It's better to burn out than to fade away.
His final words were written in his suicide note.
Oh wow.
Jobs' final words before his death were "Oh wow", repeated three times after a long last look at his family.
Bugger Bognor!
His response when his doctor told him he would soon be well and able to visit Bognor Regis again.
Buddha - Siddhattha Gautama
(circa 563 BC - circa 483 BC)
I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness.
Goodbye Kid. Hurry back.
Said to Lauren Bacall as she briefly left his bedside.
Relax - This won't hurt.
The final line of his suicide note.
Let's roll.
Overheard on an open phone line just before attempting to regain control of the hijacked Flight 93 on 9/11.
Don't die like I did.
This message was handwritten on a card by his hospital deathbed.
I hope I haven't bored you.
These were Presely's final words in public - said to the audience at the last concert before his death. The last words he said in private were "I'm going to the bathroom to read".
This is the last of earth. I am content.
Said just before his death, as he collapsed after a stroke in the US Senate.
I want nothing but death.
Said to her sister Cassandra on her deathbed.
For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages.
The last lines in his will (his spoken last words are uncertain).
My Florida water.
Said when asked if there was anything she wanted.
Nancy, I want you to know my last thoughts are of you.
Said to his wife a few hours before he died.
Just don't leave me alone.
His final words, said after being injected with the Class A drugs that killed him.
Music has been my doorway of perception and the house that I live in.
Said to his friend Gary Oldman towards the end of his life.
Hallo, the bow is up… I'm going… I'm on my back… I've gone. Oh.
From a transcription of a radio message sent as his boat was crashing.
Let not poor Nelly starve.
Said in reference to Nell Gwynne, after the stroke from which he died.
Take a step forward, lads. It will be easier that way.
An encouragement to his firing squad.
I'm bored with it all.
Spoken just before he slipped into a coma.
It is not my design to drink or sleep. My design is to make what haste I can to be gone.
His response when offered a drink by a servant.
I do not believe in my death.
Not his final words but an affirmation of his belief in his own imortality.
My God. What's happened?
Spoken in the hearing of the paparazzi who had been following her car when it crashed.
Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire. (Farewell, my friends. I go to glory.)
Said to her friends outside her hotel just before her fatal car crash.
Mehr Licht! (More light!)
Goethe asked for the window shutters be opened - his last words, made 30 minutes before his death.
On the contrary.
His response when he heard a nurse tell a visitor that he was feeling better.
I love you more.
His reply to his choreographer's shout of "I love you" to Jackson as he left a rehearsal in London, on the day he died.
I'd rather be skiing.
His response when having his last injection.
I'm shot.
Repeated twice as he was shot outside his apartment building in New York.
I told you I was ill.
The epitaph (translated from Gaelic) that he requested for his gravestone.
I believe that a life lived for music is an existence spent wonderfully, and this is what I have dedicated my life to.
A prepared statement givenn to his manager just before he died.
They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.
Said to his men who were ducking from the fire of a Confederate sniper.
I'm losing it.
Spoken to his wife who was at his bedside when he died.
Tell them I've had a wonderful life.
A message he wanted passed to friends who were due to visit him the following day, when he knew he would already have died.