Famous Last Words/Real Life: Difference between revisions

* "Thomas... Jefferson..." John Adams. Unknown to him, Jefferson had died only a few hours before.

** "Is it the Fourth...?" Thomas Jefferson, who died on July 4, 1826

** His last words were "''Ein Kuss''" -- "a kiss" in German. He was far too sick at the end to put together a coherent sentence.

** Other sources say his last words were "I have such sweet thoughts", so it's really not known.

** [[Deadpan Snarker|"Hey boys, how's about headline for tomorrow's papers?]] [[Incredibly Lame Pun|'French]] [[Gallows Humor|Fries!"]] -- James French, a murderer, executed by electric chair.

* American stage and film actress, and party animal, [[Tallulah Bankhead]]: "Codeine... bourbon..."

* "Are you guys ready? Let's roll." -- Todd Beamer, passenger of United 93 on September 11, 2001 (these were the last words heard by someone not on the aircraft, whether or not they were in fact his last words is unknown). He died when the aircraft he and a team of others was attempting to retake was intentionally crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

* ''"In the name of Christ and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death"'' - Thomas Becket.

* "Tell my mother I did it for my country" and "Useless, useless." (upon being [[Contemplating Your Hands|shown his hands]] on his own request) -- John Wilkes Booth.

* A nicely [[Deadpan Snarker|snarky]] one from Dominique Bouhours, French [[Grammar Nazi|grammarian]] -- "I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either expression is correct." (« ''Je vais -- ou je vas -- mourir, l'un et l'autre se dit ou se disent''. »)

** According to the friends who were at his bedside, Byron's last words were "My sister -- my daughter!"

** It's fairly well established that Caesar said "Why, this is violence!" when he saw the knives coming out. What's less than certain is if he said "You too, my son?" when he saw Brutus amongsts his killers.

** He did indeed yell "Why, this is violence!" out of surprise; the Senate was only allowed to meet at places of religious significance, which coincidentally (or not) were also lawful sanctuaries. Violence at the Senate house was a grave offense.

* "I will pray to God in a language we both well understand." -- Edmund Campion, English Jesuit and Roman Catholic martyr, when told by Protestant onlookers to pray in English rather than Latin. (When asked whom he was praying for, he replied, "Yea, for Elizabeth, your queen and my queen, unto whom I wish a long quiet reign with all prosperity.") He was then hanged, cut down while still alive, his penis cut off and his entrails pulled out of his body and burned, and his body at last hacked into four parts.

* "Then, at least you can aim at the spot where I'll place my hand" ("Al menos apunten al lugar donde colocaré mi mano") -- Jose Miguel Carrera, hero of the Chilean War of Independence. As he was to be executed via firing squad, Carrera asked to giving the firing order and was turned down, so this was the alternative he came up with. His wish was granted.

* "We have a bad fire! We're burning up!" - astronaut Roger Chaffee, trapped inside the Apollo 1 spacecraft as it caught fire during a ground test.

* King Charles I of England gave a lengthy speech before being executed, finishing with "I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown; where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world." His actual last words were to the axeman, about the chopping block: "You must set it fast." ... "It might have been a little higher." and when to make the stroke "When I put out my hands this way, then." ... "Stay for the sign."

* "Don't let my little Nellie starve." -- [[Charles II]] of England, on the subject of his favourite concubine, Nell Gwynne.

** Somewhat earlier, he is said to have apologized to his courtiers -- "I regret, gentlemen, that I should be such an unconscionable long time dying."

* "Take a step forward lads, it'll be easier that way." -- Robert Erskine Childers, Irish nationalist. Before being executed by a firing squad, he took the time to shake their hands and offer them these words of advice.

* "Father... into thy hands I commend my spirit." - Jesus

* "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts and in living color, you are going to see another first -- attempted suicide." (Christine Chubbuck, news anchor, just before shooting herself in the head with a .38 on live TV)

* "OH GOD! OH-" were the final words of Kevin Cosgrove as [[Tear Jerker|he perished in the collapse of the South Tower on 9/11]]. ''And they were recorded''.

* [[Grover Cleveland]] -- "I have tried so hard to do right."

* "Absolutely ''not''!" - [[Montgomery Clift]], after his secretary asked if he wanted to watch his film ''The Misfits'', which was playing that night. He proceeded to his bedroom, where he suffered a fatal heart attack brought on by his drug problems.

* "Dammit... don't you dare ask God to help me." -- Joan Crawford, when her housekeeper began to pray aloud.

* No one knows the last words of George Armstrong Custer, as all the soldiers with him died alongside him at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But the last words he was heard to say by a survivor (a messenger he'd sent off to the rest of the regiment) are pretty good:

* "I am sorry I could not see my father." -- Leon Czolgosz, assassin of William McKinley.

* "I don't care if I live or die. Go ahead and kill me." Jeffrey Dahmer.

* Jack Daniels -- "One last drink, please." Daniels died from sepsis caused by a broken toe, a toe he'd broken trying to kick open the safe holding his whiskey recipes. (He was drunk at the time.)

* « ''Tu montreras ma tête au peuple, elle en vaut la peine'' ! » "[[Decapitation Presentation|You should show the people my head.]] It's worth the trouble!" -- Georges Jacques Danton, en route to the guillotine.

* According to Charles Darwin's daughter, his last words were "I am not in the least afraid to die." This dispels the popular myth that he recanted the theory of evolution on his deathbed.

* "I'll finally get to see [[Marilyn Monroe|Marilyn]]." Joe DiMaggio

* "Don't, don't, don't! This could hurt someone!" -- Budd Dwyer, before shooting himself on live television.

* "Executioner, strike home!" - Earl of Essex.

* "My God, what... what happened to me? ("''Was ist eigentlich mit mir geschehen?''") -- Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary (aka Sisi). As the empress was walking down a pier to board a ship a man ran into her and knocked her down. Nobody saw the sharpened file he'd stabbed her in the chest with before he ran off, and nobody saw any blood because of the tight corset she was wearing. Consequently nobody realized she was hurt until she fainted shortly after boarding the ship. She promptly died from severe internal bleeding.

* [[The Virgin Queen|Elizabeth I]] of England is alleged to have said "All my possessions for one moment of time." Shortly thereafter, she lost her voice, though she continued to linger for some days, communicating by signs. (Accounts differ, though.)

* [[Millard Fillmore]] -- "The nourishment is palatable."

* The man who embodied [[Flynning]], [[Errol Flynn]] -- "I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it."

** That's a good story, but untrue. The diaries of the royal physician later revealed that he gave King George a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine, under the impression that this would give the King a more dignified death than letting him die slowly and painfully from lung disease. George V apparently didn't agree. His actual last words were ''"God damn you."''

*** The "more dignified death" was reportedly one that would appear in the ''Times'', which had a midnight deadline, unlike those lesser plebeian newspapers that went to bed at 2 or 3 AM. The doctor nearly buggered that up too -- the clocks at Sandringham were normally set half an hour behind, so when they killed him at 11:20 Sandringham time it was 11:50 real time, or only ten minutes before the ''Times'' deadline. To his credit, George's successor Edward VIII was enraged when he found out what had happened and why, but he took his anger out on the clocks; the story was later used (without the explanation as to why he was running around furiously changing the clocks moments after his father's death) to show why he was a Bad King and not at all fit to reign.

** A joke goes that he actually was simply lying uncomfortably and was trying to say, in a rather heavy local accent, "''Mer licht hier so schlecht...''" ("It's quite uncomfortable lying here.")

* "The sadness will last forever." Vincent Van Gogh, to his brother Theo, just before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

* « ''J'en foutre, j'en foutre''... » (Fr. -- "Fuck it, fuck it") -- Griboedov, Russian classic writer and diplomat, Ambassador to Iran, as his embassy was overrun by knife-wielding religious fanatics whom we today would probably classify as terrorists.

** May instead have been -- "I knew you were going to shoot me; I should never have been taken alive. Tell Fidel that this failure does not mean the end of the revolution, that it will triumph elsewhere. Tell Aleida to forget this, remarry and be happy, and keep the children studying. Ask the soldiers to aim well."

** Upon his capture by Bolivian troops, two days before his execution, he had said, according to some of the soldiers who shot him, "Don't shoot! I am Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

** He'd asked for an orchestra to accompany the recitation, but they drew the line there.

* "''Jag är så sömnig; och jag vill försöka vila mig litet grann.'' -- I feel so sleepy; and I want to try to rest a bit." -- Gustav III of Sweden.

* Nathan Hale, Revolutionary War, before being hanged as a spy by the British: [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|"I only regret that I have but one life to give my country."]]

That we can die but once to serve our country. }}

* "Now let the Romans bring an end to all their fears, with the death of a feeble old man." - Hannibal

* « '' Bien sûr, il me pardonnera; c'est son métier.'' » ("Of course He [God] will forgive me; that's His job.") -- Heinrich Heine

* [[The Pope|Pope]] John Paul II's last words were in Polish -- "''Pozwólcie mi iść do domu Ojca.'' Let me go in to the house of the Father."

* To this day, it is argued whether William Henry Johnson, stage name "Zip the What-Is-It", one of the most famous sideshow performers in history, was an actual microcephalic ("pinhead") or just a man with an odd-shaped head. One of the major weapons in the debate is his last words, as reported by his sister (who always claimed her brother was smarter than he let on): "We sure fooled them a long time, didn't we?"

* "Yes, and I fear seriously." Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston at the Battle of Shiloh, after he nearly fainted in the saddle and an aide asked if he'd been wounded. Johnston was bleeding profusely from a bullet wound to the back of his knee that he hadn't even noticed.

* "''[[Altum Videtur|Ille faciet]]''." ("He'll do it.") -- Karl IX of Sweden about his son. Yeah, [[Magnificent Bastard|he did]].

* "No, you certainly can't." John F. Kennedy after Nellie Connally remarked [[Verbal Irony|"Mr. President, you certainly can't say Dallas doesn't love you."]]

** Kennedy's driver said that the President cried out "My God, I'm hit!" after being shot through the neck. However, none of the other four people in the car recalled hearing this, and it would seem unlikely that Kennedy would have been able to say anything after a bullet ripped through his throat.

* "Now, excuse me, I have to go." - Satoshi Kon, in an blog post.

** The actual Japanese expression is something officer workers say when they leave. It's meant to be "Excuse me for leaving the office before you" and Satoshi meant it as "Excuse me for leaving this world before you".

** Somewhat earlier he had said to his attendants: « ''Pourquoi pleurez-vous ? Avez-vous imaginé que j'étais immortel ?'' » ("Why are you weeping? Did you imagine I was immortal?")

* "Remember me not as an Italian princess, but as an Italian sister." - Princess Mafalda of Savoy, daughter of King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy, who was held prisioner in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald and died when it was bombed by the Allies.

* "I feel great." - Retired NBA legend "Pistol" Pete Maravich, seconds before his death at a pickup basketball game as a result of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect.

* « ''Pardonnez-moi, monsieur; je ne l'ai point fait exprès''. » "Forgive me, monsieur. I didn't do it on purpose..." -- Queen [[Marie Antoinette]] of France, as an apology for having stepped on her executioner Samson's foot as she walked towards the guillotine.

** Also Lord Palmerston's last words.

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

* "When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais lying in my heart." -- Mary I of England. Calais had fallen to the French during her reign after being an English possession for over 200 years.

* "I die a true Scottish woman and a true French woman." - [[Mary Queen of Scots]].

** Less well authenticated accounts attribute to him the words "Expel the Jews of the Hijaaz and Najraan from the Arabian Peninsula, and know that the most evil of people are those who took the graves of their Prophets as places of worship", and "The prayer, the prayer! And fear Allah with regard to those whom your right hands possess" as among his last words, but the words adressed to Aisha are generally accepted as the very last.

*** A note about the one that mentions Jews: First, the Jews of the Hijaaz (the relatively fertile west-coast region of the Arabian Peninsula between Yemen and the Jordan, in which Mecca and Medina are situated) and Najraan (a city, majority-Jewish at the time, on the border between the Hijaaz and Yemen) were political enemies of the Muslims, for various reasons (not least their alliance with Persia). Second, the bit about them being evil makes sense in the context of the Muslim doctrine that ''shirk''--the association of anyone with God--is, being the worst sort of [[Pride]], the highest kind of evil; to some Muslim minds, venerating the tombs/graves of the prophets and other holy people is a form of worship, and therefore ''shirk''. This quote is ''quite'' disputed; it certainly has done nothing to keep the Muslims from keeping tomb-shrines to saints and prophets, including Muhammad himself.

* A round of the trivia panel quiz show ''[[QI]]'' once dealt with last words -- specifically, the last words of Admiral Horatio Nelson. The point was raised that most [[Real Life]] last words as recorded -- particularly the exceptionally pithy ones -- are, more than likely, merely some clever thing that the person dying happened to say at some point shortly before their death, and their ''real'' last words might well have been something utterly mundane, such as "Can I have a drink of water?" or some mumbled gibberish produced by a fatally compromised brain, which would have been quickly forgotten in favour of the final pearl of wisdom.

** As famously happened to Pitt the Younger, whose actual last words "I think I could eat one of Bellamy's veal pies" are a lot less pithy than his penultimate statement "Oh, my country! How I leave my country!" Unusually, his ''actual'' last words were at least as widely reported as the ''intended'' last words.

* "Such a great artist is lost to the world!" (''Qualis artifex pereo''-- more literally, "I die as such an artist.") (Emperor Nero, before his slave kills him [[Better to Die Than Be Killed|per Nero's own orders]])

** When he was dying, a soldier arrived, and tried to save him (so he could be executed). He said "Too late! This is fidelity!" (''Sero! Haec est fides!''), apparently not understanding the situation.

* "Comrades, fire at me and aim true. Frenchmen, I protest before God and the nation against the judgement which condemns me. I call to Man, to posterity, to God. Long live France! Soldiers, aim straight for the heart!" (« ''Camarades, tirez sur moi et visez juste ! Français, je proteste devant Dieu et la patrie contre le jugement qui me condamne. J'en appelle aux hommes, à la postérité, à Dieu. Vive la France ! Soldats, visez droit au cœur !'' ») Napoleon's Marshal Michel Ney who had asked (and gained) the right to direct the execution squad himself.

* “I'm going outside and I might be some time.” -- Captain Lawrence Oates, a Polar explorer who realized his severe frostbite was putting the whole team at risk. A blizzard was raging on at the time.

* Peter the Great had decided that he'd decide whom to leave his position to immediately before he died, allowing him to make a well-informed decision. Naturally, his last words were "I leave everything to..."

* William Pitt the ''Elder'''s last words are sometimes given as "If we must fall, then ''let us fall like men!''" (while giving a speech in the House of Lords about the possibility of Great Britain being invaded by the French during the American Revolutionary War). However, though he collapsed immediately after this, he didn't actually die until some days later.

* "Good-bye, boys; I die a true American." -- William "Bill the Butcher" Poole, both the real life version of him and the fictionalized one from ''[[Gangs of New York]]''.

* "Vi faccio vedere come muore un Italiano!" ("I'll show you how an Italian dies!") -- Fabrizio Quattrocchi on being executed by Iraqi terrorists.

* As mentioned in ''[[Looking for Alaska]]'', François Rabelais's last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." Rabelais is said to have continued, "Let the curtain fall; the comedy has been played." (« ''Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-être; tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée''. »)

* Madame Marie-Jeanne Roland -- Just before she was guillotined, she remarked to the image of Liberty in the ''Place de la Révolution'', "O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!" (« ''O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom !'' »)

* "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." -- President Franklin D. Roosevelt, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.

* "It's good." -- Spoken by the 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki, a casualty of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima famous for folding 1,000 paper cranes, on tasting her last meal, tea on rice.

* Patrick Sarsfield, Irish leader. After losing the Williamite war, he became one of many Irish mercenaries ("Wild Geese") and died at the 1693 Battle of Landen (part of the Nine Years' War). Supposedly, he cried out "Oh, that this were for Ireland!"

* "Roger, go at throttle up." - Space Shuttle Challenger Commander Dick Scobee, the last communication from the shuttle before its break up during launch. Spoken to confirm the move to full power.

** "Uh oh." - Challenger's Pilot Michael J. Smith, the last statement captured by the crew cabin recorder.

* Union Major General [[Sedgwick Speech|John Sedgwick]] at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House said to his troops, "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." and then "All right, my man; go to your place." He was responding to a soldier saying he would rather duck from enemy fire then face it head on. His last words are frequently and famously misquoted to imply that he was shot in the middle of saying "distance".

* The case of Nazi journalist Julius Streicher is quite interesting. According to Kingsbury Smith, as he was being brought to the scaffold at Nuremberg, he exclaimed "Heil Hitler!" and then "Purim Fest 1946". When actually asked if he had anything to say, he stated "The Bolsheviks shall hang you all one day". Then, before the fell to his death, he's reported to have said: "Adele, my dear wife...".

* "Please, let me keep working!" - [[Osamu Tezuka]], to the nurse taking his sketchpad

* "Now comes good sailing. Moose... Indian..." [[Henry David Thoreau]]

* --''De acuerdo, entonces, lo diré: Dante me hace enfermar.''-- ("All right then, I'll say it: Dante makes me sick.") -- Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio, Spanish poet and playwright

* Roman Emperor Vespasian's dying [[Deadpan Snarker|snark]] -- "Oh, ''dammit'' -- I think I'm becoming a god." (''Ut puto, deus fio.'')

* "Now, my good friend. This is not the time to be making enemies..." -- Voltaire on his deathbed, just after having been asked by a priest if he would renounce the devil.

** His actual last words were « ''Maman Denis'' »

* "I am just going. Have me decently buried and do not let my body be into a vault in less than two days after I am dead. Do you understand me? 'Tis well. I die hard, but I am not afraid to go." -- [[George Washington]], first President of the United States (he had a fear of being buried alive)

** To put this in context, Oscar Wilde died of cerebral meningitis which caused delusions. That and he may have just really hated the wallpaper.

* "The battle is at its height; do not announce my death..." (나의 죽음을 알리지 마라, ''Naui jugeumeul allijimara'') -- Admiral Yi Sun-Sin, Korea's greatest military hero, at the Battle of Noryang. His nephew Yi Wan, one of the two witnesses of his death, obeyed this last command and disguised himself in Sun-Sin's armor so that his men would not be demoralized.

* "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" -- Final radio transmission of volcanologist David A. Johnston, just before being killed by the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980.

* "Capitalism. Downfall." -- Christopher Hitchens.