He wondered why it was easier to believe in a malevolent spirit than in a benign one. Sometimes it seemed that the human heart, this side of Eden, feared eternal life more than death, light more than darkness, freedom more than surrender.

...I can't allow myself to be wary of one place merely because it reminds me of another place where I almost died, because just about every place reminds me of another place...

I didn't tell her that death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time.

The greatest danger, of course, was to believe that I was equal to them, because assurance can morph into arrogance that Death loves to prove unfounded.

In all our lives, however, there are many days when we die a little, when we are wounded by loss or failure, or by fear, or by seeing the suffering of others for whom we are able to offer only pity, for whom we are powerless to offer aid, we are beyond mercy.

...because wherever else the future leads, it leads ultimately to death, the end that is present in my beginning and in yours.

It seems reckless, even perverse, to spend so much time and effort nurturing such a deadly thing...Ernie and Pooka seek to understand death and to master their fear of it by domesticating it in the form of the brugmansia.

It's difficult to spend time in any carnival or amusement park and not realize that a repressed fear of death may be the one emotion that is constant in the human heart even if, most of the time, it is confined to the unconscious as we go about our business. Thrill rides offer us a chance to acknowledge our ever-present dread, to release the tension that arises from repression of it, and to subtly delude ourselves with the illusion of invulnerability that surviving the Big Drop can provide.

In my bones, I know that I am not long for this world.