Death is most often accompanied by grief and sadness, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also be funny! Seeing as death is something we all have to face eventually, it wouldn’t kill us to do so with a sense of humor (see what we did there?).
We rounded up some quotes from famous wits about death and dying to help you see the humor in this subject, too.
1.”If even dying is to be made a social function, then, please, grant me the favor of sneaking out on tiptoe without disturbing the party.” – Dag Hammarskjold
2. “Every tattoo is temporary, because we’re all slowly dying.” – Unknown
3. “I don’t mind dying, the trouble is you feel so bloody stiff the next day.” – George Axelrod
4. “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” – Woody Allen
5. “I’m trying to die correctly, but it’s very difficult, you know.” – Lawrence Durrell
6. “Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.” – Groucho Marx
7. “I’m not ready to die. Period. To begin with, I cannot imagine a future without me in it. Can’t do it.” – Robert Schimmel
8. “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” – Isaac Asimov
9. “Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” – P.J. O’Rourke
10. “If no one knows when a person is going to die, how can we say he died prematurely?” – George Carlin
11. “For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow … but phone calls taper off.” – Johnny Carson
12. “People are making apocalypse jokes like there’s no tomorrow.” – Unknown
13. “Prepare yourself: Death could happen at any moment. You could be in the middle of –” – YG2D.com
14. “I’ve got to keep breathing. It’ll be my worst business mistake if I don’t.” – Steve Martin
15. “A person doesn’t die when he should, but when he can.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
16. “Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing to do with it.” – W. Somerset Maugham
17. “Having your whole life flash before your eyes as you die is basically the ultimate binge-watch.” – Bridger Winegar
18. “I have a long-standing friendship with death. When it comes, I will ask her to sit down and relax, then I’ll suggest to her champagne. Because, in fact, I’m a coward.” – Salvador Dalí
19. “There are three kinds of death in this world: There’s heart death, there’s brain death, and there’s being off the network.” – Guy Almes
20. “Dying was just an extended version of Ash Wednesday.” – Don Delillo
21. “This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes, or I do.” – Oscar Wilde’s infamous final words
22. “I want to die like my father, peacefully in his sleep, not screaming and terrified, like his passengers.” – Bob Monkhouse
23. “Suicide would be my way of telling God that I quit.” – Tom Kleffman
24. “People are never ‘dying.’ They live and then they die. And dying is in a moment.” – Mike DeStefano
25. “The are of dying graciously is nowhere advertised, in spite of the fact that its market potential is great.” – Milton Mayer
26. “Stop worrying about the world ending today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia.” – Charles M. Schulz
27. “The worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of charades, especially if your teammates are bad guessers.” – Demetri Martin
28. “Life is like toilet paper: long and useful, but always ends at the wrong time.” – Anonymous
29. “If any of you cry at my funeral I’ll never speak to you again.” – Stan Laurel