55 Quotes About Death From Celebrities We've Loved — And Lost
Gone too soon, but never forgotten.
We love our celebrities dearly, and even after they've departed — their timeless words live on forever. And perhaps in an ironic twist of fate, they had some of the most profound, beautiful thoughts on life and death ever conceived.
Read on for the best quotes about death from beloved celebrities who have died and icons we've loved and lost.
1. "And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed." — Maya Angelou
2. "My greatest fear is dying with no one knowing of any contribution I'd ever made to creative music" — Amy Winehouse
3. "I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it This is the only life you've got." — Philip Seymour Hoffman
4. "It's like anything in life, visualizing the old man you're going to become: As long as you have a clear picture of that — the life you want to lead — eventually you'll probably get there" — Heath Ledger
5. "Success is a great deodorant It takes away all your past smells." — Elizabeth Taylor
6. "Everybody has difficult years, but a lot of times the difficult years end up being the greatest years of your whole entire life, if you survive them" — Brittany Murphy
7. "The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age" — Lucille Ball
8. "I want to grow old without facelifts I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made." — Marilyn Monroe
9. "The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye. The story of love is hello and goodbye, until we meet again." — Jimi Hendrix
10. "I hope the exit is joyful and hope never to return." — Frida Kahlo
11. "Life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory." — Leonard Nimoy
12. "I'm about to take my last voyage, a great leap into the dark." — Thomas Hobbes
13. "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." — Jimi Hendrix
14. "Money can't buy life." — Bob Marley
15. "If you are just safe about the choices you make, you don't grow." — Heath Ledger
16. "Drink to me. Drink to my health, you know I can't drink anymore." — Pablo Picasso
17. "One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death. Although Catholics have their hopes." — Alfred Hitchcock
18. "Don't gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold." — Bob Marley
19. "Applaud, my friends, the comedy is finished." — Ludwig Van Beethoven
20. "Love one another." — George Harrison
21. "Lord help my poor soul." — Edgar Allan Poe
22. "Goodnight, my kitten." — Ernest Hemingway
23. "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." — Oscar Wilde
24. "Every story has an end, but in life, every ending is just a new beginning." — Brittany Murphy
25. "It's better to burn out than to fade away." — Kurt Cobain
26. "The taste of death is upon my lips. I feel something that is not of this earth." — Mozart
27. "You feel strength in the experience of pain." — Jim Morrisson.
28. “Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may swell." — Henry Ward Beecher
29. "The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?" — Edgar Allan Poe
30. “One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly." — Friedrich Nietzsche
31. “I want to go on living after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that’s inside me!” — Anne Frank
32. “No one here gets out alive.” — Jim Morrison
33. “Death is something inevitable. When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace.” — Nelson Mandela
34. “Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all — the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.” — Mark Twain
35. “If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ‘wandering to find home,’ why should we not look forward to the arrival?” — C. S. Lewis
36. “Death is nature’s way of saying, ‘Your table is ready.’” — Robin Williams
37. "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail … There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." — Stephen Hawking
38. “I've been there for a couple of people when they were dying; it didn't look like fun. But if I was gonna do it, I'd want someone like me around. And I will be there!” — Carrie Fisher
39. “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” — Steve Jobs
40. “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” — Steve Jobs
41. “I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.” — Winston Churchill
42. “Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.” — Langston Hughes
43. “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." — Mark Twain
44. “Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.” — Buddha
45. “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” — Emily Dickinson
46. “Drama is very important in life … you never want to go out with a whimper.” — Julia Child
47. "Dying is an art, like everything else." — Sylvia Plath
48. “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” — J.M. Barrie
49. “The truth I have been seeking — this truth is Death. Yet Death is also a seeker. Forever seeking me. So — we have met at last. And I am prepared. I am at peace.” — Bruce Lee
50. “Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying." — Martin Luther
51. “Unable are the Loved to die / For Love is Immortality…” — Emily Dickinson
52. “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” — Toni Morrison
53. “People fear death even more than pain. It’s strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah, I guess it is a friend." — Jim Morrison
54. “The connections we make in the course of a life--maybe that's what heaven is.” — Fred Rogers
55. “Do not go gentle into that good night... Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” — Dylan Thomas
Macy Daniela Martin is a writer, stylist, and producer based in NYC.