Getting closer to death.... How fortunate that memory tha...

Getting closer to death.... How fortunate that memory that disappears with death and only consciousness remains.... Death is a window through which one observed the world, and which has been slammed shut, or lowered eyelids and sleep, or a walk from one window to another.... Death is becoming more and more simple, more and more natural.... Living is dying. To live well means to die well. Try to die well.... the whole difference between a man and an animal is that a man knows he will die, but an animal doesn't ... Death is the only place one can really go away to.... I feel death approaching nearer and nearer.

Tolstoy, Diaries, 1902-1910 (cited)