Last Words

  • Yes, but not too much‘,  Dutch poet Gerrit Achterberg, in response to his wife’s question: ‘Shall I bake some fried potatoes?’ (he died of a heart attack).
  • ‘Don’t let me die like this, say I said something’. Emiliano Zapata), Mexican revolutionary during the Mexican Revolution.
  • ‘The best of all is: God is with us’. John Wesley.
  • ‘Am I dying, or is this my birthday?’ Lady Nancy Astor.
  • Die, my dear doctor, that’s the last thing I shall do!’ Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston.
  • ‘Is it not meningitis?’ Louisa May Alcott (author of ‘Little Women’), who died of suspected mercury poisoning.
  • ‘Damn it…don’t you dare ask God to help me’, Joan Crawford, actress (to her housekeeper)
  • ‘Now it’s every man for himself’  Captain Edward John Smith, commander of the RMS TITANIC.
  • ‘May God have mercy on the assassins’ Salvadoran Archbishop  Oscar Romero, (fatally shot while saying Mass in San Salvador by a death squad assassin), whom Romero presumably saw.
  • ‘Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose’. Marie Antoinette (As she approached the guillotine, convicted of treason and about to be beheaded, she accidentally stepped on the foot of her executioner).
  • ‘I’d like to be in hell in time for dinner’. Edward Ruloff, a convicted serial killer and last person to be executed by hanging in New York.
  • ‘Every damn fool thing you do in this life you pay for’, Edith Piaf, singer.
  • ‘I’m shot. I’m shot’. John Lennon, singer.
  • ‘Does nobody understand?’ James Joyce, author.
  • ‘Shazbot. Nanu nanu’. Bon Scott, lead vocalist of rock band AC/DC.
  • ‘I am in the land of the dying, and I am soon going to the land of the living’ John Newton,  Anglican preacher, abolitionist, and writer of “Amazing Grace.”
  • ‘The car seems OK’ Ayrton Senna, three times Formula One World Racing champion
  • ‘Well, gentlemen, you are about to see a baked Appel’, George Appel, executed by electric chair in 1928.
  • ‘I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.’ Che Guevera
  • They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance’ John Sedgwick a Union Civil War general who was hit by sniper fire a few minutes later.
  • ‘Pee pee’. Freddie Mercury, singer, dying of AIDS, asking to be helped to the toilet.
  • ‘More milk’. Michael Jackson, singer
  • ‘All my possessions for a moment of time’ Elizabeth 1, Queen of England
  • Don’t die like I did’.  George Best, footballer.
  • Work hard to gain your own salvation‘. Buddha
  • ‘And now, in keeping with Channel 40’s policy of always bringing you the latest in blood and guts, in living color, you’re about to see another first — an attempted suicide’.Christine Chubbock, who shot herself during a broadcast
  • ‘You have won, O Galilean’  Emporer Julian, having attempted to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire.
  • ‘It is finished’, Jesus on the Cross, before he was raised again to life.

7 thoughts on “Last Words

  1. Two of my favourite ‘last words’ are these:

    “Now is not the time for making new enemies.” Voltaire, on being asked by a priest to renounce Satan on his deathbed.

    “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” Oscar Wilde on his deathbed.

  2. I love the last words allegedly said by General John Sedgwick’s, who was serving as a Union commander in the American Civil War.

    “What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”

    He was hit by sniper fire a few minutes after saying them, at the battle of Spotsylvania to his men who were ducking for cover, on May 9, 1864.

  3. Thank you so much for this. I really needed to be reminded just how beautifully Jesus has taken the sting out of death today.

  4. I think we could all learn a bit from Queen Elizabeth I’s last words… too much value places on STUFF, only to realise at the end how empty it all is…

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