You had once asked me if I was afraid of death. I said I was afraid of not living. I don’t want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalues what the self is.

Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.

There is a sense of the human spirit as always existing. This makes our own death bearable.

He: What’s the matter with you?Me: Nothing.Nothing was slowly clotting my arteries. Nothing slowly numbing my soul. Caught by nothing, saying nothing, nothingness becomes me. When I am nothing they will say surprised in the way that they are forever surprised, "but there was nothing the matter with her.

There is a certain seductiveness about dead things. You can ill treat, alter and recolour what's dead. It won’t complain.

Her favourite song was 'God Has Blotted Them Out,' which was meant to be about sins, but really was about anyone who had ever annoyed her, which was everyone. She just didn't like anyone and she just didn't like life. Life was a burden to be carried as far as the grave and then dumped. Life was a Vale of Tears. Life was a pre-death experience.

Nuclear, ecological, chemical, economic — our arsenal of Death by Stupidity is impressive for a species as smart as Homo sapiens ["Strange New World," http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/boo...].

I discover that grief means living with someone who is no longer there.

I kissed her and forgot death.