Writer's Last Words
(Spoken or Written)

See in what peace a Christian can die.
~~ Joseph Addison, writer, d. June 17, 1719

Is it not meningitis?
~~ Louisa M. Alcott, writer, d. 1888

Waiting are they? Waiting are they? Well--let 'em wait.
In response to an attending doctor who attempted to comfort him by saying, "General, I fear the angels are waiting for you."
~~ Ethan Allen, American Revolutionary general, d. 1789

Nothing, but death.
When asked by her sister, Cassandra, if there was anything she wanted.
~~ Jane Austen, writer, d. July 18, 1817

I can't sleep.
~~ James M. Barrie, author, d. 1937

Friends applaud, the comedy is finished.
~~ Ludwig van Beethoven, composer, d. March 26, 1827

Oh, I am not going to die, am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy.
Spoken to her husband of 9 months, Rev. Arthur Nicholls.
~~ Charlotte Bronte, writer, d. March 31, 1855

Beautiful.
In reply to her husband who had asked how she felt.
~~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, writer, d. June 28, 1861

Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight.
~~ Lord George Byron, writer, d. 1824

I am dying. I haven't drunk champagne for a long time.
~~ Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, writer, d. July 1, 1904

I'm bored with it all.
Before slipping into a coma. He died 9 days later.
~~ Winston Churchill, statesman, writer, d. January 24, 1965

Goodnight my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow.
~~ Noel Coward, writer, d. 1973

I am not the least afraid to die.
~~ Charles Darwin, writer, d. April 19, 1882

I must go in, the fog is rising.
~~ Emily Dickinson, poet, d. 1886

A dying man can do nothing easy.
~~ Benjamin Franklin, statesman, writer, d. April 17, 1790

Come my little one, and give me your hand.
Spoken to his daughter, Ottilie.
~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer, d. March 22, 1832

God will pardon me, that's his line of work.
~~ Heinrich Heine, poet, d. February 15, 1856

Turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark.
~~ O. Henry (William Sidney Porter), writer, d. June 4, 1910

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.
~~ Thomas Hobbes, writer, d. 1679

I see black light.
~~ Victor Hugo, writer, d. May 22, 1885

Does nobody understand?
~~ James Joyce, writer, d. 1941

Too late for fruit, too soon for flowers.
~~ Walter De La Mare, writer, d. 1956

Go on, get out - last words are for fools who haven't said enough.
To his housekeeper, who urged him to tell her his last words so she could write them down for posterity.
~~ Karl Marx, revolutionary, writer, d. 1883

It's all been very interesting.
~~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writer, d. 1762

I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room - and God damn it - died in a hotel room.
~~ Eugene O'Neill, writer, d. November 27, 1953

Good-bye . . . why am I hemorrhaging?
~~ Boris Pasternak, writer, d. 1959

Lord help my poor soul.
~~ Edgar Allan Poe, writer, d. October 7, 1849

Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.
~~ Alexander Pope, writer, d. May 30, 1744

I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor.
~~ François Rabelais, writer, d. 1553

Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die.
Spoken to his nurse.
~~ George Bernard Shaw, playwright, d. November 2, 1950

I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record .
~~ Dylan Thomas, poet, d. 1953

Moose . . . Indian . . .
~~ Henry David Thoreau, writer, d. May 6, 1862

Go away. I'm all right.
~~ H. G. Wells, novelist, d. 1946

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
~~ Oscar Wilde, writer, d. November 30, 1900

Shoot straight you bastards and don't make a mess of it!
Executed by firing squad.
~~ Harry Harbord "Breaker" Morant, Australian poet & national hero, d. 1902

And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead.
Suicide note.
~~ Nicolas-Sebastien Chamfort, French writer, d. 1794

Goodbye, everybody!
Last words as he jumped off the cruise ship "Orizaba." (His body was never found.)
~~ Hart Crane, poet, d. April 27, 1932

All fled--all done, so lift me on the pyre;
The feast is over, and the lamps expire.
Suicide note.
~~ Robert E. Howard, writer, d. June 11, 1936

They tried to get me - I got them first!
Suicide by drinking Lysol.
~~ Vachel Lindsay, poet, d. December 4, 1931

When I am dead, and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain drenched hair,
Tho you should lean above me broken hearted,
I shall not care.
For I shall have peace.
As leafey trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough.
And I shall be more silent and cold hearted
Than you are now.
Suicide note to her lover who left her.

~~ Sara Teasdale, poet, d. 1933

I feel certain that I'm going mad again. I feel we can't go thru another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices.
Suicide note
~~ Virginia Woolf, author, d. March 28, 1941

 

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