So in the simple blessing of a rainbow, In the bevelled edge of a sunlit mirror, I have seen visible, Death's artifact Like a soldier's ribbon on a tunic tacked.

-Abse, Dannie
  'Pathology of Colours'.

   The theme of Death is to Poetry what Mistaken Identity is to Drama.

-Abse, Dannie
  Journal entry, Feb, collected in Journals from the Ant-Heap (1986).

We flee from Death's bitter cup; he follows, loving and fain.

-Abu'l-'Ala¤   Al-Ma'arri
c.1000  Luzu'  miyya'  t, stanza 36 (translated by R  A Nicholson in Studies in Islamic Poetry,1921).

Life is a malady whose one medicine is Death.

-Abu'l-'Ala¤   Al-Ma'arri
c.1000  Luzu'  miyya'  t, stanza 41 (translated by R  A Nicholson in Studies in Islamic Poetry,1921).

He had often noticed that six months'oblivion amounts to newspaper death, and that resurrection is rare. Nothing is easier, if a manwants it, thanrest, profound as the grave.

-Adams, Henry Brooks
  The Education of Henry  Adams, ch.22.

Death is an acquired trait.

-Allen,Woody pseudonym of  Allen Stewart Konigsberg
Quoted in Eric Lax Woody  Allen and His Comedy (1975), ch.11.

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

-Allen,Woody pseudonym of  Allen Stewart Konigsberg
  Without Feathers,'Early Essays'.

The deceased Gentlemanwas, weare informed, a native of Ashbourn, Derbyshire, at which place he was born in theYear of Grace, 217, and was consequently in the 1643rd year of his age. For some months the patriotic Old Man had been suffering from injuries sustained in his native town, so far back as Shrovetide in last year; he was at once removed (byappeal) to London, where he lingered in suspense till the law of death put its icy hand upon him, and claimed as another trophy to magisterial interference one who had long lived in the hearts of the people.

-Anonymous
  'Death of the Right Honourable Game Football', as published in a court circular. There had been recent attempts in the courts to ban the riotous custom of 'Shrovetide football' pursued at  Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and other villages.

La mort ne fait jamais mal. La mort est douce† Ce qui fait souffrir avec certains poisons, certaines blessures maladroites, c'est la vie. C'est le reste de vie. Il faut se confier franchement a'   la mort comme une amie. Death never hurts. Death is sweet† Life is what makes us suffer with its poisons and awkward injuries. That's what remains of life.We must confide freely in death as we would in a friend.

-Anouilh,Jean
Eurydice, act1.

Et toi mon coeur pourquoi bats-tu Comme un guetteur me¤  lancolique J'observe la nuit et la mort. And you my heart why do you pound Like some melancholy watchman I watch the night and death.

-Kostrowitzki
  Le Guetteur me¤ l ancolique, pre¤  face.

Curle (who is one of the new terrors of Death) has been writing letters to every body for memoirs of his life.

-Arbuthnot,John
  Letter to  Jonathan Swift,13  Jan.

Her cabined ample Spirit, It fluttered and failed for breath. Tonight it doth inherit The vasty hall of death.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Poems:  A New Edition,'Requiescat'.

   O all the instruments agree The day of his death was a dark cold day.

-Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)
  'In Memory of  W.B.Yeats', pt.1.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.2,'Of Death'.

There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and mastersthefearofdeath. And therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.2,'Of Death'.

Death†openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.2,'Of Death'.

   Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

-Barth, Karl
  TheBarmen Declaration adoptedby the Confessing Church in Germany (translated by D S Bax,1984).

Tout refus du langage est une mort. Any refusal of language is a death.

-Barthes, Roland
  Mythologies,'Le mythe, aujourd'hui'.

With the publication of his private papers in1952, he committed suicide 25 years after his death.

-Baron
  Of Earl Haig. Men and Power:1917^1918.

Statisticsarethetriumphofthequantitativemethod, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterilityand death.

-Belloc, (Joseph) Hilaire Pierre
  The Silence of the Sea.