Suicide Quotes

“For weeks Tyrone thought he was going to die any minute, and there were also times when he was afraid he wasnt going to die.”
― Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream

“Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

“Seven little crazy kids chopping up sticks;
One burnt her daddy up and then there were six.
Six little crazy kids playing with a hive;
One tattooed himself to death and then there were five.
Five little crazy kids on a cellar door;
One went all schizo and then there were four.
Four little crazy kids going out to sea;
One wouldn't say a word and then there were three.
Three little crazy kids walking to the zoo;
One jerked himself too much and then there were two.
Two little crazy kids sitting in the sun;
One a took a bunch of pills and then there was one.
One little crazy kid left all alone;
He went and slit his wrists, and then there were none.”
― Michael Thomas Ford, Suicide Notes

“Grief takes many forms, including the absence of grief.”
― Alison Bechdel

“He killed himself for wanting to live.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“In spite of my suffering, at the thought that I was sure to end up by killing myself, I cried aloud and burst into tears.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Any way I slice reality it comes out poorly, and I feel an urge to not exist, something I have never felt before; and now here it comes with conviction, almost panic. I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.”
― Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce

“I never see that prettiest thing-
A cherry bough gone white with Spring-
But what I think, "How gay 'twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree.”
― Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep As A Well: Collected Poems

“How do we forgive ourselves for all the things we did not become?”
― David "Doc" Luben

“When he endures nothing but endless miseries-- What pleasure is there in living the day after day,
Edging slowly back and forth toward death?
Anyone who warms their heart with the glow
Of flickering hope is worth nothing at all.
The noble man should either live with honor or die with honor. That's all there is to be said.”
― Sophocles, Sophocles II: Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes

“Death is easy. To live is the most painful thing I could imagine and I'm weak and no longer willing to fight.”
― Hannah Wright

“The instant that the blade tore open his flesh, the bright disk of the sun soared up and exploded behind his eyelids.”
― Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses

“Is today a good day to die?

Is today the day?
And if not today–when?”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“You ought to know, you were my best friend. You were. I know you loved me. I loved you.
No one should have gone through what we went through, but we did. And it kills me to think of it.
But I didn't love you like you loved me. I don't hate you for that. It just makes me sorry, that there isn't someone else who could love you better.
I know when you think about how I went, you'll get it. I was always uneasy about being alive. The idea of being dead makes me feel clear. When I think of it. It makes me think peace, peace, peace. It makes me happy. I am looking forward to it, to the absence of everything. And so I want you to be happy for me, that this is better for me. That I found what I needed. I know you won't be. But it's the last thing I want. You happy.”
― Alexander Chee, Edinburgh

“No neurotic harbors thoughts of suicide which are not murderous impulses against others redirected upon himself.”
― Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo

“Yes -- or rather, it's not so much that I want to die as that I'm tired of living.”
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories

“And at the instant he knew, he ceased to know.”
― Jack London

“On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide—it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese—the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“All the whispering, glaring, pointing and judging makes them no better than whoever or whatever it is they're gossiping about.”
― Tiffany King

“What do you want to do with your life, then?” is often the question I'm asked.

To be honest, I don't know. I really don't.

Mainly because I don't see myself living long enough for that to make much of a difference.”
― Nenia Campbell, Tantalized

“I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had told me why she cut herself all the time, or that it was the pills that made her act so spaced out, or that she was even on pills, or even saw doctors, or any of it, I would have done my best to help her. I'm not saying I'm a superhero. I'm not saying I would have just swooped down and saved her. I'm just saying the only reason everything was a waste was that she made it a waste. That whole time, back when I was just a normal kid in high school, living out my normal life, I really thought everything mattered.”
― Nina LaCour, Hold Still

“I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether there had never been anything at all: I began to feel with all my being that there was nothing existing. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, but afterwards I guessed that there never had been anything in the past either, but that it had only seemed so for some reason. Little by little I guessed that there would be nothing in the future either. Then I left off being angry with people and almost ceased to notice them. Indeed this showed itself even in the pettiest trifles: I used, for instance, to knock against people in the street. And not so much from being lost in thought: what had I to think about? I had almost given up thinking by that time; nothing mattered to me. If at least I had solved my problems! Oh, I had not settled one of them, and how many there were! But I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“You used to believe that with age you would become less unhappy, because you then would have reasons to be sad. When you were still young, your suffering was inconsolable because you believed it to be unfounded.

Your suicide was scandalously beautiful…

You died because you searched for happiness at the risk of finding the void. We shall have to wait for death before we can know what it is that you found. Or before leaving off knowing anything at all, if it is to be silence and emptiness that awaits us.”
― Edouard Levé, Suicide

“It was deeply a part of Lee's kindness and understanding that man's right to kill himself is inviolable, but sometimes a friend can make it unnecessary”
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

“I was so tired of fighting. Tired of hurting. Tired of the guilt that never released me, and the regrets that could not be changed. I didn't want this life. They're were only so many times I could hear that I should never have been born, before I wished it to be true.”
― Rebecca Donovan, Out of Breath

“Self-pity is spiritual suicide. It is an indefensible self-mutilation of the soul.”
― Anthon St. Maarten

“The fog is clearing; life is a matter of taste.”
― Frank Wedekind, Spring's Awakening

“Self-destruction would be a brief, almost autoerotic free-fall into a great velvet darkness.”
― Mark Mirabello, The Cannibal Within

“Freedom is based on the anarch’s awareness that he can kill himself. He carries this awareness around; it accompanies him like a shadow that he can conjure up. “A leap from this bridge will set me free.”
― Ernst Jünger, Eumeswil

“Since you seldom spoke, you were rarely wrong. You seldom spoke because you seldom went out. If you did go out, you listened and watched. Now, since you no longer speak, you will always be right. In truth, you do still speak: through those, like me, who bring you back to life, and interrogate you. We hear your responses and admire their wisdom. If the facts turned out to contradict your counsel, we blame ourselves for having misinterpreted you. Yours are the truths, ours are the errors.”
― Edouard Levé, Suicide