#th

There was a pause, while I fought against this other, lesser kind of death that was creeping over me - this death called strangeness, this snapping of all the customary little threads of cause and effect that are our moorings at other times. Slowly they all drew back from me step by step, until I was left there alone, cut off. ("All At Once, No Alice") ↗

— Cornell Woolrich

#strangeness #death

There were no fear of death in children’s eyes because they had seen hanging, stoning to death and chopping heads in playgrounds and parks. ↗

— M.F. Moonzajer

#fear-of-death #death

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 ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#life #muerte #napoleon #vida #death

While I listened to the words of homage to Mao, I remembered Mao’s awesome power, like a blanket over China threatening to smother whomever he chose. Pg. 218 ↗

— Nien Cheng

#cultural-revolution #mao #death

As I gazed at Mao’s face wearing what was intended as a benign expression but was in fact a smirk of self-satisfaction, I wondered how one single person could have caused the extent of misery that was prevailing in China. There must be something lacking in our own character, I thought, that had made it possible for his evil genius to dominate. Pg. 259 ↗

— Nien Cheng

#cultural-revolution #mao #propaganda #death

As David Zucker watched the casket of his late wife being lowered into the ground, he thought the worst must surely be over and it was time to start the slow healing process to begin life anew. ↗

— Phil Wohl

#love-story #rebirth #renewal #death

There were three of them in the room now, where only two had first come in. Death was in the room with the two of them. ↗

— Cornell Woolrich

#crime-thriller #death #noir #noir-fiction #death

Somehow, I feel almost blinded myself. And I am forever left to wonder Whether telling you how truly special You were Might have made a difference. ↗

— Terri Fields

#death

My mother's death changed the alchemy of food. Holidays run together now like ungrooved rivers. I forget what they are for. I buy bakery goods. They look dead under the blue lights. I don't do anything the way she taught me but I get fat. I don't look like her and I don't sound like her, but I stand like her. ↗

— Florence Weinberger

#mothers #poetry #change

On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam Well I have and in fact more than one and I'll tell you this too I wrote one against Algeria that nightmare and another against Korea and another against the one I was in and I don't remember how many against the three when I was a boy Abyssinia Spain and Harlan county and not one breath was restored to one shattered throat mans womans or childs not one not one but death went on and on never looking aside except now and then like a child with a furtive half-smile to make sure I was noticing. ↗

— Hayden Carruth

#poetry #war #death