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Sunday, May 1, 2011

290
I have been reading The Inevitable, a collection of essays by writers who confront death; it is edited by David Shields and Bradford Morrow. I wish to share a few quotes from the book, which grabbed my attention.

In death, I want to be air moving through air--nothing through nothing--forever changing and unchanged.

Everything we say about death is actually about life.

-- Kyoki Mori, "Between the Forest and the Well: Notes on Death," p. 45

Of death, mortals are absolutely ignorant. The dead, fortunately, are beyond caring.

-- Lynne Tillman, "The Final Plot," p. 280

How each morning, as you rise from your bed, the belief hums through your head that you are going to die, going to die,
going to die, yes, surely, no doubt about it, but not today--an observation that will remain correct every morning of your life, except one, because--
Because--
To hope, E. M. Cioran once wrote, is to contradict the future.

-- Lance Olsen, "Lessness," p. 294