A Beginner's Guide to Dying Quotes

“Try not to grieve. For a few years yet I will exist in memory, but don’t let these thoughts be sad ones. Think of your own life like a book. For some people I am a chapter; for others I am a paragraph or a footnote. But please think of the Simon section of your history with happiness, and move on. Your book is your own. And for goodness’ sake don’t let the thinking about an essentially happy chapter mar the rest of it – that really doesn’t make sense. My life was pretty great – so smile about it!”
― Simon Boas, A Beginner's Guide to Dying

“As the prayer goes, ‘grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
― Simon Boas, A Beginner's Guide to Dying

“It gives me a great sense of peace to think about how the world will continue after I'm gone. Children will want ice creams and people will fall head-over-heels in love and musicians will delight us and comedians will poke fun and people will tend their gardens and collect geeky things. If you can, ignore politics, consume much less news and try to stay away from social media. They all miss the big picture.....carpe that diem and keep it carped.”
― Simon Boas, A Beginner's Guide to Dying

“If I whine that my life will have been shorter than many modern people’s I am massively missing the point. I’ve existed for 46 years! It’s as churlish as winning the £92 million Euromillions jackpot and then complaining bitterly when you discover that there’s another winning ticket and you’ll only get half the money.”
― Simon Boas, A Beginner's Guide to Dying

“And lastly, these musings are personal, but they were also partly written from a selfish motive, which is to capture a tiny bit of myself for my loved ones. I imagine even people who don’t know me will get a certain sense of my character and outlook from my writing, but I like the fact that this collates a little bit of me in one place, in addition to the memories and stories. Furthermore, it’s a bit of me which - unlike the real one - can be shut at will and left in the downstairs loo.”
― Simon Boas, A Beginner's Guide to Dying

“Firstly, I’m obviously as much of a novice as you are at this dying business, and I may well be talking bollocks. I’m certainly not a psychotherapist or a palliative care specialist, or a philosopher. I suppose I’m just a reporter from the front line, who has been blessed (as I think many people are when they are close to death) with a curiously clear view of what has been and what is to come. Death is a wonderful putter-of-things-into-perspective, and I hope that some of that ability to see what’s important and what’s trivial can be shared with others who do not have weeks to live.”
― Simon Boas, A Beginner's Guide to Dying