Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake — especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all.
I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
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When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor.
He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands.
And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did.
I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did.
He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did.
He was individual.
He was an important man.
I've never gotten over his death.
Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died.
How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands.
He shaped the world.
He did things to the world.
The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.
It is a good thing to have had a friend, even if one is about to die.
It was wrong of you to come. You will suffer. I shall look as if I were dead; and that will not be true...
Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up.I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something.
Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery.People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap.
Who wants flowers when you're dead?
Nobody.