The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (2008) (edit title/settings)

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Natalie: Add a description of this character.
• Joseph Schildkraut
• Laurie
• Milt
• Emily
• Mr. Rossi
• Carla
• Dr. Herring
• Rudolph

Quotes edit see section history

• “Amis has said, "Who knows when it happens, but happens. Suddenly you realize that you're switching from saying 'Hi' to saying 'Bye." And it's a full-time job: death. You really have to wrench your head around to look in the other direction, because death's so apparent now, and it wasn't apparent before. You were intellectually persuaded that you were going to die, but it wasn't a reality."”

• “Human beings have existed for 250,000 years; during that time, 90 billion individuals have lived and died. You're one of 6.5 billion people now on the planet, and 99.9 percent of your genes are the same as everyone else's.”

• “Edward Young wrote, "Our birth is nothing but our death begun." Francis Bacon: "What then remains, but that we still should cry / Not to be born, or being born, to die?"”

• “In "Is Acne Really a Disease?" Dale F. Bloom argues that, "far from being a disease, adolescent acne is a normal physiological process that functions to ward off potential mates until the afflicted individual is some years past the age of reproductive maturity, and thus emotionally, intellectually, and physically fit to be a parent." Dale F. Bloom's thesis seems to me unassailable.”

• “Writing, for him, is a chance to gild the lily.”

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• Charles de Gaulle said, “The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men”—one

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• “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”

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• Schopenhauer said, “Just as we know our walking to be only a constantly prevented falling, so is the life of our body only a constantly prevented dying, an ever-deferred death.”

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• Victor Hugo said, “Forty is the old age of youth. Fifty is the youth of old age.”

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• Sir Francis Chichester, after sailing around the world at age 66, said, “If your try fails, what does that matter? All life is a failure in the end. The thing to do is to get sport out of trying.”

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• Nicholas Murray said, “Many people’s tombstones should read, ‘Died at 30. Buried at 60.’” The ancient Persians believed that the first 30 years should be spent living life and the last 40 years should be spent understanding it. Reversing the time periods, Schopenhauer said, “The first forty years of life give us the text; the remaining thirty provide the commentary on it.”

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• The seventeenth-century moralist Jean de la Bruyère said, “There are but three events in a man’s life: birth, life, and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.”

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• Leonardo da Vinci, who died at 67, said, “Here I thought that I was learning how to live, while I have in reality been learning how to die.”

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• “Pain is inevitable,” Dr. Herring likes to say. “Suffering is optional.”

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• At 85, Bernard Baruch said, “To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.”

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• United States
• Brooklyn
• New York
• Seattle
• America

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. David Shields (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction › Social Sciences › Sociology › Death
• Books › Nonfiction › Social Sciences › Sociology › Marriage & Family
• Books › Parenting & Families › Aging Parents › Eldercare
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Professionals & Academics › Medical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › United States
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Memoirs