Famous Last Words

Realistically, one would probably want their last words to be professing their love for their family and friends. Thankfully, some people aren't realistic enough or lucky enough to have this opportunity, and have left some very memorable parting bon mots.

My favourite tombstone is from a British boxer whose inscription reads: "You can stop counting - I'm not getting up." But I'm not really talking about wills, tombstones, or post-mortem book releases. How about one's last words in the heat of the moment as you're looking into the great void - who the heck would have the composure to be funny, salient, ironic, brave, etc?



If you have Shakespeare writing for you, then you get to have:

• To be or not to be...
-- Hamlet

• Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
-- Julius Caesar

• Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-- Macbeth





But hey, that's not fair. That's the friggin' bard you've got helping you - we don't all get to have a Cyrano feeding us lines. If we did, and happened to be famous and in movies and such, we might get to end with:

• I knew a man once who said: 'Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.'
-- Maximus, Gladiator

• Oh, oh, I see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!
-- Black Knight, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

• I smell toast.
-- soldier, M*A*S*H

• You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
-- Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Wars



Even if you're not human, you still get cool finishing lines in movies:

• It has to end here. I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do. Here...I cannot self-terminate. You must lower me into the steel.
-- T2, Terminator 2

• I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time...like tears in rain. Time to die.
-- Batty, Bladerunner





Okay, but what if you DIDN'T have writers? Well, that's tougher. And, since your loved ones are going to try to protect your image and make your 'last words' something memorable, it'd tough to say if you actually said it. We can only go by what's attributed and if it seems consistent.



Quietly, To Their Friends and Families

• Now I have finished with all earthly business, and high time too. Yes, yes, my dear child, now comes death.
-- Franz Leher

• Beautiful.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in reply to her husband who had asked how she felt

• Come my little one, and give me your hand.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to his daughter

• Josephine...
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

• Oh, do not cry - be good children and we will all meet in heaven.
-- Andrew Jackson, US President

• I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you.
-- James Polk, US President

• Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
-- Jesus Christ

• Why do you weep. Did you think I was immortal?
-- Louis XIV, King of France

• Friends applaud, the comedy is finished.
-- Ludwig van Beethoven



Heroic, Fighting, Disbelieving

• I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
-- Nathan Hale

• I am still alive!
-- Gaius Caligula, Roman Emperor, stabbed to death by his own guards

• I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace.
-- Thomas Becket

• Go away. I'm all right.
-- HG Wells

• I know you have come to kill me. Shoot coward, you are only going to kill a man.
-- Che Guevara

• I forgive everybody. I pray that everybody may also forgive me, and my blood which is about to be shed will bring peace to Mexico. Long live Mexico! Long Live Independence!
-- Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico

• Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.
-- John Barrymore

• Waiting are they? Waiting are they? Well, let 'em wait. -- General Ethan Allen, in response to a doctor who said he feared the angels were waiting for him

• I've never felt better.
-- Douglas Fairbanks, Sr

• Don't worry chief, it will be all right.
-- Rudolph Valentino

• They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...
-- General John Sedgwick





Who Could be This Damn Calm and/or Just Curious? Honestly.

• Stopped.
-- [unknown to me] doctor, monitoring his own pulse

• This is the last of Earth! I am content.
-- John Quincy Adams

• I am ready.
-- Woodrow Wilson, US President

• I am curious to see what happens in the next world to one who dies unshriven.
-- Pietro Perugino, giving his reasons for refusing to see a priest as he lay dying

• Good-bye. Why am I hemorrhaging?
-- Boris Pasternak

• It's all been very interesting.
-- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

• Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I'm happy.
-- Ethel Barrymore

• Now comes the mystery.
-- Henry Ward Beecher

• I am not the least afraid to die.
-- Charles Darwin

• I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring.
-- Richard Feynman

• Why not? Yeah.
-- Timothy Leary

• I die hard but am not afraid to go.
-- George Washington, US President

• Nothing, but death.
-- Jane Austen, when asked if there was anything she wanted

• Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die.
-- George Bernard Shaw, to his nurse

• I'm bored with it all.
-- Winston Churchill



Still at Work

• How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?
-- PT Barnum

• I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either expression is correct.
-- Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian

• Get my swan costume ready.
-- Anna Pavlova, ballerina

• Curtain! Fast music! Light! Ready for the last finale! Great! The show looks good, the show looks good!
-- Florenz Ziegfeld





Having Second Thoughts

• I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.
-- Humphrey Bogart

• Et tu, Brutus?
-- Julius Caesar, Roman Emperor, meaning “And you too, Brutus?”...shocked that his friend betrayed him

• My God. What's happened?
-- Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales

• All my possessions for a moment of time.
-- Elizabeth I, Queen of England

• Lord help my poor soul.
-- Edgar Allan Poe

• Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
-- Pancho Villa

• I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.
-- Leonardo da Vinci



Scared, Frustrated, Mad

• The earth is suffocating. Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won't be buried alive.
-- Frederic Chopin

• Damn it! Don't you dare ask God to help me!
-- Joan Crawford, to her housekeeper, who had begun to pray aloud

• Turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark.
-- O Henry

• Let's cool it, brothers...
-- Malcolm X, spoken to his assassins

• Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough.
-- Karl Marx

• All is lost. Monks, monks, monks!
-- Henry VIII, King of England





Just Plain Happy

• That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted.
-- Lou Costello

• I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it.
-- Errol Flynn

• I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record.
-- Dylan Thomas

• Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you.
-- Johannes Brahms

• That was a great game of golf, fellers.
-- Bing Crosby



Ludicrously Funny or Ironic

• Am I dying, or is this my birthday?
-- Lady Nancy Astor

• I can't sleep.
-- James M Barrie

• Yes, [dying is] tough, but not as tough as doing comedy.
-- Edmund Gwenn

• Too late for fruit, too soon for flowers.
-- Walter De La Mare

• I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room - and God damn it...died in a hotel room.
-- Eugene O'Neill

• Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
-- Oscar Wilde



I haven't really given my final words much thought. Realistically, I'd hope that it'd just be something calm and not panicky around my friends and family. If not, then I'd be happy having any of these be my last line on my 100th birthday (August 2064...you're all invited):

• Well, it's been 97 years. You know what? I'm just going to *assume* the Leafs won't win a Stanley Cup in the next 3 years...so let's toast that now.

• Okay okay, sheesh...I'm sorry I bopped your great-granddaughter.

• Today I officially lift my Flutie Curse from the Buffalo Bills - they may now resume regular play.



If I should die earlier than that, then I'd like my last words to be:

• Cool, my time machine worked. [1,000,000 BC]

• Hey, that's at least a Guinness World Record, right?

• Winter tires are for sissies.




I'll give Jack Handey the final word on this:

• I hope that after I die, people will say of me: 'That guy sure owed me a lot of money.'