"Increasing thoughts about death just seemed to come over me . . . a preoccupation with my own mortality, these feelings of futility in relation to my work. I mean, just what am I striving to create anyway? I mean, to what end? For what purpose? What goal? I mean, do I really care if a handful of my poems are read after I’m gone forever? Is that supposed to be some sort of compensation? I used to think it was, but now, for some reason, I . . . I can’t . . . I can’t seem to . . . I can’t seem to shake this . . . the real implication of dying—it’s terrifying. The intimacy of it embarrasses me."

Renata (Diane Keaton) In Interiors, Woody Allen

"That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment."

Dorothy Parker