"People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it.“


-Anna Deavere Smith

posted in death


People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it.

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"I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way, actually. That was a very subversive activity, because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher, people loved it."

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"When I got out of acting school, I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots,' and for society, not me, it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion, and I was not."

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"When we are dealing with death we are constantly being dragged down by the event: Humor diverts our attention and lifts our sagging spirits."

-Allen Klein

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"I start thinking about life after death. I've got to quit thinking about it because it's very deep. Very deep. Sometimes you start thinking about it, and you don't feel like you want to be alive, so I don't like to get all quiet."

-David Ortiz

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"What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy."

-Mario Puzo

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"So here is one of my theories on happiness: we cannot know if we have lived a truly happy life until the very end. This view of life and death was reinforced by my close witnessing of the buildup to the death of Philip Gould. Philip was without doubt my closest friend in politics. When he died, I felt like I had lost a limb."

-Alastair Campbell

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"I'm not on the run from anything and I'm not at all clear about what I'm running towards. But as some great writer put it, I want to be certain that when I arrive at death, I'm totally exhausted."

-Fiona Shaw

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"Planning to play: that's what saving for retirement is today - and it is antithetical to the nature of play, fully within the definition of work, and blissfully ignorant of the reality of death."

-John Thorn

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