...but the further the illness progressed the more dubious and preposterous his notions of a kidney became, and the more realistic was his awareness of impending death

Three days and nights of awful suffering and death. Why, that may at once, any minute, come upon me too.

He saw either death or the approach of it everywhere. But his undertaking now occupied him all the more. He had to live his life to the end, until death came. Darkness covered everything for him; but precisely because of this darkness he felt that his undertaking was the only guiding thread in this darkness, and he seized it and held on to it with all his remaining strength.

In town a man can live for a hundred years without noticing that he has long been dead and has rotten away.

Anyhow, why speak, I must act," he thought. He indicated his son to his wife with his eyes and said: "Take him away ... sorry ... for you, too ... " He also wanted to say "Forgive,", but said "Forgo," and, no longer able to correct himself, waved his hand, knowing that the one who had to would understand.

Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand. I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.

Con los ojos fijos en Napoleón pensaba en la insignificancia de la grandeza, en la insignificancia de la vida cuyo objeto nadie comprendía, en la insignificancia mayor aún de la muerte cuyo sentido permanecía oculto e impenetrable a los humanos

Yes, there it is. Well, then, let there be pain."And death? Where is it?" He sought his old habitual fear of death and could not find it. Where was it? What death? There was no more fear because there was no more death.Instead of death there was light.

If you once realize that to-morrow, if not to-day, you will die and nothing will be left of you, everything becomes insignificant!