To appreciate heaven well, it's good for a person to have some fifteen minutes of hell.

To appreciate heaven well, it's good for a person to have some fifteen minutes of hell.

I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.

I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.

So many people tiptoe through life, so carefully, to arrive, safely, at death.

So many people tiptoe through life, so carefully, to arrive, safely, at death.

I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

It is extraordinary how the house and the simplest possessions of someone who has been left become so quickly sordid. read more

It is extraordinary how the house and the simplest possessions of someone who has been left become so quickly sordid. Even the stain on the coffee cup seems not coffee but the physical manifestation of one's inner stain, the fatal blot that from the beginning had marked one for ultimate aloneness.

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable read more

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat.

I really wanted to die at certain periods in my life. Death was like love, a romantic escape. I took read more

I really wanted to die at certain periods in my life. Death was like love, a romantic escape. I took pills because I didn't want to throw myself off my balcony and know people would photograph me lying dead below.

As the fly bangs against the window attempting freedom while the door stands open, so we bang against death ignoring read more

As the fly bangs against the window attempting freedom while the door stands open, so we bang against death ignoring heaven.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, read more

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.