Je crois que nous perdons l’immortalité parce que la résistance à la mort n’a pas évolué; nous insistons sur l’idée première, rudimentaire, qui est de retenir vivant le corps tout entier. Il suffirait de chercher à conserver seulement ce qui intéresse la conscience.

We who are immortal, we are chained to this life by a chain of gold, and we dare not sever it for fear of what lies beyond the drop.

Though the face before me was that of a young woman of certainly not more than thirty years, in perfect health and the first flush of ripened beauty, yet it bore stamped upon it a seal of unutterable experience, and of deep acquaintance with grief and passion. Not even the slow smile that crept about...

I want to merge a Phoenix with a Camel to create the world’s first everlasting cigarette. It’ll be a cigarette that rises from its own ashes, so you can keep smoking it indefinitely.

Innocence has no place alongside immortality.

Who knew, or cared, the names of the Turks who blew the roof off the Parthenon? the mullahs who had ordered the destruction of the Buddhas at Bamiyan? Yet living or dead: their acts stood. It was the worst kind of immortality. Intentionally or no: I had extinguished a light at the heart of the...

No doubt my books too, like my mortal being, would eventually die, one day. But one has to resign oneself to dying. One accepts the thought that in ten years oneself, in a hundred years one’s books, will not exist. Eternal duration is no more promised to books than it is to men.

{From Luther Burbank’s funeral. He was loved until he revealed he was an atheist, then he began to receive death threats. He tried to amiably answer them all, leading to his death}It is impossible to estimate the wealth he has created. It has been generously given to the world. Unlike inventors, in other fields, no...

Writing. Is it a way to be remembered,or a need to become immortal?

What is life without death, Beneficent? You of all people can answer that question. A never-ending orgy of emptiness that you stuff with meaningless activity. Everything is disposable, including your relationships–especially your your relationships.

Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?

He stands on the stone table and selects a large fig, bites into the skin, then opens it with his fingers. He thinks of a woman’s sex, ancient and eternal, no young girl would have such gritty sweetness. Was this not perhaps the fruit that got Adam and Eve thrown out of Eden? Who would...

I think it’s reasonable to suppose that one could oscillate between being biologically 20 and biologically 25 indefinitely.

I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism—religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality.

Perhaps her only legacy would be that she had known something immortal, and while eternity may still belong to God alone, not all things were enslaved by time.

Who needs immortal strength when you’ve got weapons of mass destruction?

I love you, too,” she whispered back, and he couldn’t help smiling. At least he would die with those words in his ears.

It slowly dawns on me what it is, the sensation that has bridged the gap between how I saw the world yesterday and how I see it today. It compensates for my lost keenness and even makes everything around me a little brighter. Hope.

I was made to rule the darkness.

Maybe it is like Pascal’s Wager, but I want to believe in the immortality of the soul because consciousness is such a fantastic gift that is feels cruel and unfair to end it so quickly.

But there could be no doubt that greatness was seated within; greatness was passing, hidden, down Bond Street, removed only by a hand’s-breadth from ordinary people who might now, for the first and last time, be within speaking distance of the majesty of England, of the enduring symbol of the state which will be known...

We may just be specters in this world, but our stories, if they are remembered and retold, become real and solid and alive… Once you hear a story, it becomes part of you. It can’t die.

Yet, beauty cannot be forgotten,Eternal Wisdom can never die …

Like most arts, the link between the mind and the pen can chain you like an enslaved workaholic. Even on an intended vacation you suddenly have this killer urge to record whatever the vacation may teach.

You cannot hide from the world. It will find you. It always does. And now it has found me. My split second of immortality is over. All that’s left now is the end, which is all any of us ever has.

You’re a kid. I didn’t know we taught kids manners anymore.

o gün akşamüstü son bir defa daha kırlarda dolaşmaya çıktığında yaşadığı tuhaf bir anı hatırladı: bir dere kıyısına gelmiş, çimenlere uzanmıştı. uzun süre orada öylece uzanmış, akarsuyun ta içinden geçerek bütün acıları ve bütün pislikleri; ben’ini sürükleyip götürdüğünü sanmıştı. tuhaf, unutulmaz bir an: ben’ini unutmuş, ben’ini kaybetmiş, kurtulmuştu; ve bu mutluluktu.bu anı içinde silik, uçucu...

Why do you want to do this?” he asked curiously. “Why is this woman so important to you?”Saint-Germain blinked in surprise. “Have you ever loved anyone?” he asked.”Yes,” Tamnuz said cautiously, “I had a consort once, Inanna…””But did you love her? Truly love her?”The Green Man remained silent.”Did she mean more to you than life...

Hermes, we love you,” Hades said, “but you rarely do as you’re told, and you always do as you wish, and I haven’t the slightest idea what you’d do with an immortality fruit, but I’m sure it would be both creative and disastrous.

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

Tell me something. Do you believe in God?’Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. ‘What? Who still believes nowadays?”It isn’t that simple. I don’t mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I’m no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new–do you happen to know if there was ever a...

Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.

It was as hard to comprehend that your life would never end as it was to comprehend that it would.

Memory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand–evil have I done, and with sorrow have I made acquaintance from age to age, and from age to age evil shall I do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes.

I do not believe in any religion, I will have nothing to do with immortality. We are miserable enough in this life without speculating upon another.

Time is not your enemy, forever is.

Speech is the resuscitation breath for living corpses and the water of life for those who want to live forever.

When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.”[As attributed by Alastair Reid in Neruda and Borges, The New Yorker, June 24, 1996; as well as in The Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, July 7, 1986]

I am an infidel today. I do not believe what has been served to me to believe. I am a doubter, a questioner, a skeptic. When it can be proved to me that there is immortality, that there is resurrection beyond the gates of death, then will I believe. Until then, no.

Need for immortality should be added on top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

People change spouses more often than they clean out closets. And every time they say, ‘This is the one. This is the person I’m going to spend eternity with.’ Then forty or fifty years go by and you’re just sick of each other, utterly sick, and it’s on to the next ‘true love.’ My question...

Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.

I believe we can see the future because some part of us responds to the fact that past, present, and the future are one, occurring in a simultaneous time… Quite literally the future is now, and even on this planet we can shape our ‘nows’ by our actions. That is why it is so important...

Ever since Plato most philosophers have considered it part of their business to produce ‘proofs’ of immortality and the existence of God. They have found fault with the proofs of their predecessors — Saint Thomas rejected Saint Anselm’s proofs, and Kant rejected Descartes’ — but they have supplied new ones of their own. In order...

Dreams link us to those who have already left this life.

If a man can bridge the gap between life and death,if he can live after he’s died, then maybe he was a great man. Immortality is the only true success.

The humanitarian philosophies that have been developed (sometimes under some religious banner and invariably in the face of religious opposition) are human inventions, as the name implies – and our species deserves the credit. I am a devout atheist – nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by...

Schopenhauer wrote that to desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake. He was correct.

Love is nothing more than elevated levels of dopamine, nor-epinephrine, and other chemicals. But the way Uncle Antionio’s face lights up as they dance… I wonder what it would be like to feel that. To let the chemicals of romance take over for just a little while. Then I remember that I am immortal and...

There is absolutely nothing monstrous about being a vampire. In fact, it’s quite beautiful.