Who Wants to Live Forever?/Quotes

Who wants to live forever?
Who wants to live forever?
Who dares to love forever,
When love must die?

—Queen, "Who Wants To Live Forever"

Kyle: Alright, dude. Let's just say you're not crazy and it's true. What's the big deal? I mean, I think it'll be pretty cool not to die...
Mysterion: PRETTY COOL?! Do you know what it feels like to be stabbed? To be shot? Decapitated?! Torn apart?! Burned?! Run over?! It's not pretty cool, Kyle. IT FUCKING HURTS. And it won't go away and no one will believe me! Remember this time! JUST TRY TO FUCKING REMEMBER!!! (shoots himself in front of his friends)

—South Park

Oh I've lived to see some amazing things Elly. Another century come to pass, but I've... I've had to see my friends and loved ones die off through the years... Hal and Melinda... Brutus Howell... my wife... my boy. And you Elaine... you'll die too, and my curse is knowing that I'll be there to see it. It's my atonement you see; it's my punishment, for letting John Coffey ride the lightning; for killing a miracle of God. You'll be gone like all the others. I'll have to stay. Oh, I'll die eventually, that I'm sure. I have no illusions of immortality, but I will have wished for death... long before death finds me. In truth, I wish for it already.

—Paul Edgecomb, The Green Mile

You wither and decay. You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of my life with you. That's the curse of the Time Lords.

—The Doctor, Doctor Who

Scamper: You want to be trapped in an endless existential nightmare - forced to keep living even though life is meaningless and nothing matters?
Brain: Possibly. Tt... What exactly did you say?

—Igor

Death? What is Death? It is the natural state of all things. It is life that is the aberration. It is life that should be feared, for it can go by with our work undone, it can be wasted away in failure and indolence. Death is to be embraced.

—Daenyathos - "The Bullet and the Skull", Warhammer 40,000

You want to live like this? Abandoned, alone, a prisoner in a world you can see but never touch? Old and infirm as you are, I'd trade a thousand of my frozen years for your worst day.

—Mr Freeze, Batman the Animated Series.

Take a good look, Doctor. I've been like this for nearly fifty years, and I haven't aged one day. I have become what many men have dreamed of - an immortal. And yet... there hasn't been a day, an hour, a minute, I haven't thought about death. It obsesses me, even now.

—Mr Freeze('s head), Batman Beyond

Demona: You know the rules. Killing me will gain you nothing but your own death.
Macbeth: After this long a lifetime, I have no fear of that. And no desire to live in the kind of world you're creating.

—Gargoyles

People do not want immortality. They simply do not want to die [...] They want to live. They want to feel the ground beneath their feet, see the clouds overhead, love other people, be with them, and think. Nothing more. Everything that has been said beyond that is a lie.

—Ijon Tichy, Memoirs of a Space Traveller

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

—Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Garden of Proserpine

Alphonse: What is it like... to never die?
Hohenheim: What's it like? This body has its perks, but... It hurts so much to see friends die while I never get a day older.

—Fullmetal Alchemist

In a way, both Cocoon pictures consider the same dilemma that the angels struggled with in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire: Is it better to live forever as a spirit who can feel nothing, or for a finite time as a creature who can breathe and hurt and die? My answer would be: Take me to the silver city and I'll think it over for a few thousand years.

OK, what is the one thing that can never ever ever in a million years get boring? If you said "busting ghosts", tragically, you'd be wrong. Was almost through the "W"s when the bloom came off that rose. Heathcliff was defending Moonbase Wuthering Heights from the crafty poltergeist when I realised that being a being of pure intellect was... boring. It's boring. You know what I'd really like to do? Like to scratch my nose.

—Computer Cave Johnson, Portal 2

We are not among the living, and so we cannot die. But neither are we dead. For too long I've been parched with thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I've been starving to death and haven't died. I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face, nor the spray of the sea, nor the warmth of a woman's flesh.

—Hector Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean

Captain Jack Sparrow: You've seen it all, done it all, you survived. That's the trick, isn't it? To survive?
Captain Edward Teague Sparrow: It's not just about living forever, Jackie. The trick is living with yourself, forever.

—Pirates of the Caribbean

Ah, well: who wants to live forever?

—Prince Vultan, Flash Gordon

Scully: You know, most people want to live forever.
Fellig: Most people are idiots.

—The X-Files

But I am damned
if life itself is condemnation
I am immortal
thus my freedom is captivity

—Kamelot, "Across the Highlands"

The Doctor: Some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. It's not the time that matters, it's the person.
Lazarus: You're so sentimental Doctor, maybe you are older than you look.
The Doctor: I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end you just get tired. Tired of the struggle. Tried of losing everyone that matters to you. Tired of watching everything turn to dust. If you live long enough, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone.
Lazarus: That's a price worth paying.
The Doctor: Is it?

—Doctor Who, "The Lazarus Experiment"

You're both gonna die and leave me behind? No! I don't wanna be alone! If you die, I wanna die, too!

—Albedo, after finding out his friends Rubedo and Nigredo aren't immortal, Xenosaga

Sapphire Trans-Am
High beams in vain
Drive wild broncos
Down the plain
Push up to the corner
Where the turbines hiss
Someday we won't remember this.

—The Mountain Goats, "Damn These Vampires"

Time... Time flows by us like water. The ages pass until we are weary, so weary of life. Everything we create is destroyed, the lands we love are upturned. Mortal man may pass beyond this world, even if they do not know what lies there, but the elves... the elves must stay. You are about to face something, Ancanar, that may require stronger faith then you know have. Death... death is a gift. Ancanar.

—Finlome, Ancanar

Soldier: If only I could also stay young forever and ever like [France], wouldn't that be wonderful? Right, don't you think so --
His Girlfriend: Are you sure? You'd be living forever, you know. In a different tempo than everyone else, with time flowing... We'd go to Paris for work, live together...and we'd have all these children and those children would grow up... My hands would get all wrinkly and I wouldn't be able to hear your voice anymore... And then I would die. And even after me, you'd be attending a lot, lot more funerals. Can a normal human being even bear so much? And no matter how many people you fall in love with, they would always leave you behind. Wouldn't you always be alone like that?

—Axis Powers Hetalia

The forbidden medicine, the Hourai Elixir, is not to be consumed by humans. With but a single taste, you will never become an adult. With a second taste, you will forget all disease and illness. With a third taste.... your soul will forever churn in torment!

—Fujiwara no Mokou, Hourai immortal, Imperishable Night

C'mon, you apes, you wanna live forever?!
Starship Troopers

(singing) They don't know what it's like to liiive... fooor... eeever... aaand fooorget who they even are...

—Marceline, Adventure Time

I've been destined to live forever, even if humanity is annihilated as a result. However, I'm able to die. To be or not to be. It makes no difference to me. My death is the only absolute liberty.

—Kaworu/Tabris, Neon Genesis Evangelion

Enemy Mook: You can't kill me! I can't be killed!
Rick: Trust me, that's not as good as it sounds.

—Rick and Morty, "Final DeSmithation"

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