Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat.

Even death, faced with the option of death or life, she would choose life.

[...], um homem deve ser capaz de ganhar o seu pão de qualquer maneira e em qualquer lugar, mas se é o caso de esse pão não lhe alimentar também a alma, satisfez-se o corpo, a alma padece.

That we're going to die is something we know from the moment we are born, That's why, in some ways, it's as if we were born dead.

Because each of you has his or her own death, you carry it with you in a secret place from the moment you're born, it belongs to you and you belong to it.

Not only does the universe have its own laws, all of them indifferent to the contradictory dreams and desires of humanity, and in the formulation of which we contribute not one iota, apart, that is, from the words by which we clumsily name them, but everything seems to indicate that it uses these laws for aims and objectives that transcend and always will transcend our understanding.

There are things we do automatically, our body, acting on its own, avoids inconvenience whenever possible, that is why we sleep on the eve of battle or execution, and why ultimately we die when we can no longer bear the harsh light of existence.

The only difference between life and death is that the living still have time, but the time to say that one word, to make that one gesture, is running out for them. What gesture, what word, I don't know, a man dies from not having said it, from not having made it, this is what he dies of, not from sickness, and that is why, when dead, he finds it so difficult to accept death. (Jose Saramago, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, p 122)

Não aprendeste nada, vai-te, dissera o Pastor, e quiçá quisesse dizer que ele não aprendera a defender a vida.