, and what could possibly unmake it, then may it perish along with every other living thing it has introduced to pain.
— Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
The life I've livedWhat more can one ask forApart from a grand exitSlit of the wristTotal bliss
— Nomzamo Nhlumayo
The girl who climbed up the water tower. We would have counted her an accident until the medical examiner found breaks and fractures from her hips to her heels. "You fall head first," he said. "Feet first's a jump.
— Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
A bind is when you're quadriplegic, suicidal about that and unable to persuade your best friend to murder you.
— Brian Spellman
I could have forced myself to adapt," said Taads. "In this world the individual self is of such importance that it is allowed to become absorbed in itself and to grub around in its trivial personal history for years on end with the help of a psychiatrist, so as to be able to cope. But I don't think that is important enough. And then suicide is no longer a disgrace. If I had done it earlier, I would have done it in hatred, but that is no longer the case.""Hatred?""I used to hate the world. People, smells, dogs, feet, telephones, newspapers, voices — everything filled me with the greatest disgust. I have always been afraid I might murder somebody. Suicide is when you have been all around the world with your fear and your aggression and you end up by yourself again.""It remains aggression.""Not necessarily.""What are you waiting for then?""For the right moment. The time has not yet come." He said it amiably, as if he were talking to a child.
— Cees Nooteboom, Rituals
Billions of years before twelve step groups, God committed shotgun suicide. Today wall scrapings share His gratitude stories.
— Brian Spellman
How good would it be if one could die by throwing oneself into an infinite void.
— Emil M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
Think of the old cliché about “the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.” This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
— David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
I was worse off than even Alison was; she hated life, I hated mysef. I had created nothing, I belonged to nothingness, to the néant, and it seemed to me that my own death was the only thing left that I could create.
— John Fowles, The Magus
Life that did not yearn toward life was in fair way toward ceasing.
— Jack London, Martin Eden
He is always on the brink of suicide... because he seeks salvation through the routine formulas suggested to him by the society in which he lives.
— Umberto Eco
To the bankrupt poet, to the jilted lover, to anyone who yearns to elude the doubt within and the din without, the tidal strait between Manhattan Island and her favorite suburb offers the specious illusion of easy death. Melville prepared for the plunge from the breakwater on the South Street promenade, Whitman at the railing of the outbound ferry, both men redeemed by some Darwinian impulse, maybe some epic vision, which enabled them to change leaden water into lyric wine. Hart Crane rejected the limpid estuary for the brackish swirl of the Caribbean Sea. In each generation, from Washington Irving’s to Truman Capote’s, countless young men of promise and talent have examined the rippling foam between the nation’s literary furnace and her literary playground, questioning whether the reams of manuscript in their Brooklyn lofts will earn them garlands in Manhattan’s salons and ballrooms, wavering between the workroom and the water. And the city had done everything in its power to assist these men, to ease their affliction and to steer them toward the most judicious of decisions. It has built them a bridge.
— Jacob M. Appel, The Biology of Luck
Long after you go downand the vessel rusts apartyour bones sunkenburied in the ocean floorI wonder if you miss people?
— Kristin Elizabeth Clark, Freakboy
Have you ever wondered why we bury and cremate our dead? Nothing to do with hygiene, it’s just so we don’t have to see the reality of death. You know, the Zoroastrians used to leave their dead in open places for the birds to eat. Now that’s a far more honest way to go, don’t you agree? Everyone can see what happens. It makes us live our lives more potently. That’s how I want to go, at my end: openly. Not ashamed of death, but embracing it.
— Cliff James, Of Bodies Changed
All girls who seemed to have everything going for them. And decided they had nothing.
— Sasha Grey
I've brought you something to wear over your dress and I do not want to hear your views on killing animals to provide coats for the wealthy. I have it on the best authority that these ermine committed suicide.
— Ann Cristy, Torn Asunder
David Lester, a psychology professor at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey, has likely thought about suicide longer, harder, and from more angles than any other human. In more than twenty-five-hundred academic publications, he has explored the relationship between suicide and, among other things, alcohol, anger, antidepressants, astrological signs, biochemistry, blood type, body type, depression, drug abuse, gun control, happiness, holidays, Internet use, IQ, mental illness, migraines, the moon, music, national-anthem lyrics, personality type, sexuality, smoking, spirituality, TV watching, and wide-open spaces. Has all this study led Lester to some grand unified theory of suicide? Hardly. So far he has one compelling notion. It’s what might be called the “no one left to blame” theory of suicide. While one might expect that suicide is highest among people whose lives are the hardest, research by Lester and others suggests the opposite: suicide is more common among people with a higher quality of life. “If you’re unhappy and you have something to blame your unhappiness on—if it’s the government, or the economy, or something—then that kind of immunizes you against committing suicide,” he says. “It’s when you have no external cause to blame for your unhappiness that suicide becomes more likely. I’ve used this idea to explain why African-Americans have lower suicide rates, why blind people whose sight is restored often become suicidal, and why adolescent suicide rates often rise as their quality of life gets better.
— Steven D. Levitt, Think Like a Freak
Maybe I did mean to kill myself. I didn't think it outright but...maybe the truth is, I didn't--I don't--much care one way or th'other.
— Moira Young, Rebel Heart
And on it flows. I long to lie down quietly by the banks of a blue lake and die ... and when I'm dead for my body to be consumed by birds and beasts, leaving only the bone of my brow for Xu ... like Alexander, loyal to an everlasting love.
— Qiu Miaojin, Last Words from Montmartre
Three: You don't know what it's likeSeven: To do a cartwheel followed by a somersault followed by wishing so hard you could fold your hands into a pistol and no longer exist.
— Various, The Naked I: Insides Out
Lifting the pillow, he brought out kanarack's gun and hefted it in his hand. Tipping it toward him, he saw the hole where death came out. It looked easy. Even seductive. The Simplest way of all. No more fear of the police, or of the tall man. Best of all, his pain would be instantly gone. He Wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.
— Allan Folsom, The Day After Tomorrow
Why don’t you just go run to your room and cry little girl or better yet kill yourself?” Cora spat out ferociously. “Oh honey, if I was going to kill myself I’d do it right here out of spite just to see you get down on your knees and wash the blood off the tiles and haunt your ass til kingdom come.” Sienna spat back with even more ferocity.
— Ali Harper, Breaking Bedlam
So you want to commit suicide,huh? Why? Life doesn't compel you to choose that way.Generally People makes you commit suicide.And those who makes you feel bad,trust my word, they don't care about you. Then why bother killing yourself? Kill them instead.
— Riyadh Razzaq
American corporate capitalism is a murder-suicide mission.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
The answer to these questions is tied to the public's attitude about suicide. For many people, suicide is morally reprehensible. It's against their religion, or against their culture, or contrary to their personal values. Like other unpleasant subjects - incest, disease, discrimination - it's avoided.
— John Bateson, The Final Leap: Suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge
MISTEND MINDSETManipulate suicidal thoughts to manufacture life-coping tools
— Kamil Ali, Profound Vers-A-Tales
I was right; just as soon as you take the first step toward getting to know someone your own age, everything you thought was magical about that person turns to shit right in front of your face
— Matthew Quick, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
You never can tell, though, with suicide notes, can you? In the planetary aggregate of all life, there are many more suicide notes than there are suicides. They're like poems in that respect, suicide notes: nearly everyone tries their hand at them some time, with or without the talent. We all write them in our heads. Usually the note is the thing. You complete it, and then resume your time travel. It is the note and not the life that is cancelled out. Or the other way round. Or death. You never can tell, though, can you, with suicide notes.
— Martin Amis, Money
Snap out it' is abusive. It kicks people when they are down. It makes people in pain feel more hopeless, more powerless, more frustrated, more estranged from humanity. It says, 'I don't want to be bothered with your pain any longer.' For people not in great pain, "Snap out of it" may be helpful advice if they have trouble getting going in the morning. For the despairing, however, it has no positive and many negative consequences. None of the conditions associated with suicide can be snapped out of.
— David L. Conroy, Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
— John  Adams, The Works Of John Adams, Second President Of The United States
When your friend becomes a king, treat him first as a king, then let him choose you as a friend. Acting otherwise is suicidal. Familiarity is evil.
— Tylor Ilori
Any man who criticizes my suicide and passes judgment on me with an expression of superiority, declaring (without offering the least help) that I should have gone on living my full complement of days, is assuredly a prodigy among men quite capable of tranquilly urging the Emperor to open a fruit shop.
— Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun
…Her desire was close to that of the person who drowns himself; he does not necessarily covet death so much as what comes after the drowning—something different from what he had before, at least a different world.
— Yukio Mishima, Thirst for Love
Eleanor had never thought about killing herself – ever – but she thought a lot about stopping.
— Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park
Someone killed himself because of me once, Meredith said.People kill themselves because of what's inside of them, not because of other people.
— Alice Hoffman, Skylight Confessions
Who hasn't wanted to die at one time or another?
— Ryū Murakami, Piercing
The young doctor was disappointed: he had never had th eopportunity to study the effects of gold cyanide on a cadaver. Dr. Juvenal Urbino had been surprised that he had not seen him at the Medical School, but he understood in an instant from the young man's blush and Andean accent that he was probably a recent arrival to the city. He said: "There is bound to be someone driven mad by love who will give you the chance one of these days." And only after he said it did he realize that among the countless suicides he could remeber, this was the first with cyanide that had not been caused by the sufferings of love. Then something changed in the tone of his voice. "And when you do find one, observe with care," he said to the intern: "they almost always have crystals in their heart.
— Gabriel García Márquez
JASON: 'Intended wings.' How depressing.MICHAEL: Yes. Makes them into suicides, really, the pigeons.JASON: No - no, it doesn't. It could mean the wings were 'intended' to carry them upwards, out of the darkness, but they were defective in some way, these wings, so the pigeons aren't suicidal, not at all, just badly equipped for flying. Like the rest of us.
— Simon Gray
Stop thinking about the easy way out,There's no need to go and blow the candle outBecause you're not done,You're far too young.
— Nickelback band
Yeah, because you'll really be showing them, won't you. Talk about cutting up your wrists to spite your fate.
— Alexander Gordon Smith, Solitary
We human beings glimpse lofty ideals, catch ourselves betraying them, and sink to suicidal despair--despair from which only the love of our friends can save us, since friends see in us those nobler qualities we ourselves, out of long familiarity, have forgotten we possess. That, of course, is why the suicidal person is difficult around his friends.
— John Gardner, In the Suicide Mountains
The greatest regret of my military career was as Commanding General of the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, he later wrote of the decision he made. I lost 169 soldiers during that year-long deployment. However, the monument we erected at Fort Hood, Texas, in memoriam lists 168 names. I approved the request of others not to include the name of the one soldier who committed suicide. I deeply regret my decision.
— David Finkel, Thank You for Your Service
If you follow the pescribed way of how people want you to be, then it will be of great relieve if you commit suicide than to be dragged along like a donkey.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
What does despair mean to someone who interprets that emotion as a chemical reaction in the brain?
— Mitchell Heisman, Suicide Note
I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether there had never been anything at all: I began to feel with all my being that there was nothing existing. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, but afterwards I guessed that there never had been anything in the past either, but that it had only seemed so for some reason. Little by little I guessed that there would be nothing in the future either. Then I left off being angry with people and almost ceased to notice them. Indeed this showed itself even in the pettiest trifles: I used, for instance, to knock against people in the street. And not so much from being lost in thought: what had I to think about? I had almost given up thinking by that time; nothing mattered to me. If at least I had solved my problems! Oh, I had not settled one of them, and how many there were! But I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
All my life I have had the utmost admiration for suicides. I have always considered them superior to me in every way.
— Thomas Bernhard
It's not so easy for people to end their own lives. It's not like in the movies. There, they do it like nothing, no pain, and it's all over, they're dead. The reality is not like that. You lie in bed for ten years with the piss oozing out of you.
— Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
I guess everyone has a bird urge when they look down heights, a desire to jump, without wing or buoyant sail. Fear of heights is fear of a desire to jump.
— Amruta Patil, Kari
The atheist suicide bomber is unfaithfully committed to his mission
— Dean Cavanagh
This human need for mysticism – surrender to an unknown truth, union – stands at the helm of all romantic feeling. It is, in essence, the same intimacy known in a mother’s arms; in those who are deprived of the experience, the need freezes and, distorted, it can rent a life. All addiction has as its foundation skewed yearning for the same transcendence. For me, the spell of the material was broken by my brother’s death; after his suicide, all I wanted was the renewal of my connection to the intangible.
— Antonella Gambotto-Burke, Mama: Dispatches from the Frontline of Love
Then there is the cosmologist, who views himself as nothing but a manipulation of atoms; his mind configured out of randomness into the tool a vast, blind universe might use to perceive itself. If this is so then truly "all is vanity". What could be more pleasing to the cosmic narcissist than to gaze eternally with a billion eyes into the mirror that is himself? What fault, however, if certain eyes ultimately don’t like what they see?
— Dan Garfat-Pratt, Citations: A Brief Anthology
SUICIDE can be considered an act of MURDER committed on ONESELF
— Kamil Ali, Profound Vers-A-Tales
You used to believe that with age you would become less unhappy, because you then would have reasons to be sad. When you were still young, your suffering was inconsolable because you believed it to be unfounded. Your suicide was scandalously beautiful…You died because you searched for happiness at the risk of finding the void. We shall have to wait for death before we can know what it is that you found. Or before leaving off knowing anything at all, if it is to be silence and emptiness that awaits us.
— Édouard Levé
Like my loved one, I am convinced that we all have critical conditions. Battles that we undertake behind the hospitals, in lonely alleys, secret locations and sometimes public places that are out of reach to those who seem to care.
— Phindiwe Nkosi, Behind the Hospital
Do you see what this pure feeling ‘love’ can do to people? Just now, I know you wanted to take my head off. But if love is so pure, why do so many die in the name of love? It’s a poison. It enters your body and slowly makes you do impulsive things you wouldn’t normally do. People kill themselves because they want to be with their love. People kill others because they want to be with their love. And people kill their love because they want to be with their love. All in the name of love, but in the end, someone dies.
— Charles   Lee, The Way To Dawn: Ascension Zero
Nobody has ever killed themselves over a broken arm. But every day, thousands of people kill themselves because of a broken heart. Why? Because emotional pain hurts much worse than physical pain.
— Oliver Markus, Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey
I sometimes stare into fire or into the night sky alone and wish for a girl or my situation to be different. I also then think why would god who created the beautiful Earth let Humans suffer and act the way they do. But I then realize that god has left you and everyone else a long time ago. This is the reason why I do not live my life for him. Because in the end, the only god who is always guaranteed to call for you by name, is Death.
— J.D. Taylor
Trying to destroy yourself gives a pretty clear message and it's not one I think you'd like. Sounds a bit like, “I'm too self-centered to be constructive, so I have to open a vein…
— Thomm Quackenbush, Find What You Love and Let It Kill You
When I arrived at the house in the suburbs that night I seriously contemplated suicide for the first time in my life. But as I thought about it, the idea became exceedingly tiresome, and I finally decided it would be a ludicrous business. I had an inherent dislike of admitting defeat. Moreover, I told myself, there's no need for me to take such decisive action myself, not when I'm surrounded by such a bountiful harvest of death—death in an air raid, death at one's post of duty, death in the military service, death on the battlefield, death from being run over, death from disease—surely my name has already been entered in the list for one of these: a criminal who has been sentenced to death does not commit suicide. No—no matter how I considered, the season was not auspicious for suicide. Instead I was waiting for something to do me the favor of killing me. And this, in the final analysis, is the same as to say that I was waiting for something to do me the favor of keeping me alive.
— Yukio Mishima, Confessions of a Mask
He must have stood there for a long time, making a list of all the terrible things he had done—almost killinng me was one of those thingss—and another list of all the good, heroic, brave things he had not done, and then decided that he was tired. Tired, not just of living, but of existing. Tired of being Al.
— Veronica Roth, Insurgent
Once on yellow sheet of paper with green lines, he wrote a poemand he called it “Spot”because that was the name of his dog and that’s what it was all aboutand his teacher gave him an “A” and a big gold starand his mother hung it on the kitchen cupboard and showed it to his auntand that was the year his sister was born-and his parents kissed all the timeand the little girl around the corner sent him a postcard with a row of X’s on itand his father tucked him into bed at night and was always there.Then on a white sheet of paper with blue lines, he wrote another poemand he called it “Autumn”because that was the time of year and that’s what it was all aboutand his teacher gave him an “A” and told him to write more clearlyand his mother told him not to hang it on the kitchen cupboard because it left marksand that was the year his sister got glasses and his parents never kissed anymoreand the little girl around the corner laughed when he fell down with his bikeand his father didn’t tuck him in at night.So, on another piece of paper torn from a notebook he wrote another poemand he called it “Absolutely Nothing”Because that’s what it was all aboutand his teach gave him an “A” and a hard searching lookand he didn’t show it to his motherand that was the year he caught his sister necking on the back porchand the little girl around the corner wore too much make-up so that he laughed when he kissed herbut he kissed her anywayand he tucked himself in bed at three AM with his father snoring loudly in the next roomFinally, on the inside of a matchbook he wrote another poemand he called it “?” because that’s what it was all aboutAnd he gave himself an “A” and a slash on each wrist and hung it on the bathroom mirrorBecause he couldn’t make it to the kitchen.
— Earl Reum
Sometimes you get so tired of each day, you wish it was over. But it just goes on and on, like the silent prayers that forever go unanswered." - excerpt from: freefalling
— Darlenne Susan Girard, freefalling
You don't know what cold is until you've experienced the cold you feel when the blood is draining out of your body.
— Ryū Murakami, In the Miso Soup
And it was sad music fit to make you cut your throat.
— Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
We're all suicides. The tragedy is every day that we don't die.
— Thomm Quackenbush, Find What You Love and Let It Kill You
I know the difference between right and wrong. Right is when I do everything he tells me to. Wrong is when I question why. But every now and then a simple slap across the side of the head is a good way to remind me." - excerpt from: freefalling
— Darlenne Susan Girard, freefalling
But Demeseus, I have only begun. Do you see what this pure feeling ‘love’ can do to people? Just now, I know you wanted to take my head off. But if love is so pure, why do so many die in the name of love? It’s a poison. It enters your body and slowly makes you do impulsive things you wouldn’t normally do. People kill themselves because they want to be with their love. People kill others because they want to be with their love. And people kill their love because they want to be with their love. All in the name of love, but in the end, someone dies.
— Charles   Lee, The Way To Dawn: Ascension Zero
He would argue with her about killing themselves; and explain how wicked people were; how he could see them making up lies as they passed in the street. He knew all their thoughts, he said; he knew everything. He knew the meaning of the world, he said.
— Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
One day, an unusually exciting event interrupted the rhythm of our regular middle-class teenage lives. A Russian woman, the mother of a girl in our class, was run over by a New York City bound train right in the center of town. Our classmate left school in the middle of the semester. The gossip was that the woman must have thrown herself under the train. The adults whispered about reasons, usual ones, but my friends and I were too busy planning what to wear to the prom to wonder about the savagery of adult passion.
— Inna Swinton, The Many Loves of Mila
Jamie reflected that if he purposely went down to the crags of the Pacific and threw himself to the sharks, when he came before God and his father and mother, he could carry no smiling secret on his face. He would not have kept the faith. He would have broken the laws of God and man. He would have allowed frail woman to surpass him in courage, in endurance. He shut his eyes to close out even the imagined look on his mother's face. So right there Jamie crossed off the Pacific from his scheme of release.
— Gene Stratton-Porter, The Keeper of the Bees
Isn't watching sacred potential kill itself as good a punishment as eternal fire?
— Thomm Quackenbush, Find What You Love and Let It Kill You
Pull yourself out of the dirt, dust yourself off, and get back on the horse and ride towards the sunset.
— Michael Dean Russell Jr.
The universe is so arranged that the power to destroy the climate or the ecosystem of your home planet only comes when you also have the wisdom to know that doing so is a fatal mistake. Therefore, any species that does that is suicidal, and will probably not qualify for any kind of help, from the powers of the universe, with fixing that error.
— J.Z. Colby, The Local Universe
I wanted so badly for there to be more. I ached for there to be more than my crappy little life.' He shakes his head. 'And there was more. I just couldn't see it.
— Patrick Ness, More Than This
I am a dumb piece of meatand I rot everydaymy flesh gives a rotting smelland people say it's the smell of lifeand they come to meand watch me rotand get happy and upset and annoyed and disgusted and maybe sometimes feelcompassionbut they don't realize they are rotting too.
— Daul Kim
[asked if his suicide attempt was a cry for help]No. I told no one. You only cry for help if you believe that there's help to cry for.
— Wentworth Miller
It's too late.I chose life too late.
— Cat Clarke, Undone
I don't know what to do, I want to die but you're making me stay alive, I'm not sure if I should betray you and do it or move on and push through it.
— Lindzz
No woman kills herself for love, and rarely for shame. It is the cruelty of hope that does a woman in; for no matter how many men a woman has given herself to, she never holds her life cheap until she foolishly believed it to be valued.
— Sheri Holman, The Dress Lodger
I can just close my eyes and let myself fall into oblivion. Maybe I'll hit the exact same rocks and my blood will mingle with his and maybe there's some kind of life after death and he's waiting for me there with his hand outstretched just like mine.But...I don't want to die.I try to twist my body backwards and pain shoots up my neck.It's too late.I chose life too late.
— Cat Clarke, Undone
The mind, when it reaches its limits, must make a judgment and choose its conclusions. This is where suicide and the reply stand.
— Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
Is one to die voluntarily or to hope in spite of everything?
— Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
Suffocation is a cruel way to go.
— Arlaina Tibensky, And Then Things Fall Apart
Far too many doctors-many of them excellent physicians-commit suicide each year; one recent study concluded that, until quite recently, the United States lost annually the equivalent of a medium-sized medical school class from suicide alone. Most physician suicides are due to depression or manic-depressive illness, both of which are eminently treatable. Physicians, unfortunately, not only suffer from a higher rate of mood disorders than the general population, they also have a greater access to very effective means of suicide.
— Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Isn't it strange, how one so afraid of contracting a fatal malady...should so earnestly wish for death, as well?
— Alan Brennert, Moloka'i
We are humanity, Kant says. Humanity needs us because we are it. Kant believes in duty and considers remaining alive a primary human duty. For him one is not permitted to “renounce his personality,” and while he states living as a duty, it also conveys a kind of freedom: we are not burdened with the obligation of judging whether our personality is worth maintaining, whether our life is worth living. Because living it is a duty, we are performing a good moral act just by persevering.
— Jennifer Michael Hecht, Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It
He beheld in swift succession the incidents in the brief tale of his experience. His wretched home, his still more wretched school-days, the years of vicious life he had led since then, one act of selfish dishonour leading to another; it was all clear and pitiless now, all its squalid folly, in the cold light of the dawn. He came to the hut, to the fight with the Porroh man, to the retreat down the river to Sulyma, to the Mendi assassin and his red parcel, to his frantic endeavours to destroy the head, to the growth of his hallucination. It was a hallucination! He knew it was. A hallucination merely. For a moment he snatched at hope. He looked away from the glass, and on the bracket, the inverted head grinned and grimaced at him... With the stiff fingers of his bandaged hand he felt at his neck for the throb of his arteries. The morning was very cold, the steel blade felt like ice.("Pollock And The Porrah Man")
— H.G. Wells, Great Tales of Horror and the Supernatural
What is the charm in dying when we fully well know that we are not going to get another chance at living?
— Geetha TG
I would have killed myself years ago if it weren't for the fact that I’m pretty sure death is the only thing more terrible than life.
— Alex Sargeant, Sci-Fidelity
Samson caused the house to collapse, knowing his death would also result. Despite Samson’s deliberate suicide, Samson died faithful after having judged Israel for 20 years. His name rightly appears among men who, through faith, were made powerful. (Jg 15:20; 16:29-31; Heb 11:32-34) We are surrounded by thousands of unseen cruelties, that mostly go unseen. The total amount of suffering each year is beyond comprehension. This world is barbed, dangerous and painful—too painful for some. Give them their space. On any given day, your nod of approval may perpetuate cruelties that rasp away at the soul of another. We are all bound together in this delicate web of consequence. Tread light. Be kind. Many among us make unseen bargains to push ourselves onward—another hour, another day, another week. Occasionally their bargains create a deadly, unstoppable momentum. Consider King Saul: When he realized that he would not survive his final battle against the Philistines, rather than letting his enemy humiliate him, or extort Israel, “Saul took the sword and fell upon it.” –1Sam 31:4pg 75
— Michael Ben Zehabe, Unanswered Questions in the Sunday News
I had, therefore, to resign myself to commissioning a duplicate from a jeweller in Madrid. They did the work very nicely. The claws are curiously shaped, but the true marvel is the stone; it is so very limpid and weighs many carats, but notice also how it is hollowed out! You see that drop of green oil which takes the place of the internal tear? It is a drop of poison, an Indian toxin which strikes so rapidly and so corrosively that it only requires to come into momentary contact with one of a man's mucous membranes to rob him of his senses and induce rigour mortis.'It is instant death, certain but painless suicide, that I carry in this emerald. One bite' - and Ethal made as if to raise the ring to his lips - 'and with a single bound one has quit the mundane world of base instincts and crude works, to enter eternity.'Look upon the truest of friends: a deus ex machina which defies public opinion and cheats the police of their prey...'He laughed briefly. 'After all, we live in difficult times, and today's magistrates are so very meticulous. Salute as I do, my dear friend, the poison which saves and delivers. It is at your service, if ever the day should come when you are weary of life!
— Jean Lorrain, Monsieur De Phocas
To commit the act of felo-de-se is a form of delusion. You see, my love, to leave one's life unfinished implies the possibility of success. What is left unlived may contain the potential truth one always seeks. Those who kill themselves do so with the conviction that they would have reached that truth eventually had they lived to the proper end. They die in the illusion of hope which in a way keeps the rest of us alive. Reason, therefore, for not committing suicide.
— Raymond Federman, Smiles on Washington Square
Your partner may have injuries that you can't repair. Your partner may be trapped in a dark room without windows. Your life narrative might bring him more relief than an opiate. Some people make better windows than windows. Your kind words and enlightened perspective is a window of wonders to someone living in pain.pg 43
— Michael Ben Zehabe, Song of Songs The Book for Daughters
I had never killed myself before, so I had no idea what would I want to listen to when it was too late for me to skip to the next song. Like, maybe when you're dying, you actually want to hear something really upbeat.
— Leila Sales, This Song Will Save Your Life
I looked out across the Ocean, and determined to drown myself.I was up to my chin when the shout came, and I will never forget it. Never. For it seems to me that any hope in life is such a shout; a voice that answers the silent place of despair. It is silence that most needs an answering — when I can no longer speak, hear me.
— Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods
Jonah can't see how Assyria could serve any useful purpose. How could this commission better Israel? Jonah might even fear that God will reverse His judgment against Nineveh. If that 'unchanging God' changes His mind about Nineveh's destruction, then Jonah's personal religion won't make sense. (Nu 23:19) The truth is, Jonah is not as overwhelmed by his new assignment as he is by his own small mindedness. (page 5)
— Michael Ben Zehabe, A Commentary on Jonah
My mother's mouth drops. 'Emmy...don't say those things Emmy. Remember, we don't talk about those things.''Yes Mom. I remember. That's why I'm here, looking like this.'An orderly knocks on the door and announces that visiting time is over.My mother and I look at each other awkwardly, and hug.'I love you,' she says.'I love you too, Mom.''You aren't telling them too much are you?' she asks, afraid.I sign. 'No Mommy, I'm not.'She's visibly relieved. She leaves the room.The orderley comes back and escorts me back into the main room.I just sit and laugh to myself." (after Emmy's suicide attempt) ~ The Finer Points of Becoming Machine
— Emily Andrews
The book of Jonah is one of the shortest books in the Bible. Yet, something beneath the surface whispers to us, hinting that there is much more beneath this little book. (page iii)
— Michael Ben Zehabe, A Commentary on Jonah
When you were a child, you used to run to me for protection. Now, in moments of weakness, I want to hide my head on your knees; I want you to be strong and wise; I want you to protect and defend me. I'm not always strong in spirit, Vitya – I can be weak too. I often think about suicide, but something holds me back – some weakness, or strength, or irrational hope.
— Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate
They're not doing much for themselves. I'm sure they'd rather slip away, relax their fingers and float, but they can't. They're not allowed. Effort is so painful; our knuckles are white, yet we keep clinging. The alternative is suicide- and we are too fearful for that.
— Wesley Stace, By George
Get real. They’ll try to kill us no matter what. I can find out how to open the files from Mickey. You may be impressed with this genius shit but you should really find out what a mess his head is. The right drugs, he’ll cut his own throat and forget why he’s bleeding." That was an interesting choice of metaphor.
— Dan Ahearn, Shoot the Moon
Cory wondered if maybe some people were better off dead. When you’re dead you don’t have to face the horrors of life, whether it’s striving to be the best, dealing with something bad you or somebody else did, dealing with someone’s death or anything. Most people, if not everyone, had a reason to die. Dead people can’t even be upset about dying because they’re dead.
— Jesse Haubert, A Stranger In Everyone
Once upon a time Karen saw somebody nobody else could see. She thought to ask an old man: who were you? Once upon a time I thought to dream of medicine. Now I dream of medicine by the sea.
— Nicholaus Patnaude, First Aide Medicine
The prisoner of doubt ends his stint [through suicide], released to the custody of that final question mark which punctuates every life sentence.
— Dan Garfat-Pratt, Citations: A Brief Anthology
I never bought into the whole “second amendment” argument as it relates to the 21st century. Originally, it was put into place for the simple reason that our forefathers were fighting or had just fought off a government that threatened them with weapons. If those in the revolution had no weapons, there would be no United States of America, but rather New England of the New World. So, I understood why they thought it was so important.
— Martin Manley
Back then, living hadn't had any meaning. Every so often, without any warning or any real reason, he'd even caught himself thinking, 'Maybe I'll try dying.' He'd had one foot in the world of the dead, and yet the other foot had been chained to the world of the living, and he couldn't pull it out; he'd just looed on disinterestedly, sort of like it was all happening on the other side of some window, as the dull, vague world passed him by. Never making any more to walk out into it himself. Somewhere along the way, though, he'd stopped thinking about trying to die. He wondered when that had happened.
— Yukako Kabei, Kieli, Volume 9: The Dead Sleep Eternally in the Wilderness, Part 2
I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I'm just going to lay it down now. It's my time to die, and it's your time to live. Don't mess it up.
— Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
She was not suicidal; that is what people never managed to grasp. Cutting relieved the pressure and stood as some enduring demonstration of her emotion, some way to be in control of a body that could toss her about with seizures. It was borderline artistic to mark her body, chiaroscuro designs in blood. Dying is the last thing she would want, like any healthy organism. A little pain, a small invoked sting trailing her arm, brought her much closer to grounded when she could not keep her head from racing, her thoughts from consuming her with obsession. An ounce of liquid weight loss and she could go back to being herself again. Usually.
— Thomm Quackenbush, Danse Macabre (Night's Dream, #2)
I know people think suicide is selfish, and maybe sometimes it really is. But what happened to Kai was beyond what anyone should have to cope with. I didn’t blame him, not really. It just broke my heart that I wasn’t enough to keep him here.
— Cat Clarke, Undone
One day about a month ago, I really hit bottom. You know, I just felt that in a Godless universe, I didn't want to go on living. Now I happen to own this rifle, which I loaded, believe it or not, and pressed it to my forehead. And I remember thinking, at the time, I'm gonna kill myself. Then I thought, what if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? I mean, after all, nobody really knows that. But then I thought, no, you know, maybe is not good enough. I want certainty or nothing. And I remember very clearly, the clock was ticking, and I was sitting there frozen with the gun to my head, debating whether to shoot.[The gun fires accidentally, shattering a mirror] All of a sudden, the gun went off. I had been so tense my finger had squeezed the trigger inadvertently. But I was perspiring so much the gun had slid off my forehead and missed me. And suddenly neighbors were, were pounding on the door, and, and I don't know, the whole scene was just pandemonium. And, uh, you know, I-I-I ran to the door, I-I didn't know what to say. You know, I was-I was embarrassed and confused and my-my-my mind was r-r-racing a mile a minute. And I-I just knew one thing.I-I-I had to get out of that house, I had to just get out in the fresh air and-and clear my head. And I remember very clearly, I walked the streets. I walked and I walked. I-I didn't know what was going through my mind. It all seemed so violent and un-unreal to me. And I wandered for a long time on the Upper West Side, you know, and-and it must have been hours. You know, my-my feet hurt, my head was-was pounding, and-and I had to sit down. I went into a movie house. I-I didn't know what was playing or anything.I just, I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and, and be logical and put the world back into rational perspective. And I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down, and, you know, the movie was a-a-a film that I'd seen many times in my life since I was a kid, and-and I always, uh, loved it. And, you know, I'm-I'm watching these people up on the screen and I started getting hooked on the film, you know. And I started to feel, how can you even think of killing yourself. I mean isn't it so stupid? I mean, l-look at all the people up there on the screen. You know, they're real funny, and-and what if the worst is true.What if there's no God, and you only go around once and that's it. Well, you know, don't you want to be part of the experience? You know, what the hell, it's-it's not all a drag. And I'm thinkin' to myself, geez, I should stop ruining my life - searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows. I know, I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. And then, I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.
— Woody Allen
Cheryl was aided in her search by the Internet. Each time she remembered a name that seemed to be important in her life, she tried to look up that person on the World Wide Web. The names and pictures Cheryl found were at once familiar and yet not part of her conscious memory: Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Dr. Louis 'Jolly' West, Dr. Ewen Cameron, Dr. Martin Orne and others had information by and about them on the Web. Soon, she began looking up sites related to childhood incest and found that some of the survivor sites mentioned the same names, though in the context of experiments performed on small children. Again, some names were familiar. Then Cheryl began remembering what turned out to be triggers from old programmes. 'The song, "The Green, Green Grass of home" kept running through my mind. I remembered that my father sang it as well. It all made no sense until I remembered that the last line of the song tells of being buried six feet under that green, green grass. Suddenly, it came to me that this was a suicide programme of the government. 'I went crazy. I felt that my body would explode unless I released some of the pressure I felt within, so I grabbed a [pair ofl scissors and cut myself with the blade so I bled. In my distracted state, I was certain that the bleeding would let the pressure out. I didn't know Lynn had felt the same way years earlier. I just knew I had to do it Cheryl says. She had some barbiturates and other medicine in the house. 'One particularly despondent night, I took several pills. It wasn't exactly a suicide try, though the pills could have killed me. Instead, I kept thinking that I would give myself a fifty-fifty chance of waking up the next morning. Maybe the pills would kill me. Maybe the dose would not be lethal. It was all up to God. I began taking pills each night. Each-morning I kept awakening.
— Cheryl Hersha, Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed To Kill For Their Country
And what I think is thatwhen you’re completely aloneand deep inside yourselfwith feelings no one else can understand,there really aren’t a hundred places to go. It’s like if I woke up one dayand looked outside and saw purple treesand red grass and green dogs,is there anyone I could tell who would understand? No.There’d be no one.It’s exactly like that. He saw purple treesand red grass and green dogswhile no one else did.   And maybe, he just got tiredof seeing them.
— Lisa Schroeder, Chasing Brooklyn
The body, I had been taught, wants only to live. Suicide, I had understood, is an act not of the body against itself but of the will against the body. Yet here I beheld a body that was going to die rather than change its nature.
— J.M. Coetzee
Confidence don't mean jack shit in the real world, sis," she once said. I feel myself finding the courage to trust those words more and more with every twist of the knife. Coincidentally, last Tuesday afternoon I was involuntarily exposed to the punch line of an old wise tale that goes something like: "There's beauty that can be found in everything." But why can't the insensitive cunt who said that ever find the courage to look in the mirror? Because poopycock, one might say.
— Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard
Secret elisions within families are suddenly revealed by self-execution, and just as quickly sheeted with excuses, blame, and counter-blame. But sense is made of the world only through relationship between action and reaction, symptom and cause. No change is possible without analysis of accountability.
— Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide
I guess it’s also not a good thing when you start relating yourself to a late nineteenth century nut bag who shot himself, but hey, you’ve got to relate to something if you ever want to feel relevant.
— Molli Fields
The suicide committed by Sampson was partly determined by the craftiness of Delilah and partly decided by the disobedience of Sampson. Satan uses crafty means to set traps for us, but by our obedience of the laws of God, the traps remain functionless.
— Israelmore Ayivor
People have been driving off of the canyon for decades. I don't know of any that were accidental. One Ranger who worked here before I did told me that on several occasions, when cars drove off and folks died, they went down and collected the remains. But there were no helicopters strong enough and affordable enough to haul the cars out. He told me Rangers went down later and sprayed the cars with paint to help them blend in with the rocks.
— Nancy Eileen Muleady-Mecham, Park Ranger Sequel: More True Stories From a Ranger's Career in America's National Parks