Famous Last Words / Real Life

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."

— Apocryphal quote attributed to be Pancho Villa's last words

The full description is at Famous Last Words. Since this is Real Life we're talking about, spoilers probably aren't an issue. Also see this exhaustive list from Wikiquote and this list on its sister site Wikipedia.

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• "Surrender, me? Your grandmother should surrender, you fuck!" — Eduardo Abaroa, Bolivian hero of the War of the Pacific, at the Battle of Topáter in 1879. ("¿Rendirme yo? ¡Que se rinda su abuela, carajo!")
• "No comment." — Edward Abbey, after being asked if he had any last words.
• "Thomas Jefferson survives." — John Adams, second President of the United States. Unknown to him (or indeed to anyone outside Virginia), he was wrong — Jefferson had died only a few hours before — he's also on this page.
• "This is the last of Earth! I am content!" — John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage on the floor of the House of Representatives. Among those present for his passing was Abraham Lincoln, future sixteenth President of the United States.
• "See in what peace a Christian can die!" — Joseph Addison, to his stepson.
• "Batik 6321 clear for take off." — Anthonius Gunawan Agung. He was an air traffic controller in Indonesia who, during the 2018 earthquake/tsunami, stayed behind in the control tower to make sure a passenger jet carrying 148 passengers and crew took off safely. After doing so, he found the way down blocked, and jumped out of the fourth story window. He died soon after from his injuries.
• "Our destiny is to build a better future for our countries, a safe future for our children. We have to give them something better than what we inherited." — Hafez al-Assad, President of Syria, according to this.
• "Ein Kuss" ("a kiss") — Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, who by then was far too sick to be able to put together a coherent sentence.
• "Is it not meningitis?" — Louisa May Alcott. It wasn't. (It was a stroke.)
• "Tô krasistô" (Τῷ κρατίστῳ, "To the strongest") — Alexander the Great, in response to the fervent question from those around him: "To whom will the Empire go?" Civil war ensued. However, it's not universally accepted that this is what he said; some historians believe that his final fever rendered him speechless, and others believe he actually said, "To Craterus", naming a specific general of his^note Mary Renault, who did extensive research on Alexander the Great for her novels, is convinced of this. First of all, Craterus literally means "powerful"; she further believed that General Craterus was a very steady man who would have been a logical choice. She also notes that if he really did say kratisto, which can also mean "best", he may have been thinking of his child by his wife Stateira and his other wife Roxane was pregnant, so the Macedonian Assembly could elect the best one. — his other generals just conveniently misheard him.
• "You be good. See you tomorrow. I love you." — Alex, the African grey parrot whose life and work with Dr. Irene Pepperberg proved that talking birds know what they are saying and are capable of learning abstract concepts. The laboratory staff found him dead the next morning. He was thirty-one.^note African greys usually live to be about 45 or 50. His death appeared to be heart failure: "a sudden, unexpected catastrophic event associated with arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). It was either a fatal arrhythmia, heart attack, or stroke, which caused him to die suddenly with no suffering. There was no way to predict his demise. All of his tests from a recent physical examination, including his cholesterol level and aspergillus levels, had come back normal earlier that week. His death could not be connected to his current diet or his age; our veterinarian said that she has seen similar events in young (<10-year-old) birds who also were on healthful diets. Most likely, genetics or the same kind of low-level (impossible to detect in birds as yet) inflammatory disease that is related to heart disease in humans was responsible. We miss him dearly."
• "I was killed." — Last diary entry of an anonymous Union soldier killed at Cold Harbor, Virginia.
• "Okay, Warden, let's do it. I love y'all. I can taste it already. I am starting to go." — John Avalos Alba, referring to the cocktail prescribed for his execution.
• "I'm in no pain. No pain. Don't cry for me, Rahaman. I'm going to be with Allah. I made peace with God, I'm okay. Rahaman, how do I look?" — Muhammad Ali, speaking to his brother.
• "Long live Chile! Long Live the town! Long live the workers! These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason." (—Viva Chile! ¡Viva el pueblo! ¡Vivan los trabajadores! Estas son mis últimas palabras y tengo la certeza de que mi sacrificio no será en vano, tengo la certeza de que, por lo menos, será una lección moral que castigará la felonía, la cobardía y la traición.—)— Salvador Allende, President of Chile, in what's probably the longest single sentence on this page.
• "HAPPY THANKS GIVING!!!" — The last tweet from the account of Kirstie Alley before her death from colon cancer.
• "I shall return after 100 years and take my revenge." — Amakusa Shiro Tokisada, Japanese Christian Rebel Leader, pivotal player of the Shimabara Rebellion, before being beheaded.
• "My troubles are all over. And I am home." — Cleveland Amory, Caustic Critic and devout animal rights activist, quoting the final words of Anna Sewall's Black Beauty.
• "Even in Heaven, I shall work for my country. When the exclamation of Korean independence reaches the Heavens, I shall dance in delight, crying, 'Long live Korea!'." — An Jung-Geun, Korean independence activist and devout Catholic, who assassinated Hirobumi Ito, the Japanese politician who effectively annexed Korea. His wish came true 36 years later.
• "My poor Raymond, I am going ahead of you. Once again you will come in second!" (« Mon pauvre Raymond, je m’en irai donc avant toi. Encore une fois, sur ce coup là, tu vas faire deux ! »)— Jacques Anquetil, five-time Tour de France champion, to his longtime competitor Raymond Poulidor.
• « Pardonnez-moi, monsieur; je ne l'ai point fait exprès. » ("Forgive me, sir, I didn't do it on purpose.") — Queen Marie-Antoinette of France, as an apology for having stepped on her executioner Sanson's foot as she walked towards the guillotine.
• "Well, gentlemen, you are about to see a baked Appel!" — George Appel, Jewish-American gangster, executed in electric chair.
• "Mē mou tous kyklous taratte!" (Μή μου τοὺς κύκλους τάραττε, "Do not disturb my circles!") — Archimedes, to a Roman soldier who interrupted him as he was working. The solider mistakenly thought the old man was messing with his head and stabbed him to death. General Marcellus, the leader of the Roman attack on Syracuse, is said to have been enraged, as he considered capturing Archimedes alive one of his top priorities.
• "I love you too, honey. Good luck with your show." — Desi Arnaz, speaking on the phone with his ex-wife Lucille Ball regarding her latest series Life with Lucy
• "Tell the people that homosexuals are not by definition weak." — Willem Arondeus, openly gay man and anti-Nazi resistor, executed for blowing up the Amsterdam public records office to prevent the Nazis from using it to identify Dutch Jews
• "Acta est fabula, plaudite!" ("The play is finished, applaud!") — Augustus, Emperor of Rome.
• "I want nothing but death." Jane Austen, when her sister asked if she wanted anything. She was suffering great pain from what was likely Hodgkins' lymphoma.
• "I don’t know where animators go when they die, but I guess there must be a lot of them. They could probably use a good director though." — Tex Avery
• "Nothing can stop us!" — Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and Trump supporter, just before being fatally shot while storming the United States Capitol by an officer who assumed concealed carry.
• "Don't cry for me, for I go where music is born." ("Weine nicht für mich, denn ich gehe dahin, wo Musik geboren wird.") — Johann Sebastian Bach
• "Oh God, here I go." — Max Baer Sr.
• "Oh, you young people act like old men. You are no fun." — Josephine Baker
• "Codeine... bourbon... " — Tallulah Bankhead, American stage and film actress and party animal. Some accounts say that this was in response to her nurse asking her if she wanted anything.
• "Now let the Romans bring an end to all their fears, with the death of a feeble old man." — Hannibal Barca
• "I'm glad to sit on the back row, for I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty." — Alben Barkley, who served in both houses of the US Congress before becoming Vice President under Harry S. Truman, ended his speech at the 1956 Washington and Lee Mock Convention^note a simulated Presidential nominating convention that the Virginia university of that name has held since 1908 with these words. He collapsed and died from a heart attack seconds later.^BackgroundAfter having served in the Senate for 22 years before becoming Truman's VP, he was re-elected to the Senate in 1954. Barkley turned down an offer to be seated with other senior Senators, choosing to sit on the back row of the chamber with freshman Senators. He threw in an allusion to Psalm 84:10 as his very last words.
• "I can't sleep." — J.M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, when his nurse said he should try to get some sleep.
• "Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I'm happy!" — Ethel Barrymore, American stage and film actress, after suffering a heart attack less than two months before her 80th birthday.
• "Let me go, let me go!" — Clara Barton, school teacher, nurse, medical innovator, and founder of the American Red Cross. She died of tuberculosis at 91.
• "Now we can cross the Shifting Sands." — L. Frank Baum, creator of the Land of Oz books. The Shifting Sands refer to the enchanted desert that cut Munchkinland off from the rest of the world.
• "Are you guys ready? Let's roll." — Todd Beamer, passenger on United 93 on September 11, 2001. The plane crashed short of its target, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and it's believed he and his fellow passengers stormed the cockpit and forced the terrorists to crash; we can't know exactly how they did it or what happened, but Vice President Dick Cheney said he thought "an act of heroism just took place on that plane." It's not known if these were actually Beamer's last words, but they're the last words of his picked up by the aircraft's recorders.
• "In the name of Christ and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death." — Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, on his assassination in 1170 by four knights of Henry II in response to a particularly deadly Rhetorical Question Blunder.
• « De grâce, monsieur le bourreau, encore un petit moment ! » ("Please, Mr. Executioner, just one more minute!") — Jeanne Bécu, Countess du Barry, former mistress of King Louis XV, on her execution during The French Revolution. It is said that her terrified pleading so upset the crowd that much support and enthusiasm behind the Great Terror was lost, and executions petered out shortly afterward.
• "Now comes the mystery!" — Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe; a "rock star" preacher, social reformer, and notoriously scandalous ladies' man.
• "Applaudite, amici, la commedia è finita." ("Applaud, friends, the comedy is over.") — Ludwig van Beethoven, referencing Augustus.
• "How did the Mets do today?" — Morris (Moe) Berg (They won! They beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7–6.)
• "No..." — Alexander Graham Bell, in sign language, in response to his deaf wife pleading, "Please, Don't Leave Me". He died soon after.
• "Fuck you, motherfucker." — Richard Belzer, age 78. No one is sure who he was addressing, even his friend Bill Scheft, who just said he had "lots of health issues" and that those were his last words.
• "Don't turn on the light." — Osama bin Laden, shortly after midnight on May 1, 2011, after the noise of the SEAL team that would shoot him had awakened the residents of his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The source for that quote is the book Manhunt by James Swanson. Al Jazeera's account of the raid has them as "No! No!" in response to seeing his wife Sadah pulling a Taking the Bullet.
• "Sunday." Last written word, dated January 13, 2008, in the Apocalyptic Log diary of Linda Bishop, the "Homeless Angel" tour guide at Ground Zero of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. After her release from a New Hampshire mental institution in late 2007, she took shelter in a vacated farmhouse near Concord to prove she could live independently, existing on apples from the orchard and melting snow for water, in one of the most brutally cold winters on record. She decided to ask neighbors for help but was too weak to walk there. She eventually starved to death.
• "For the sake of decency, gentlemen, do not hang me high." — Mary Blandy before she was hanged for poisoning her father. She was concerned that, if she was hung too high, men would be able to look up her dress.
• « Vive la France ! » ("Long Live France!") — Marc Bloch, French historian and La Résistance leader during the German occupation, right before being shot to death by an execution squad.
• "Bye, kid. Hurry back." — Humphrey Bogart, to his wife Lauren Bacall. When she did get back, he was unconscious. He's more associated with the apocryphal line, "I should never have switched from scotch to martinis."
• « France, armée, tête d'armée, Joséphine. » ("France, army, head of the army, Joséphine.") — Napoléon Bonaparte. Joséphine de Beauharnais was Napoleon's wife, who had died seven years earlier.
• "¿Quién es?! ¿Quién es?!" ("Who is it?! Who is it?!") — William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, who was shot not in a Showdown at High Noon, but in the dark in an ambush. He wanted to know who shot him, if only because he had a lot of enemies by then. (It was Sheriff Pat Garrett.)
• "Useless, useless..." — John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln, who was shot to death at the end of a manhunt when his pursuers tried to smoke him out of a barn where he was hiding. He asked to be shown his hands. He had previously said, "Tell my mother I did it for my country."
• "It broke me, man, but we need to do that for them. People deserve abundant life, special moments. They've been through hell battling disease. If we were able to ease their suffering and bring joy for a moment, and hopefully moments (as) he goes through the bags, then we made a difference in his life." — Chadwick Boseman, in a text he sent to a producer after sending a personalized message to a Make A Wish fan.
• "How do you expect me to make a living?" — Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor who had his cart confiscated by the authorities and proceeded to set himself on fire in front of the governor's office in protest. His death became the lynchpin for The Arab Spring protests which brought down several authoritarian regimes in the Arab world but escalated into bloody and long civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.
• "The life of human beings is very short. We are all going to die. Why should we cling so much to power?" — Mohamed Boudiaf, Chairman of the High Council of Algeria, immediately before being assassinated.
• « Je vais — ou je vas — mourir, l'un et l'autre se dit ou se disent. » ("I am about to — or I am going to — die; either expression is correct.") — Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian, with a delightfully snarky last sentence.
• "It has been my doorway of perception and the house that I live in." — David Bowie. While it's not clear these were his official last words, this is the last sentiment we heard from David, spoken through his friend after his death.
• "It is no shame to stand upon the scaffold. This is nothing but political revenge. I have served my Fatherland as others before me—" — Dr. Karl Brandt, German physician, Schutzstaffel (SS) officer in Nazi Germany, and the Nazi war criminal who administered the Aktion T4 euthanasia programs. His speech was cut short when the black hood given to all hanged criminals was placed over his head.
• "Moth... moth..." — Laura Bridgman, the first deaf-blind person to receive an education^note Several other deaf-blind people had learned to communicate before Laura, but she was the first to have a detailed education, probably high school equivalency, spelled this over and over on her deathbed. Her friend Sarah Smith spelled back "Mother?" and she nodded and relaxed. She died three hours later. Her mom was actually still alive, but very elderly and just couldn't be there. Her sisters Collina and Nelly were there.
• "Push on, brave York Volunteers!", or possibly "Push on, don't mind me!" or "Surgite!" — Sir Isaac Brock, Canadian war hero, after being mortally wounded in the War of 1812. Then again, it's not certain that he said anything. In any event, "Surgite" ("Push on" in Latin) became the motto of Brock University.
• "Courage, Charlotte! Courage!" — Anne Brontë, youngest sister of Charlotte, dying of tuberculosis in a hotel room in Scarborough. She is buried there, within sight of her beloved North Sea.
• "In all my life I have done nothing either great or good." — Branwell Bronte, brother of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. History has proven him wrong; his writing is finally becoming recognized for its own merit. (Look up #TeamBranwell on Twitter)
• "Oh, I am not going to die, am I? He will not separate us. We have been so happy!" — Charlotte Brontë to her husband Rev. Arthur Bell Nichols. She and her unborn child died of severe morning sickness a few minutes later.
• "If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now!" — Emily Brontë, who had resisted doctors or any form of medical treatment during her last illness.
• "I'm going away tonight." — James Brown
• "I, John Brown, am now quite convinced that the crimes of this guilty land can only be washed away with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done." — Fervent white abolitionist John Brown, in a note he slipped to his jailer on his way to be hung for inciting a slave rebellion. His actual last words are traditionally held to be "This is a beautiful country."
• "Whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that at least I meant well for my country." — James Buchanan, the worst President of his century.
• "Jim and Fred, I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends." — Ted Bundy to his lawyer and the minister at his execution.
• "I'm the problem." — David Burke, to the pilots of Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, before shooting them and killing everyone aboard the plane, including himself.
• "Beam me up." — Gary Burris, who was executed in 1996 for robbing and murdering a taxi driver in 1980. Notably, unlike Robert Alton Harris below, Burris got his choice of quote right.
• "I love you too." — George H. W. Bush, forty-first President of the United States, to his son George W. Bush, the forty-third President.
• "Now I shall go to sleep. Good night." — Lord Byron, who is alternatively credited with the line, "My sister— my wife— my daughter! You must say all. You know my wishes." The latter is from the account of his friends at his bedside, who claim there were his last coherent words.

C-D

• Julius Caesar's last words are disputed:
  • It's pretty well established that he said "Ista quidem vis est!" ("Why, this is violence!") when Metellus Cimber grabbed at his toga — the Senate was supposed to be a place of calm and orderly debate and violence of any sort was very much frowned upon. What's less certain is whether or not he said anything else after that.
  • The best-known version is that he said "Καὶ σύ, τέκνον" (Kai su, teknon? Gr. "You too, my child?"), addressed to Brutus. However, this only appears as an "Other people say..." addendum in the histories, and is likely untrue. Suetonius says he said nothing and simply died, while Plutarch states that he yelled "Casca, what the hell are you doing?" after Servilius Casca barely missed a thrust at his neck.
  • It is also possible that "You too, my child?" was meant not as a question, but as an abbreviation of a Greek proverb: "You too, my child, shall have a taste of power." Instead of expressing betrayal, Caesar was predicting that Brutus, too, would be destroyed by power.
• "Adhuc vivo...!" ("I still live!") — attributed to Caligula, as he was stabbed to death.
• "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 for whom he was praying, 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, his entrails pulled out of his body and burned, and his body at last hacked into four parts.
• "Al menos apunten al lugar donde colocaré mi mano." ("Then at least aim at the spot where I'll place my hand.") — Jose Miguel Carrera, hero of the Chilean War of Independence. Carrera had asked to give the order to the firing squad that was about to shoot him, but they turned him down, so he said this.
• "I just wish I had time for one more bowl of chili." — Kit Carson
• "Yo Kanye let’s talk… man to man" —Final tweet of Aaron Carter, two days before he was found dead in his bathtub.
• "Doro, I'm thirsty... Doro, they hurt me again... Doro, I can't get my breath." Enrico Caruso, legendary opera tenor, to his wife Dorothy Benjamin. Doctors have speculated on Caruso's final illness for decades; his son eventually revealed in his book Enrico Caruso, My Father and My Family that it was kidney failure caused by an onstage injury.
• "I think I'll sleep now." — George Washington Carver, a son of slaves who went on to discover many uses for the peanut.
• "Trăiască Republica Socialistă România, liberă și independentă!" ("Long live the Socialist Republic of Romania, free and independent!") — Nicolae Ceauşescu, longtime dictator of Romania, at his execution shortly after his summary trial in 1989. His wife Elena was executed as well; her last words were supposedly, "Can it be that the firing squad is still in use in Romania?" (It was, those weren't. Her actual last words before being shot were "You sons of cunts!", or "Nenorocitilor!" in the original Romanian.)
• "We have a bad fire! We're burning up!"^*Or maybe "Open 'er up!" — astronaut Roger Chaffee, trapped inside the Apollo 1 spacecraft as it caught fire during a ground test.
• "I love you all. Forgive me." — Lon Chaney, speaking to his family in sign language, as he'd lost his voice to bronchial cancer.
• "Why not? After all, it belongs to Him." — Charlie Chaplin on his soul.
• « Putain, vous êtes vraiment cons. » ("Fuck, you really are morons.") — attributed to Stéphane Charbonnier, a.k.a. Charb, editor-in-chief of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as he was executed by terrorists. His friend, Charlie Hebdo artist Cabu, opted for another form of last words.
• "I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown; where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world." — King Charles I of England, at the end of a lengthy speech before his execution. 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 mistress, Nell Gwynne.^note She didn't, as Charles's successor James II gave her a pension and paid for her house. However, she died young of syphilis a little over two years after Charles. Somewhat earlier, he is said to have apologized to his courtiers: "I regret, gentlemen, that I should be such an unconscionable long time dying."
• "No quiero morir. No me dejen morir." ("I don't want to die. Please, don't let me die.") — Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela.
• "Arriba — siempre arriba." ("Higher — ever higher.") — Jorge Chavez, a Franco-Peruvian who was the first man to fly over the Alps, and suffered mortal injuries while trying to land on that flight. This phrase is the motto of the Peruvian Air Force.
• "It has been a long time since I tasted champagne." — Anton Chekhov. He was dying of tuberculosis, and the doctor gave him a sip of champagne in an effort to help him breathe.
• "The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness, and everyone must choose his side." — G. K. Chesterton, on the eve of World War II. His actual last words were "Hello, my dear," to his secretary Dorothy Collins, who had just entered the room.
• "Take a step forward lads, it'll be easier that way." — Robert Erskine Childers, Irish nationalist, who before being executed by a firing squad, took the time to shake their hands and offer them these words of advice.
• "Now is my final agony. No more." — Frederick Chopin
• "In keeping with the WXLT practice of presenting the most immediate and complete reports of local blood and guts news, TV 40 presents what is believed to be a television first. In living color, an exclusive coverage of an attempted suicide." — Christine Chubbuck, news anchor, just before shooting herself in the head on live television. Chubbuck had previously been struggling with depression, brought about by issues with her social life and possible inability to have children due to a recent ovary surgery. This was further compounded by her frustrations with her channel preferring more "blood and gore" stories, as indicated by her last words above.
• "I'm bored with it all." — Winston Churchill
• "Goodbye. If we meet..." — Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, to his daughter Clara.
• "Mama, mama, mama." Susy Clemens, Mark Twain's daughter, as she was dying of spinal meningitis. She had gone blind and mistook the maid, Katy Leary, for her mother, who was on her way back from Europe and didn't make it until three days after Susy's death.^note Livy Clemens could only say, "I was not with her. I can never forgive myself this desertion." Susy spent most of her illness sitting at her desk writing an incredible forty-seven-page prose poem of religious idealism and artistic sensibility in an almost Patti Smith-like outpouring. Much of it is addressed to Maria Malibran, a long-dead opera singer whom Susy as a vocal student had taken as a kind of patron saint and who died at the age of 28, only four years older than Susy:
  Tell her to say God bless the shadows as I bless the light... in me darkness must remain from everlasting to everlasting... Yes, tell her to say she trusts you child of great darkness and light to me who can keep the darkness universal and free from sensual taint and lead her on to strength and power and peace.
• "I have tried so hard to do right." — Grover Cleveland, twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the United States.
• "Absolutely not!" — Montgomery Clift, after his nurse asked if he wanted to watch his film The Misfits, which was playing on television. He suffered a fatal heart attack brought on by his drug problems that night.
• "...it's better to burn out than to fade away." — last sentence of Kurt Cobain's suicide note, a quote from Neil Young's "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)". Young, who had been trying to contact Cobain to counsel him about drugs and performance burnout, later said he felt Cobain's note with his lyric "fucked" with him on a deep level.
• "Wow! That is great. That is awesome! Thank you, warden! Thank you, fucking warden!" — Richard Cobb as he was being drugged to death for murder.
• "Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking towards me, without hurrying." (« Depuis le jour de ma naissance, ma mort a commencé sa marche. Elle marche vers moi, sans se presser. ») — Jean Cocteau
• "Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbor making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys." — Vince Coleman, train dispatcher at Richmond, Nova Scotia, just before the Halifax Explosion. He and a co-worker actually left the station, but Coleman turned back to send more warning messages to stop inbound trains. They did stop in time.
• "No reprisals, lads." — attributed to Michael Collins, head of the Irish Free State Army, after having been shot by a sniper in the Irish Civil War.
• "Yes— go Raiders!" — Convicted killer and sports fan Robert Charles Comer, having been asked for his last words. Comer was referring to the Las Vegas Raiders.
• "Hê Polis alisketai kai egô zô eti." (Ἡ Πόλις ἁλίσκεται καὶ ἐγὼ ζῶ ἔτι, "The City is fallen, but I am alive.") — Constantine XI Palaeologous, the last emperor of the Byzantine Empire. He then tore the Imperial insignia from his armor and charged into the fray. His body was never identified, and he was in all likelihood buried in a mass grave along with his men. So ended the last Emperor of Rome.
• "Happy Halloween! The bats are out at Wayne Manor." — Final tweet of voice actor Kevin Conroy (voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman: The Animated Series, the DCAU and the Batman: Arkham Series, among others), before passing away in November 2022 of intestinal cancer.
• "Have a good life, son. Cor. I know I have. It was fantastic." — the father of stand-up comic Jason Cook, whose subsequent show and tour was named "Joy" and dedicated to his late father in honour of those last words.
• "I feel I no longer fit in with these times." — 30th U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. This was two months after his ill-fated successor, Herbert Hoover, had been swept out of the White House by FDR. Shortly after, Silent Cal dropped dead from a heart attack, aged 60
• "Thanks, love." — Tommy Cooper, to a woman helping him with his costume, seconds before dying of a heart attack on live television.
• "I am guilty. My sentence is just: I deserve my fate. And may God have mercy on my soul." — William Corder acknowledging his guilt at the gallows.
• "More weight." — Giles Corey, being tried by crushing ordeal for witchcraft in Salem, when asked if he would confess to his "crime". He wasn't just doing this to be badass; he knew that if he died under interrogation, he was still legally a Christian and his sons could inherit his property. Confessing would spare his life, but he would no longer be considered a Christian and his property would be forfeit. Denying the charges would result in his conviction and execution, as the trials were flagrantly rigged, and again his property would be forfeit. So, by refusing to enter any plea at all, he saved his family from poverty and earned a Dying Moment of Awesome.
• "We're overlooking the financial center. Three of us. Two broken windows. OH GOD! OH—" — Kevin Cosgrove, who died in the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 — notable only in the sense that they were recorded.
• "That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted." — Lou Costello. He may have said this earlier in the day, and his real last words may have been "I think I'll be more comfortable," asking his nurse to help him turn in bed, just before he died.
• "Oh, if I could live four weeks longer! But no matter, no matter!" Dinah Mary Mulock Craik wanted to be there for her daughter's wedding. Author of The Little Lame Prince and His Traveling Cloak and numerous fairytales; in her lifetime best known for John Halifax, Gentleman and essays on childhood, literature, and folklore.
• "Dammit... don't you dare ask God to help me." — Joan Crawford, when her housekeeper began to pray aloud.
• "Father, it is no use to depend upon me; I am going to die." — Crazy Horse, the great Lakotah warrior and holy man, one of those who led the fight against the 7th Cavalry at the Greasy Grass in the Battle of Little Big Horn. He had thought he was surrendering in good faith, then realized they were going to imprison him and was stabbed as he tried to escape.
• "That was a great game of golf, fellers." — Bing Crosby to his golfing buddies just before suffering a fatal heart attack.
• "I heard the place is overrated....cloudy" — David Crosby's last tweet, responding to a joke by Craig McKeown about who gets to go to heaven.
• "It is the time for your move to begin // I have not need to prolong the game // It has been a good game that must be ended at the // I will play this game when I choose I will resign the game 11 20 40 There is no reason for harmful" — Final entry in the logbook of yacht captain Donald Crowhurst, who disappeared while participating in the world's first round-the-world Yacht race. After falling behind early in the race due to mechanical problems with his boat, Crowhurst chose to cheat by fabricating reports of his location, hoping that he would still be able to gain some publicity by falsely "finishing" the race. However, he was shocked to discover his false reporting actually put him in position to "win". It is believed he committed suicide by jumping overboard upon realizing that "winning" the race would subject him to a high degree of scrutiny and his false reporting would almost certainly be exposed. One week after the date of his final log entry, Crowhurt's boat was found without him on it.
• "I want to be left in peace." Marie Skłodowska Curie, Polish-French physicist, discoverer of radium, which killed her. She died of aplastic pernicious anemia. She was 67, and her doctor was surprised she'd lived that long. She and her husband Pierre had never really used the protective measures they impressed upon others. To this day you have to wear protective gear just to look at their notebooks.
• "Hurrah boys, we've got them! We'll finish them up and then go home to our station." — the last words George Armstrong Custer was heard to say, by a messenger he was sending off, before Custer and all of the other soldiers with him died at the Battle of Little Big Horn. His actual last words are unknown, but the old joke goes that they were "Where the hell did all those goddamn Indians come from?!"
• “They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but to die. I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do." — Adam Czerniaków, Polish senator who was made part of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Council or Judenrat. Initially told by the SS that all of Warsaw's Jews were to be "resettled" to the East, he realized that they were really being sent to death camps. After Adam's pleas to spare orphans that were to be sent to the camps fell on deaf ears, he would commit suicide in horror at what he had been apart of.
• "I am sorry I could not see my father." — Leon Czolgosz, assassin of William McKinley.
• "You know, I'm not frightened. It's just that I will miss you all so much." — acclaimed writer Roald Dahl. Or at least it should have been; after he said this, he appeared to fall unconscious, and it was decided to give him a lethal dose of morphine to ease his passing. But when the nurse injected him, he opened his eyes and muttered, "Ow, fuck!" And those were his last words.
• "I don't care if I live or die. Go ahead and kill me." — Jeffrey Dahmer, notorious Serial Killer, to his fellow prison inmates who killed him.
• « La journée sera rude. » ("The day will be hard") — Robert-François Damiens, before his execution for attempting to assassinate King Louis XV of France. The execution involved torture with red hot pincers, molten lead, and having his limbs torn off with horses, and burning his still living torso at the stake.
• "If everything goes well, I'll be out in a couple months. If not, a couple minutes." — Rodney Dangerfield before being wheeled in for the heart surgery he didn't survive.
• "One last drink, please." — Jack Daniels, who incidentally died from sepsis caused by a broken toe, which 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 ! » ("You should show the people my head. It's worth the trouble!") — Georges Jacques Danton, en route to the guillotine. Danton had a famously large and ugly face.
• "Too late now." — Henry Darger, speaking to a friend who told him, "Henry, your paintings are beautiful." He had just seen some of Henry's illustrations for his massive fantasy novel In the Realms of the Unreal which he had given to his landlord, fellow artist Nathan Lerner, upon moving to a nursing home.
  Not much Life History^note he means writing on his autobiography, "History Of My Life" until October, when I had an eye operation in the left one because of a serious infection, and was in bed at home until a little before Christmas. I Couldn't dare go out because of an eye covering for protection placed by the doctor. I had a very poor nothing-like Christmas. Never had a good Christmas all my life, nor a good New Year, and now resenting it. I am very bitter, but fortunately, not revengeful though I feel I should be. Now I am walking the streets again going to mass as usual. What will it be for me for New Years 1972, God only [k]nows. This year was a very bad one, hope not to repeat it for— Darger's last diary entry.
• "This is a final stroke of misfortune; that I should accept a service from you and not be able to return it. But Alexander will reward you for your kindness and the gods will repay him for his courtesy towards my mother and my wife and my children." — Darius III of Persia, Worthy Opponent of Alexander the Great (also on this page), after one of Alexander's men had given him a last drink of water.
• "I am not in the least afraid to die." — Charles Darwin, according to his daughter, dispelling the popular myth that he recanted the theory of evolution on his deathbed.
• "I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have." — Leonardo da Vinci
• ""Well, first of all I'd like to address the MacPhail family. I'd like to let you all know, despite the situation...I know all of you are still convinced that I'm the person that killed your father, your son and your brother, but I am innocent. The incident that happened that night was not my fault. I did not have a gun that night. I did not shoot your family member. But I am so sorry for your loss. I really am ... sincerely. All I can ask is that each of you look deeper into this case, so that you really will finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends that you all continue to pray, that you all continue to forgive. Continue to fight this fight. For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on all of your souls. God bless you all." — Troy Davis, whose conviction for murdering police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989 remains extremely controversial.
• "I feel a pain right here." — French WWII General, and later President, Charles de Gaulle, suffering a brain aneurysm less than two weeks before his 80th birthday. Remarkably similar circumstances, right down to the last words, as FDR 25 years before (further down this page).
• « Enfants de la Patrie, vous vengerez ma mort! » ("Children of the Fatherland, you will avenge my death!") — Olympe de Gouges, feminist and abolitionist, before her decapitation during the Terror of The French Revolution.
• "That guy's got to stop; he'll see us." - James Dean. The other driver, who was making a left turn across Dean's right of way, didn't.
• "I did not know that any man could suffer such pain!" — Stephen Decatur, U.S. naval legend, who had been shot in a duel a few hours prior.
• "Thank God! God has saved me!" — Anna Demidova, a maid in the service of the last Queen of Russia Alexandra Feodorovna and executed alongside the rest of the immediate Romanov family. Only wounded during the opening salvo, Demidova exclaiming her final words out of sheer relief would result in the executioners stabbing her to death with bayonets.
• "Miss, I got what I really went for!" — Jeremy Delle, the inspiration behind Pearl Jam's "Jeremy". He was asked to get an attendance slip from the school office for being late, then returned with a Magnum revolver and shot himself in front of the class.
• "Executioner, strike home!" — Robert Devereaux, 2nd Earl of Essex.
• "Yes, on the ground!" — Charles Dickens, as he was dying of a stroke during a walk near his home. His sister-in-law had asked if he was sick, he said he was, she said "should you lie down?" and that was his reply.
• "I must go in, for the fog is rising." — Emily Dickinson
• "Wow!" — Bo Diddley
• "I know I hurt people when I was young. I really messed up. But I know Ron DeSantis has done a lot worse. He’s taken a lot from a lot of people. I speak for all men, women and children. He’s put his foot on our necks. Ron DeSantis and other people like him can suck our dicks." — Donald Dillbeck, shortly before being executed via lethal injection for the 1990 murder of a woman in a Tallahassee mall parking lot
• "I'll finally get to see Marilyn." — Joe DiMaggio. He was one of Marilyn Monroe's husbands, and there were rumors they were going to reconcile before her death in 1962. He never remarried.
• Walt Disney simply wrote down Kurt Russell's name before his death. No one, including Russell, has any idea what it means. It is known that during the last few days of Walt's life, he was feverishly scribbling down notes about projects he wanted to pursue, particularly the Florida Project (which would later become Walt Disney World). Kurt Russell was a child actor signed to Walt's studio at the time, so it's probable Walt was thinking of some future film for which Russell would have been perfect.
• "No, it is better not. She will only ask me to take a message to Albert." — Benjamin Disraeli, when asked if he wished to receive Queen Victoria at his deathbed.
• "I was once asked by somebody - I don't remember who - if there was any way sex offenders could be stopped. I said, 'No.' I was wrong. I was wrong when I said there was no hope, no peace. There is hope. There is peace. I found both in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Look to the Lord, and you will find peace." — Serial killer and child molester Westley Allan Dodd, before he went through the trapdoor with a rope around his neck.
• "You are wonderful." — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to his wife.
• "Remember, the death penalty is murder." — Robert Drew, critiquing his penalty for murder.
• "Do you hear the rain? Do you hear the rain?" — 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff, on the phone with her mother when the Cessna 177 Cardinal private plane she was flying in crashed on April 11, 1996, killing her, her father, and flight instructor Joe Reid. Dubroff had been attempting to be the youngest person ever to fly a plane across the United States at the time^note She has often been called the youngest "pilot", but she wasn't. You cannot be called a pilot — no matter how good you are at flying an airplane — until you have your license, and you have to be 18 for that and the media attention surrounding the event was cited as a factor in Reid's decision to take off in adverse weather conditions, which was the primary factor that caused the crash. ^note Aviators discussing this on Usenet attributed both Reid and Dubroff of having "get-there-itis", a common affliction of flying enthusiasts and even greatly experienced flyers. If you type get-there-itis into Google, one of the suggestions will be Kobe Bryant.
• "Farewell, friends, I go to love!" — dancer Isadora Duncan, just before getting in her car to go home. Her long flowing scarf got tangled in the rear wheel, pulled her out of the car, and snapped her neck.
• "Please leave the room if this will offend you. No, no! Don't, don't, don't! Stay back! This could hurt someone!" — R. Budd Dwyer, Pennsylvania State Treasurer, warning away the squeamish, then people trying to stop him just before shooting himself in front of several news crews.

E-G

• "Okay, just wondering." — Dale Earnhardt Sr., NASCAR legend, in his final known radio communication (with his Rolex 24 teammate Andy Pilgrim) during the 2001 Daytona 500. He was killed in a crash on the final lap of the race.
• "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait... We are running on line north and south." — Amelia Earhart, in her last official transmission before her disappearance. Dozens of other messages from her were heard and logged after this. Dismissed as bogus at the time, about half of them have now been proven real.
• "To my friends: my work is done. Why wait?" — suicide note left by George Eastman, early photography pioneer and founder of Eastman Kodak
• Rapper Eazy-E came up with a long last official statement before he tragically died of AIDS:
  Eazy-E: I may not seem like a guy you would pick to preach a sermon. But I feel it is now time to testify because I do have folks who care about me hearing all kinds of stuff about what's up." "Yeah, I was a brother on the streets of Compton doing a lot of things most people look down on — but it did pay off. Then we started rapping about real stuff that shook up the LAPD and the FBI. But we got our message across big time, and everyone in America started paying attention to the boys in the 'hood." "Soon our anger and hope got everyone riled up. There were great rewards for me personally, like fancy cars, gorgeous women, and good living. Like real non-stop excitement. I'm not religious, but wrong or right, that's me." "I'm not saying this because I'm looking for a soft cushion wherever I'm heading, I just feel that I've got thousands and thousands of young fans that have to learn about what's real when it comes to AIDS. Like the others before me, I would like to turn my own problem into something good that will reach out to all my homeboys and their kin. Because I want to save their asses before it's too late. I'm not looking to blame anyone except myself. I have learned in the last week that this thing is real, and it doesn't discriminate. It affects everyone. My girl Tomika and I have been together for four years and we recently got married. She's good, she's kind and a wonderful mother. We have a little boy who's a year old. Before Tomika I had other women. I have seven children by six different mothers. Maybe success was too good to me. I love all my kids and always took care of them." "Now I'm in the biggest fight of my life, and it ain't easy. But I want to say much love to those who have been down to me. And thanks for your support." Just remember: "It's YOUR real time and YOUR real life".
• "So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I'll see you at the movies." — Roger Ebert, popular movie critic, in the last sentences of the final blog post before he died of cancer two days later. Ebert had lost his jaw to the cancer shortly before, rendering him unable to talk.
• "Sambayanang Pilipino, patawarin ako sa kasalanang ipinaratang ninyo sa akin. Pilipino, pinatay ng kapwa Pilipino." ("People of the Philippines, forgive me of the sin which you have accused me. A Filipino, killed by fellow Filipinos.") — Leo Echegaray, the first Filipino to be meted the death penalty after its reinstatement in the country in 1993 after 23 years. His death by lethal injection sparked controversy, leading to the suspension of the death penalty altogether in 2006.
• "It is beautiful over there...." — Thomas Edison, said as he looked toward an open window.
• "Yes, I have heard of it. I am very glad." — Edward VII, on being asked if he'd heard that his horse, Witch of the Air, had won at Kempton Park.
• "Theo. Ich habe keine Munition mehr. Ich werde diesen da rammen. Auf wiedersehen — wir sehen uns in Walhalla!" ("Theo, I'm out of ammo. I'm going to ram this one. Goodbye — we'll see each other in Valhalla!") — Heinrich Ehrler, Luftwaffe Ace Pilot, to his wingman on how he planned to take down the last of three bombers they were fighting. Ehrler had been court-martialed and sentenced to death for failing to protect the battleship Tirpitz from British bombers, but he was allowed to keep fighting for the time being due to his talent as a fighter ace. By the time he died, on April 4, 1945, Ehrler was psychologically broken and the war was basically lost.
• "Long live Germany. Long live Argentina. Long live Austria. These are the three countries with which I have been most connected and which I will not forget. I greet my wife, my family and my friends. I am ready. We'll meet again soon, as is the fate of all men. I die believing in God." — Adolf Eichmann, Nazi leader and war criminal, before being executed in 1962.
• "Citater fra—" — Albert Einstein's last written words, at the end of a paragraph on Mutually Assured Destruction in an essay he was writing. His actual last words were in German, and the only witness didn't speak the language, so no one knows what he said; scientists like to joke about whether it was crucial to his great work or something completely trivial.
• "Was ist eigentlich mit mir geschehen!?" ("What has happened to me!?") — Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, a.k.a. Sisi. Her assassin knocked her down as she was trying to board a ship, and nobody noticed at the time that he had stabbed her in the chest with a sharpened file, in part because Sisi's tight corset kept the blood down. She fainted shortly after boarding the ship and promptly died of internal bleeding.
• "All my possessions for one moment of time." — attributed (although not universally) to Elizabeth I of England, who died several days later but lost her voice after this line.
• "Your Queen is sending you to the Tower!" — Elizabeth II's lighthearted quip as quoted by Dr Iain Greenshields, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, who had a conversation with her in the days preceding her death. She also told him, regarding her faith, she had "no regrets at all".
• "Tell my family and friends I love them. Tell the governor he just lost my vote. Y'all hurry this along, I'm dying to get out of here." — Christopher Emmett before he was executed for beating a fellow construction worker to death (and stealing $100 from his wallet to buy crack cocaine). For context, the governor of Virginia at the time, Tim Kaine, refused to grant Emmett amnesty from the impending execution.
• "Then I am going!" — Eng of the Conjoined Twins Chang and Eng Bunker, better known as the "Siamese Twins." While Eng was in good health for their age (62), Chang's health had been deteriorating since he had suffered a stroke in 1870 that had partially paralyzed him. In January of 1874, after having traveled through blistering cold weather to spend the weekend at Eng's house, Chang developed difficulty breathing and later died in his sleep. When one of Eng's sons woke Eng up and informed him of such, Eng elected not to be separated from him and himself died a few hours later.
• "Hurrah for anarchy! This is the happiest moment of my life." — Notorious anarchist George Engel before he and four cohorts were hanged for setting off a bomb in Chicago that killed seven people.
• "I've never felt better." — Douglas Fairbanks Sr., after having a heart attack, just before his death.
• "Channel 5 is all shit, isn't it? Christ, the crap they put on there. It's a waste of space." — Adam Faith, British pop singer, just before succumbing to a heart attack.
• "I shall be with Christ, and that is enough." — Michael Faraday, groundbreaking scientist and inventor, answering his wife's question about what he thought he'd be doing in heaven.
• "Please, Don't Leave Me. Please don't leave me." — Chris Farley, to a hooker whom he had brought to his hotel room to do drugs with him. Farley collapsed soon after this line, but she kept on going. Farley would soon die of what turned out to be a drug overdose.
• "For nine months, Azerbaijan has targeted the Nagorno-Karabakh region and deprived more than 120,000 Armenians of critical resources including food and medicine. Our bipartisan letter calls on the State Department to sanction individuals associated with these military attacks." — last tweet of Senator Dianne Feinstein
• "It's nothing. It's nothing." — Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, upon being asked by his bodyguard if he was injured after being shot by Gavrilo Princip.
  • Also: "Sopherl! Sopherl! Sterbe nicht! Bleib' am Leben für unsere Kinder! Es ist gar nichts... es ist gar nichts..." ("Sophie! Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children! It is nothing... It is nothing...") — Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, to his wife Sophie. She did not live. (Interestingly, the other people in the car were unaware that Sophie had also been shot until after they stopped the car. Ferdinand knew, though.)
• "I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring." — Richard Feynman, quantum physicist, Nobel laureate, and bongo player, in response to being told he had two different terminal cancers. His last recorded words were him singing a silly song about orange juice.
• "God damn the whole fuckin' world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta." — W. C. Fields, speaking to his dear friend Carlotta Monti. He managed to avert last words at the very moment of his passing; in the early morning of Christmas Day 1946, a nurse came to open his window; he woke, smiled at her, put a "shh" finger to his lips, and died.
• "Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu!" ("Death to fascism, freedom to the people!") — Stjepan Filipovic, member of the Yugoslavian National Liberation Army, who shouted these words as he was about to be hanged. As a plus, he defiantly raised his arms in a mix of a Crucified Hero Shot and Communist clenched fist salute; the gesture was caught in a now very famous photo.◊
• "The nourishment is palatable." — attributed to Millard Fillmore, thirteenth President of the United States, but likely apocryphal. The line actually comes from an indirect quote in Fillmore's obituary;^note The full quote reads, "At 8 o'clock, in reply to a question by his physician, he said the nourishment was palatable; these were his last words." it's fairly likely he didn't phrase it in such a formal way.
• "If any of you have a message for the devil, tell me now, for I will be seeing him soon." — Lavinia Fisher
• "I love you." — Sean Patrick Flanagan to prosecutor Dan Seaton before his execution by lethal injection in 1989.
• "Storm ended, sea calm. God is over all." — The final entry in the logbook of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse on December 15th, 1900, made before the disappearance of the three lighthouse keepers stationed there: Thomas Marshall, James Ducat, and Donald McArthur. The lighthouse stopped working that day, and eleven days later a relief vessel found all three men missing. No trace of them was ever found, and no one is certain what happened to them. One theory is that they were swept to sea by a rogue wave while outside securing equipment during a storm (which would have been a serious breach of regulations as it would have left the lighthouse unattended). The other theory is that McArthur, who had been acting strangely and whose raincoat was found inside the lighthouse, killed the other two and himself in a Murder-Suicide.
• "Go away, you black." — George Flaxman's racist remark to his Indian executioner.
• "I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don't know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days." — British author Ian Fleming, most famous for creating the James Bond franchise, talking to his ambulance crew as they transported him to a hospital after he suffered what turned out to be a fatal heart attack.
• "Momma, I love you. I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead." — George Floyd, after repeated pleas of "I can't breathe!", as revealed in a third bodycam released of his death.
• "I've had a hell of a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed every minute of it." — Errol Flynn, the man who embodied Flynning. His drinking buddies ensured the fun would continue in the hereafter, as he was buried with six bottles of his favorite whisky.
• "You can stop now; I'm already dead." — Abigail Folger, heiress of the Folger coffee company, civil rights worker, and victim of the Manson Family, after being stabbed repeatedly.
• "'M ready to go now. You don't keep Rita Hayworth waiting." Glenn Ford, who had a decades-long affair with her since they'd made The Lady In Question in 1940.
• "See ya." — The final post of Jason David Frank, the actor from Power Rangers on Instagram before sadly dying from suicide.
• "Bernadette." — Aretha Franklin, on the phone with her friend Abdul Fakir of the Four Tops. She was mostly unconscious and just listening as he said he missed her and wanted to be by her side. Her family said she opened her eyes as she named her favorite song by that group^note the lead singer is Levi Stubbs; Fakir is the middle of the three backup singers. Fakir later said "So, to have been on her lips, the last word she said. That's more than honorable. That's precious, you know?"
• "A dying man can do nothing easily." — Benjamin Franklin to his daughter, who had suggested he lie on his side so as to breathe better in his last moments.
• « La montagne est passée, nous irons mieux. » ("The mountains are passed; now we are going better.") — Frederick the Great of Prussia, whose last words had to be in French because he despised nearly everything German.
• "Send him home, we won't be needing him." — Frederik IX of Denmark, as he was carried to a waiting ambulance after suffering a massive heart attack, to a servant responsible for answering the phone and receiving messages for the King.
• "Hey, fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? 'French Fries!'" — James French, a murderer, to members of the press the day before his execution. French had originally been sentenced to life imprisonment, but he had been Driven to Suicide while in prison; too afraid to take his own life, he convinced the state of Oklahoma to do it for him by murdering a cellmate. Unfortunately for the humorists, his actual last words before riding the lightning were a more sobering "Everything's already been said." Just before, he also warned the executioner to fry him well, saying, "I'd kill your mother, your father, or your daughter. I love to kill. So you'll be doing society one of the best jobs you ever did."
• "Das ist absurd! Das ist absurd!" — Sigmund Freud
• "Soon, Mother of mine. Mary, Mother of Grace, Mother of Kindness, protect me from the Enemy and take me in during my last hours... Jesus, Joseph and Mary... my... soul shall... expire with you...!" — Francesco Possenti, a.k.a. Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, Catholic Saint and visionary.
• "Mankind, I have loved you all. Be vigilant!" — Julius Fučík, Czech journalist, writer, communist, and resistance member before being executed by hanging by the Nazi regime on on 8 September 1943.
• "You can all kiss my ass; you'll never find the rest." — John Wayne Gacy, a.k.a. the "Killer Clown", before he was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.
• "Don't kill me, my sons!", or "What did I do to you?", depending on the source — Muammar Gaddafi, longtime dictator of Libya, as he was executed by a bunch of rebels in 2011.
• "You killed Pantera!" — Nathan Gale, accusing Dimebag Darrell right before killing him and in turn being killed on the scene by the police.
• "Dear Mother of mine, I think I'll be meeting up with Jesus soon. Please tell Him to have mercy on my humble soul!" — Saint Gemma Carolina Galgani, Catholic saint and visionary. She was staring at a small statue of the Virgin Mary in her bedroom, and her last words were directed to it.^note Gemma was not being figurative. Her perceived personal relationship with Christ borders on Squick even for many devout Catholics.
• "Don't cry, Alfred! I need all my courage to die at twenty." — mathematician Évariste Galois, to his little brother, after being shot in the stomach in a duel.
• "Namaste..." — Indira Gandhi just before her assassination.
• "Oh..." — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi after taking three bullets to the chest courtesy of Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse. He is often attributed with having said Hé Ram! (addressing the god Rama) but Godse later wrote that Gandhi didn't say that. Previously Gandhi had said he'd like those to be his last words.
• "Don't worry! Relax!" — Rajiv Gandhi just before his assassination.
• "Oh, Swaim, can't you stop this? Oh, oh, Swaim!" — James Garfield calling out to his Chief of Staff, David Swaim, just before succumbing to lingering infections he had developed after being shot two months prior.
• "I can't breathe." — Eric Garner, to a New York City police officer who arrested him for selling single cigarettes on the street. The officer had put Garner in an illegal chokehold that proved fatal; the officer was never indicted and in fact promoted to a high-paying desk job, though he was eventually fired in 2019. Garner's final words became a rallying cry for African Americans and others demanding police reform, which promptly exploded in 2020 when another African American man, George Floyd, died repeating the phrase after being pinned by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• "I'd like to thank my family for loving me and taking care of me. And the rest of the world can kiss my ass." — Johnny Frank Garrett Sr. before being drugged to death.
• "I got what I wanted... I couldn't do it myself, so I had him do it... it's good, I ran my race, there's no more left in me." — Marvin Gaye to his brother Frankie after being fatally shot by their father following a physical altercation between both. According to Frankie and their other siblings, Marvin's last words heavily implied that he intentionally coerced their father into killing him.
• "Do not wet my lips but when I open my mouth. I thank you... it does me good." — King George III
• "God damn you." — King George V of England, as revealed by his doctor's diary. The doctor, hoping to give the King a more dignified death than dying slowly and painfully from lung disease, gave him a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine.^note There's a story that the "more dignified death" meant a death that would be reported the next morning in the Times, which unlike those lesser plebian newspapers that went to bed at 2 or 3 am, had a strict midnight deadline. The doctor nearly buggered that up too — the clocks at Sandringham were normally set half an hour behind, so when he killed him, he thought it was 11:20, but it was really 11:50. This is the reason why George's successor Edward VIII, who was royally pissed off about the whole affair, set about furiously changing the clocks after his father's death; that story would later be used as evidence that he was not fit to rule (as opposed to his fascist sympathies and innate selfishness). The King evidently did not agree.
• "I should have never surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive." — Geronimo to his nephew as he died from pneumonia in a hospital.
• "George How Jig, did you get my-" — Captain Alan Gibson, pilot of the DeHavilland Comet of BOAC Flight 781. Gibson was conversing with another airliner in the area with the registration G-ALHJ (Pronounced by Gibson above as George How-Jig) when his transmission was abruptly cut off. Witnesses on the ground first reported seeing the flaming wreckage of the Comet falling only moments after this; investigation had revealed that a previously unknown structural weakness stemming from the shape of the windows had caused the plane to break up in flight. As it was, the sudden decompression would have immediately knocked Gibson and the rest of the plane's occupants out cold, sparing them the terror of falling from the sky.
• "Let's do it!" — Gary Gilmore, exercising his right to die, to the volunteer firing squad at his execution.
• "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new President is installed." — Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, through her granddaughter. Ginsburg was worried that she would be replaced by a conservative justice while Donald Trump remained in office, thus upsetting the balance of the Supreme Court, and had this statement released immediately after her passing.
• "I'd rather be fishing." — Jimmy Glass, after failing to get the electric chair deemed "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Constitution.
• "Mehr Licht!" ("More light!") — attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 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.")
• "Aw, man, look! Hey, listen, listen, listen! I don’t know- I don’t know nobody by that name!" — Robert Lee Godwin Sr, who was shot dead by Steve Stevens in a video aired on Facebook. Before this, Stevens approached Godwin and asked him to say the name of Joy Lane, a woman with whom Stevens had been dating. After Godwin did so, Stevens said, "She’s the reason why all this is about to happen to you," before drawing his gun and pulling the trigger.
• "The sadness will last forever."(« La tristesse durera toujours. ») — Vincent van Gogh, to his brother Theo, just before dying of a (maybe not so) self-inflicted gunshot wound.
• "Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Mercy! Mercy! Can’t we talk this over?" — Theo van Gogh, a Dutch film director who was the great-grandnephew to the previous entry and pleaded these words to his assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri. Bouyeri, obviously, didn’t care and killed him anyway.
• "I didn't come here to make a speech. I came here to die." — Cherokee Bill Goldsby, insisting the hangman get it over with.
• "You are a liar! I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink." — Sarah Good, one of many accused and convicted of witchcraft during the Salem With Trials, to Rev. Nicholas Noyes II, at his insistence that she admit to being a witch on the day of her execution. For what it's worth, twenty-five years later, Noyes died of a hemorrhage and literally did choke on his own blood as he died.
• "Huh, it's taking rather a long time." — David Goodall, Australian botanist and the oldest living working scientist at the time. Living to the age of 104, he had grown unhappy with his advanced age and restricted lifestyle, wishing to end it on his own terms. Assisted suicide being illegal in his country, Dr. Goodall's family set up a successful Go Fund Me campaign to raise funds for a trip to Switzerland, where it is legal. After having some trouble pressing the plunger of the device (No one is allowed to help a patient with the device and must be done on their own) he managed to successfully administer the drugs himself. He woke up thirty seconds after falling asleep, uttered this last phrase, before finally slipping away immediately afterward.
• "That's an awful lot of candles to blow out today." — Tim Gough, British radio presenter, who passed away following a fatal heart attack while playing Madness' "Grey Day" after reading the birthday shoutouts on his breakfast show at Suffolk radio station GenX Radio and slumped on his keyboard, abruptly stopping the song.
• "Heil Hitler." — Amon Göth, just before he was hanged.
• "Which is the worst crime? Chris Rock being physically assaulted or Chris Rock telling a joke?" — The last tweet from the account of Gilbert Gottfried, who died of muscular degeneration a few days later.
• "We must get them into the boats. We must get them all into the boats." — Col. Archibald Gracie, survivor of the RMS Titanic, as he died of diabetes eight months after the sinking.
• "How the hell would you know, you silly rascal?" — Barbara "Bloody Babs" Graham to her executioner, Joe Ferretti, just before being gassed. He'd told her to take a deep breath so she'd die quickly.
• "I'll be all right. I'll see a doctor when we get back to Los Angeles." — Cary Grant, to his wife. He wasn't. His wife called the hotel doctor who found Grant was suffering a massive stroke. He refused to be taken to a hospital and died with his wife by his side.
• "Water." — Ulysses S. Grant
• "I did not get my SpaghettiOs. I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this." — Thomas J. Grasso, Death Row prisoner, on how his last meal before his lethal injection was botched.
• "Stopped." — Surgeon Joseph Henry Green on his pulse
• "I don't care, eh-eh-eh-eh-eh!" — Sonya Gregorio, to the daughter of an off-duty policeman who they were quarreling with after her son Frank was being arrested for firing a "boga", an improvised PVC cannon. She and her son were promptly shot dead by the policeman shortly thereafter.
• "Schnell!" ("Fast!") — Irma Grese, Nazi war criminal and supposed inspiration for Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, right before she was hanged for her crimes.
• "Lord! Into thy hands I commend my spirit!" — Lady Jane Grey, before being beheaded.
• « J'en foutre, j'en foutre... » (Fr. — "Fuck it, fuck it...") — Alexander Griboyedov, 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. His last words are in French because that was the language spoken by the Russian nobility (the Russian language was considered too barbaric). It's also very bad (and nonsensical) French, unless he was saying "Jean-foutres! Jean-foutres!" (something like "Phonies! Phonies!"), in which case it's just poor transcription.
• "¡Póngase sereno, y apunte bien! ¡Va a matar a un hombre!" ("Straighten up and aim well! You are only going to kill a man!") — attributed to Che Guevara. This is the most popular, but there are several possible alternatives, some of which are the same thing but longer^{for example}"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. others of which are less dignified (like "I'm Che Guevara — I'm worth more to you alive!"). The movie Che just has him say, "Shoot. Do it!"
• "Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah! I am with the Lord." — Charles Guiteau, assassin of James Garfield, at his execution. These were the final two lines of an entire poem he recited at the scaffold. He had asked for an orchestra to accompany the recitation, but they drew the line there. A hundred years later, Stephen Sondheim eventually obliged him by using some lines from the poem as lyrics in Assassins.
• "Nobody shot me." — Frank Gusenberg, after being shot by members of Al Capone's gang during the St. Valentine's Day massacre.
• "And now for a final word from our sponsor." — The last announcement of Charles Gussman, spoken from his deathbead on the recommendation of his daughter.
• "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. Understandable, since he'd just spent nearly two weeks dying of complications from a gunshot wound.
• "Where's my stunt double when you need one?" — Vincent Gutierrez, on death row for carjacking and murdering Air Force Captain Jose Cobo.
• "Yes, it's tough, but not as tough as doing comedy." — Edmund Gwenn's final thought on death

H-K

• "I only regret that I have but one life to give my country." — Nathan Hale, during The American Revolution, before being hanged as a spy by the British. Unfortunately, while the line is famous in American history,^note And occasionally spoofed, as in America (The Book), which wrote, "Continued Hale, 'But what I really regret is that I'm giving it now.' And then came the begging." it's probably not exactly what he said; but the exact speech, although lost, so impressed the British witnesses that several of them saw fit to write about it. One possibility is that he was quoting Joseph Addison's Cato:
  How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue!
  Who would not be that youth? What pity is it
  That we can die but once to serve our country.
• « T'as une tache. » ("You have a stain.") — Johnny Hallyday to his former producer Jean-Claude Camus following a dinner, a few days before his death from lung cancer.
• "Anne, I love you. Blair, I love you. I will not be allowed to love and trust everybody. This is better. Pete. P.S. Stan Polley is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me." — Pete Ham, lead singer of Badfinger, in a suicide note to his wife (who was pregnant at the time) and his stepson, stating how he became increasingly depressed after the band's business manager Stan Polley defrauded them and their record label Warner (Bros.) Records sued Polley for his actions but it proved to be unsuccessful, causing the band to become penniless.
• « Va-t-en, Satan! » ("Away from me, Satan!") — Jacques Hamel, a French priest and martyr murdered by ISIS terrorists in the Normandy church attack in 2016.
• "Remember, my Eliza, you are a Christian." — Alexander Hamilton to his wife as he lay dying of a wound sustained in a duel with Aaron Burr.
• "That's good, read some more." — Warren G. Harding, twenty-ninth President of the United States, listening to his wife reading a favorable Saturday Evening Post article about him. He was recovering from a heart attack and pneumonia. Seconds after saying this, he went into cardiac arrest and died.
• "One, two, three!" — Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre, who shot themselves in the school library.
• "Somebody needs to kill my trial attorney." — George Harris before his execution for the murder of an acquaintance.
• "It was the food! Don't touch the food!" — Richard Harris, in what is traditionally held to be his final "performance", to hotel guests in the lobby as he was being wheeled out of his room while dying from lymphatic cancer.
• "You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the grim reaper." — Robert Alton Harris, the first man to be executed in California in decades, making one last kill: a quotation from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.
• "Are the doctors here? Doctor, my lungs..." — Benjamin Harrison
• "Love one another." — George Harrison, and also Secretary of State William Seward
• "Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more. — William Henry Harrison, to Vice President John Tyler.
• "Look out!" — Owen Hart, who shouted this to a referee as he fell from the rafters in a poorly thought out entrance.
• “Be aware of the preciousness of time.” — Stephen Hawking.
• "Children, be comforted; I am well." — Franz Josef Haydn
• "I know that I am going where Lucy is." — Rutherford B. Hayes, referring to his wife, Lucy, who pre-deceased him in 1889.
• « Bien sûr, il me pardonnera; c'est son métier. » ("Of course He [God] will forgive me; that's His job.") — Heinrich Heine
• "Good night, my kitten." — Ernest Hemingway
• "The others, they were the real bastards. You were the only legitimate one." — Henry II, first Plantagenet King of England, to his illegitimate son Geoffrey, the only one of his sons to be by his side as he died. This was because his legitimate sons were either fighting against him or had already died in that cause.
  • According to Giraldus Cambrensis, when Richard, Count of Poitou came to be reconciled with his father before the latter's death, Henry, even as he was giving the "kiss of peace" to his son, whispered, "May the Lord never let me die until I take a fit revenge on you" (Nunquam me Dominus mori permittat, donec dignam mihi de te vindictam accipero). His very last words were, Proh pudor, de rege victo! Proh pudor! ("Oh, the shame on a conquered king! Oh, the shame!")
• "I trust in the merits of Christ. All is lost! Monks! Monks! Monks! So now all is gone, empire, body, and soul!" — Henry VIII, the most infamous of Britain's monarchs.
• "Maybe I'm dying." — attributed to Jim Henson, as he finally agreed to go to the hospital after weeks of illness.
• "I am innocent, innocent, innocent. Make no mistake about this. I owe society nothing. I am an innocent man and something very wrong is taking place tonight." — Lionel Herrera
• "Can you believe this crap?" — Jon-Erik Hexum, an actor who made the incredibly stupid move of deciding to play Russian Roulette with a gun containing blanks. A blank went off and shoved a piece of his skull into his brain, leaving him brain dead.
• "The world is just a barrel-organ which the Lord God turns Himself / We all have to dance to the tune which is already on the drum." — SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich
• "I've said all I've had to say." — comedian Bill Hicks. He didn't die until eleven days later, but he voluntarily quit speaking after saying this.
• "Dilexi justitiam et odivi iniquitatem: propterea morior in exilio." ("I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile.") — Hildebrand/Pope Gregory VII, in a parody of Psalm 44 (45), 7.
• "Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!" — Joe Hill, labor activist and I.W.W. member, before being executed for a crime it is now generally believed he didn't commit. "Don't mourn—organize!" became a rallying cry amongst the political left.
• "Ich bin Heinrich Himmler!" ("I am Heinrich Himmler!") — Heinrich Himmler, who was trying to escape the Allies and was carrying false identity papers, finally revealing his true identity during a procedure interrogation at a British camp. They were about to give him a medical examination (as was standard with prisoners of war) when Himmler refused to open his mouth and chewed on a cyanide pill hidden in his teeth.
• "One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes." — Alfred Hitchcock
• "Capitalism. Downfall." — Christopher Hitchens
• "I don't want to speak to her anymore." — Adolf Hitler to his adjutant, Major Otto Günsche, before eating his gun.
• There are two versions of the last lines of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese Communist revolutionary:
  • From the partially released last will and testament upon his death in 1969: "But who can guess how much longer I can serve the revolution, serve the homeland, and serve the people? Thus I leave you these few words, in case I should join Karl Marx, Lenin, and my predecessors in revolution, so my countrymen, Party comrades, and friends everywhere shall not feel it so sudden."
  • From the full version: "My last wish is: Our entire Party, our entire people shall be as one in striving to build a peaceful, united, independent, democratic, strong and prosperous, contributing our fair part in the enterprise of world revolution."
• "Don't be in such a hurry." — Billie Holiday
• "The citadel is irretrievably lost. I am ashamed to face the gentlemen of the Northern city. My own death is of no consequence.pre I am prepared to follow Nguyễn Tri Phương to the grave. Your Majesty is leagues away, we weep tears of blood for you..." — Hoàng Diệu, Viceroy of Hanoi, in a suicide note written in blood to his king, before he hanged himself to avoid capture at the hands of the French.
• "Ach, wie schießt ihr schlecht!" ("Oh, your aim is horrible!") — Andreas Hofer, Austrian freedom fighter in Tyrol against Napoleon's Bavarian puppet regime. It took two salvos of a firing squad and a shot to the head to kill him.
• "That dirty son of a bitch Tony Jocks set this meeting up, and he's an hour and a half late." — Jimmy Hoffa, notorious American gangster and teamster union leader. Hoffa had fallen on hard times and had gone to meet with two other Mafia leaders, Anthony Giacalone and Anthony Provenzano, in the hopes of winning their support and regain power. Everyone, including Hoffa himself, suspected that the meeting was a pretext to have him killed, but with Provenzano making physical threats against Hoffa and his family and Hoffa desperate to regain his standing lest Provenzano make good his threats, he went to the meeting anyways in the hopes that it was an actual peace meeting. Apparently, when he arrived at the meeting spot, no one was there, and Jimmy made a call first to his wife and then to his old friend Louis Linteau, telling Linteau the above quote. Linteau calmed Hoffa down and told him to stop by his office on the way home, but Hoffa never made it that far, disappearing from the parking lot some time after 3:30 pm. The generally accepted consensus is that he was indeed murdered by the Mafia leaders due to his rise to power being seen as a threat to their control of the union's pension fund, and disposed of his body promptly (depending on who's telling the story, they either burned him, crushed him in a car, or buried him in a barrel under cement) to get rid of the evidence.
• "I hope that I can be with Applejack in the afterlife, my life has no meaning without her. If there's no afterlife and she isn't real then my life never mattered anyway." — Final Facebook post of Brandon Hole, the perpetrator of the Indianapolis FedEx shooting, which saw nine casualties including his own.
• "This is funny." — Doc Holliday on realizing he wasn't going to die with his boots on.
• "Take your time. Don't bungle it." — H.H. Holmes, America's first serial killer.
• "Surprise me." — Bob Hope, when asked on his deathbed where he wanted to be buried. He was laid to rest in the Bob Hope Memorial Garden at San Fernando Mission Cemetery.
• “I'm tired of fighting.” — Harry Houdini.
• "Texas! Texas! Margaret..." — Sam Houston, leader of the Texas Revolution and first president of the Republic of Texas, later deposed as governor during the state's secession. He carried his love for both his wife and his state to his deathbed.
• "All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre;
  The feast is over and the lamps expire."
  — Suicide Note of Robert E. Howard
• "Roger, bu-" — Rick Husband, commander of the Space Shuttle Columbia, in response to a call from Mission Control stating that they hadn't copied the last message. Seconds later, Columbia was tumbling out of control and all radio contact was lost. Shortly thereafter, Columbia disintegrated in Earth's atmosphere, killing all on board.
• "I swear that there is no god but God, and Muhammad--" — Saddam Hussein. They didn't even let him finish the Shahada. Alternatively: "Down with the traitors, the Americans, the spies, and the Persians!"
• "That was no good. That was no good at all." — Halyna Hutchins, after being mortally wounded by an accidental gunshot on the set of the movie Rust
• "Tvertimod!" ("To the contrary!") — Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian author and political activist, while dying of tuberculosis, in response to his doctor telling his wife that "he looks a bit better today". He died immediately afterward. It's said he didn't even open his eyes in response, although a different account suggests that he stood up in bed and shouted the line.
• "Aloha." — U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye
• "I'm dying." — Steve Irwin to his friend Justin after being fatally poisoned by a stingray.
• "Oh, do not cry. Be good children, and we shall all meet in Heaven. I want to meet you all, white and black, in Heaven." — Andrew Jackson
• "I'm ready to roll, time to get this party started." — James Lewis Jackson before he was executed for strangling his wife and stepdaughters to death.
• "Please, please, give me some milk so that I can sleep." — Michael Jackson, requesting a dose of the surgical anesthetic propofol (which physically resembles milk, hence the nickname) as a sleeping aid. In 1984, Jackson suffered severe burns to the scalp while filming a Pepsi commercial, due to a pyrotechnic rig firing off prematurely; the injury left him unable to sleep without the use of sedatives, a dependency that worsened as the years went on. Jackson's personal physician in 2009, Conrad Murray, attempted to wean Jackson off of them, but was unable to do so before Jackson's This is It series of comeback concerts were scheduled to begin; Murray would end up giving Jackson a lethal overdose by mistake and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011.
• "Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks—" before stopping and leaving the sentence unfinished. Then with an expression of relief: "Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." — Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Jackson had been shot in the arm by friendly fire at the Battle of Chancellorsville. The arm had to be amputated. Jackson then caught pneumonia and died eight days later.
• "Platinum?! SWEEEET!!! An amazing crew of incredibly talented peeps put this one together...Deeply honored to be a creative part of it...Thank you Jesus!!!" —Final Instagram post of songwriter Kyle Jacobs, just one day before he was found dead from an apparent suicide.
• "That picture is awful dusty." — Jesse James before he was shot in the back by Robert Ford, a member of his own gang.
• "I want the world to be filled with white fluffy duckies." Filmmaker, theatrical artist and gay rights activist Derek Jarman, dying of AIDS in 1994. You probably know him as the writer-director of Caravaggio, about the great Baroque-era painter; it has Tilda Swinton and Robbie Coltrane, and is Sean Bean's first film.
• « Je meurs : amenez-moi un cure-dent. » ("I am dying; please bring me a toothpick.") — Alfred Jarry, an absurdist writer who lived as absurdly as he wrote. A doctor would later explain that the request was not as strange as it seemed at first glance, as Jarry died of dehydration induced by drugs, alcohol, and tuberculosis, and dehydration makes your gums itch.
• "Is it the Fourth? ("It soon will be," replied his doctor.) I resign my spirit to God, my daughter to my country." — Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. Indeed it was — it was July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's predecessor John Adams died only a few hours later (and in his last words, up the page, incorrectly declared "Thomas Jefferson lives"), and James Monroe also died on the Fourth of July some years later.
• "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" — Joan of Arc, burned at the stake for heresy (well, actually for leading the French army to victory in the Hundred Years' War, but also heresy).
• "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." — Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc. Verified by his sister, who was at his bedside at the time of his death.
• "My greetings to you, my eternal Germany." — Alfred Jodl, one of the Nuremberg Ten.
• "With God's help it will never be that a Bohemian king would run from a fight!" — John the Blind, King of Bohemia
• "I will see you tomorrow, if God wills it." — Bl. Pope John Paul I. God didn't will it; the "Smiling Pope" had been in office just 34 days.
• "Pozwólcie mi iść do domu Ojca." ("Let me go into the house of the Father.") — St. Pope John Paul II, in his native Polish. Archbishop Leonardo Sandri addressed his death hours later with the same words: "Our most beloved Holy Father has returned to the House of the Father. Pray for him."
• "My right side is paralyzed. I need no doctor. I can overcome my own troubles." — Andrew Johnson, refusing medical attention, to his granddaughter.
• "Send Mike immediately!" — Lyndon Johnson, 36th U.S. President. He meant Mike Howard, the head of his Secret Service detail. Johnson had been taking an afternoon nap when he had a heart attack and called the switchboard. Mike Howard was out in a car and didn't get back in time, but switchboard operator Bill Morrow reached agents Ed Nowland and Harry Harris, who brought a portable oxygen unit to Johnson's bedroom. He was dead by the time they got there.
• "We sure fooled them a long time, didn't we?" — William Henry Johnson, a.k.a. "Zip the What-Is-It", one of the most famous sideshow performers, who may have been an actual microcephalic — or as they would call him back then, a "pinhead". Or he may have just been a guy with a weirdly-shaped head. His last words have been cited as evidence of the latter, including by his sister, who always claimed her brother was smarter than he let on.
• "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it! This is--!" — David A. Johnston, geologist, in his final radio transmission before he was killed in the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980.^note "Vancouver" is not the big Vancouver in Canada, but a city in Washington state just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. It confuses all the non-locals, so just go with it.
• "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 was either ignoring or didn't notice.
• "Jump, Sim, jump!" — Locomotive engineer Casey Jones (yes, the one from the Disney short) to his fireman shortly before his locomotive collided with a stalled freight train on the tracks ahead. Sim did jump (though he was knocked out by the impact) but Casey stayed in the cab to apply full brakes and full reverse power in order to slow it before the collision. The train had originally been moving at a blistering 75 mph (due to an earlier delay, Casey's train was running behind and they had been trying to make up lost time), but by the time of impact, Jones had managed to get the speed down to only 35 mph when his engine plowed into the stalled cars. Casey was the only fatality, and it is often said that when his body was pulled from the wreckage, he was still clutching the brake lever and whistle cord. For ten years the imprint of the engine was clearly visible in the embankment, and the corn spilled from one of the cars grew in the nearby fields.
  He was goin' down the grade makin' ninety miles an hour
  When the whistle broke into a scream —
  He was found in the wreck, with his hand on the throttle;
  Scalded to death by the steam.
• "Leave me alone..." — sound collage master Don Joyce of Negativland, dying of heart failure after a lifetime as a heavy smoker.
• "Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!" — Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the FDNY, and the first certified victim of of the 9/11 attacks after he was struck by debris in the collapse of the South Tower that flew into the lobby of the North Tower where he was praying. (While the passengers of the flights were undoubtedly killed upon the impact of each of the four flights, and even more people died in the collapse of the South Tower, Judge's body was recovered and taken to the medical examiner first, and therefore he is designated as the first victim.)
• "My lifework has been accomplished; now I can let go." — Traudl Junge, Adolf Hitler's last secretary, upon learning of the success of her memoir Until the Final Hour (which was filmed as Downfall). She died hours later.
• "I joyfully await the exit – and I hope never to return – Frida." Last written words (accompanied by a drawing of a black angel) of Frida Kahlo, who had lived with chronic pain and post-polio syndrome almost her entire life.
• "Ille faciet." ("He'll do it.") — Karl IX of Sweden, about his son. And he did.
• "Walter Pidgeon." — Boris Karloff. No one knows why Karloff mentioned Pidgeon, they had not contacted each other in years.
• "Don't worry, it's not loaded -- see?" — Terry Kath, lead guitarist of the rock band Chicago, right before he was proven wrong. The line is also attributed to R&B artist Johnny Ace (although it's entirely possible they both had this happen).
• "Advise all inquisitive MDs to lay off this stuff." — Dr. Edwin Katskee, in the last written note on his experiment on cocaine's effect on human body. He died of an overdose.
• "Ich rufe den Allmächtigen an, er möge sich des deutschen Volkes erbarmen. Über zwei Millionen deutsche Soldaten sind vor mir für ihr Vaterland in den Tod gegangen. Ich folge meinen Söhnen nach. Alles für Deutschland!" ("I call upon the Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their deaths for the Fatherland before me. I now follow my sons. All for Germany!") — Wilhelm Keitel, German Feldmarschall during World War II, before being executed by hanging in Nuremberg prison.^note Out of Keitel's three sons, Lt. Hans-Georg Keitel had died in 1941 on the Soviet front, SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl-Heinz Keitel disappeared and most likely died in heavy fighting during April 1945, and Major Ernst-Wilhelm Keitel survived in a Soviet POW camp and was going to be released in 1956, but the Marshal did not know that.
• "Not my senses, what I do with them, is my kingdom." — Helen Keller's last recorded words. She was a member of the Church of the New Jerusalem, so she believed that the earth and all of nature as well as heaven are the Kingdom of God.
• "Such is life." — Ned Kelly, before being hanged.
• "No, you certainly can't." — John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth President of the United States, after Nellie Connally remarked "Mr. President, you certainly can't say Dallas doesn't love you." Kennedy's driver and Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman said that the President cried out "My God, I've been hit!" after being shot through the neck. However, none of the other four people in the car recalled hearing this, although Kellerman said he heard Mrs. Kennedy shout "What are they doing to you?", and it would seem unlikely that Kennedy would have been able to say anything after a bullet ripped through his throat.
• "Don't lift me." — Robert F. Kennedy, to medical attendants lifting him to a stretcher after he'd been shot. Busboy Juan Romero (on the right, in white jacket, in one of the famous photos) heard him say "Is everybody okay?" Romero assured him they were, and he said "Everything will be okay." Romero slipped a rosary into the Senator's hand before he was put on the stretcher.
• "I'll be in Hell before you start breakfast, boys. Let's go!" — "Black Jack" Tom Ketchum right before a botched hanging that took his head clean off.
• "I only wish I had drunk more champagne." — J.M. Keynes, economist.
• "I'm suffocating... take this bag off my head! I'm claustrophobic!" — Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who was assassinated at a Saudi consulate in Turkey in late 2018.
• "No, I'm not." — Herb Khaury, better known as Tiny Tim, responding to his wife asking him if he was all right. He was performing at the Women's Club of Minneapolis in a very badly arranged, messy staging. Seconds later he collapsed onstage. He was pronounced dead an hour later.
• "Nearly 100 frank opinions every day. I couldn't deny they hurt me. "Die", "you are disgusting", "you should disappear" I believed these things about myself more than they did. Thank you, Mother, for the gift of life. My whole life I wanted to be loved. Thank you to everyone who supported me. I love you all. I'm sorry for being weak." — Hana Kimura, Japanese professional wrestler in her last tweet before committing suicide by ingesting hydroxide sulfide after being bullied on social media. At the time of her death, she was appearing in the fifth season of the popular Japanese reality TV show Terrace House.
• "I love you. Take care of the boys." — Larry King
• "Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty." — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to musician Ben Branch. Ironically, "Precious Lord" is a funeral hymn, written by Rev. William Dorsey after his wife died.
• "Okay, okay, okay." — Sam Kinison
• "I'm dying. I'm not losing my hearing!" Eartha Kitt snarking to her daughter Kitt Shapiro who was talking a bit loudly. Two days before she died she could no longer speak, but "left this earth screaming at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her face", and Kitt knowing she could still hear shouted "You can go, you can go!"
  Even as she departed this earth it showed who she was at her core: always fighting, never giving up.
• "Minä elän!" ("I live!") — attributed to Finnish author Aleksis Kivi.
• "Not all of us are innocent, but those [victims of his] are. I said I was going to tell a joke. Death has set me free. That's the biggest joke. I deserve this. The other joke is that I am not Patrick Bryan Knight and y'all can't stop this execution now. Go ahead, I'm finished." — Patrick Bryan Knight, convicted kidnapper and murderer, before his death sentence was carried out.
• "Patient, old." Last recorded words of Koko, a Western Lowland gorilla who had been taught an adapted version of American Sign Language and knew over 1000 signs. She had been looking sad and worried and when her human companion asked if she was okay, those were her words.^note Koko really was pretty old — 46. She was known to have a heart condition that gorillas her age often get.
• "Now, excuse me, I have to go." — Satoshi Kon, Japanese director, in his last blog post. The actual Japanese expression is actually commonly used when office workers leave, so it could be better translated as "Please excuse me for leaving before you."
• "I will not ask for mercy, nor would I have it on you!" — Rade Končar, Yugoslav Communist leader and legendary World War II resistance fighter, when asked whether he would ask for clemency.
• "You'll hang me now, but I am not alone. There are two hundred million of us. You can't hang us all." — Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Soviet partisan who was hanged by German soldiers.
• "Tell me. After my head has been chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be a pleasure to end all pleasures." — Peter Kürten, the Vampire of Düsseldorf, just before Madame la Guillotine delivered the death blow.
• "Ya by hotiv rozstrilyaty vsyu Verkhovnu Radu i povisyty vsih prezydentiv." («Я би хотiв розстрiляти всю Верховну Раду i повiсити всiх президентiв», "I would like to shoot the entire Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament] and hang all the presidents") — Andriy "Kuzma" Kuzmenko, leader of Ukrainian rock group Skryabin, in a micro-interview after his last concert. On the next day he died in a car accident, and many people believe that the crash was engineered by the State Sec.^note Though this is not the last line in the interview, just the famous one. The whole thing: Tell us, please, how did you like today concert in our city? - Fucking awesome. - How did you like our public? - Fucking awesome. - What do you plan in a new year? Tell, please. - Hell knows, I would like to shoot the entire Verkhovna Rada and hang all the presidents. These are the closest plans, because until they won't be changed, there will be a mess. And I, honestly, don't like this mess. - What do you wish to Ukrainians in the new year? - A new president, a normal one, at least just one who is a patriot and not a faggot. - Thank you very much. - Very-very.

L-M

• « Voilà une semaine qui commence mal. » ("Here's a week that begins badly.") — Pierre François Lacenaire, poet and double murderer, executed on a Monday morning in 1836.
• « Je suis toute à vous. » ("I am all yours.") — Adrienne de Lafayette, to her husband, the Marquis de Lafayette. He had the words engraved on a miniature of her around the time of their marriage and held it in his hand as he died.
• "Mildred, why aren't my clothes laid out? I've got a seven o'clock call." — Bert Lahr, to his wife. Already dying of cancer, he had been filming The Night They Raided Minsky's and caught pneumonia during a lengthy night scene.
• "You're right. It's time. I love you all." — Michael Landon, to his family.
• "I am going to the inevitable." — Philip Larkin.
• "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." — Hugh Latimer, while being burned at the stake for being a Protestant, to Nicolas Ridley (who was burned alongside him).
• "I wish I was skiing. ("Oh, Mr. Laurel, do you ski?" asked his nurse.) No, but I'd rather be skiing than doing what I'm doing." — Stan Laurel
• "Assum est — versa et manduca." (literally "It's cooked — turn and eat", but more idiomatically, "Turn me over — I'm done on this side"^note Or as Cracked put it even more idiomatically, "Bite me!") — attributed to St. Lawrence the Martyr by St. Ambrose. St. Lawrence, as tradition has it, was broiled to death on a gridiron. He is the Patron Saint of chefs, roasters, and comedians.
• "Don't give up the ship!" — final orders of Captain James Lawrence, United States Navy. He had just been mortally wounded by British small-arms fire. The ship and crew were captured anyway shortly afterwards, but the survivors eventually reported Lawrence's death and last words to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. He promptly had "Don't give up the ship!" embroidered into his battle flag, and the rest was history.
• "Doctor, if I put this here guitar down now, I ain't never gonna wake up." — Leadbelly
• "Why?... Why not?... Beautiful!" — Timothy Leary, moments before he died — on video, as he wished, in what is perhaps the most peaceful Snuff Film ever made (and one of few to be perfectly legal), incorporated into the aptly-named documentary film Timothy Leary's Dead, chronicling the last year of his life, the cryonic preservation of his head, and the dispersal of his ashes in space.
• "Much respect to Cody Rhodes." — The final tweet of professional wrestler Brodie Lee, who had lost the TNT Championship to Rhodes in a dog collar match on AEW Dynamite earlier that night. He went off television due to an injury but passed away two months later due to an unrelated lung issue.
• "Don't dare, or I'll haunt your dreams." - The final line of Sir Christopher Lee in his final film, Angels in Notting Hill. As this was a posthumous release, and Sir Christopher had in fact passed a substantial length of time previous, these were arguably also his actual final words.
• "Tell Hill he must come up. Strike the tent." — Robert E. Lee, Confederate general, dying of heart disease in 1870. "Hill" refers to his subordinate general A.P. Hill, who replaced Stonewall Jackson (elsewhere on this page) in 1863. Hill had been killed in action a month before the end of the Civil War in 1865.
• "God bless. Take care of my boy, Roy." — Stan Lee
• "Vot sobaka." — Vladimir Lenin. It roughly translates to "Good dog" in English, having said this to a dog that brought him a dead bird.
• "I'm shot! I'm shot!" — John Lennon, as he walked into the office of Dakota security guard Jose Perdomo after being shot on the night of December 8, 1980. He tried to speak again but couldn't manage it, though another officer testified that Lennon had replied "Yes," when asked if he was John Lennon, as the cops tried to keep him conscious; he died in the patrol car that took him to Roosevelt Hospital. The doctors who examined his body after the fact were astounded when the officers told them Lennon had walked into the guard's area under his own power and managed to speak to Perdomo. Apparently, according to the examiners, Lennon could have been shot in the best hospital in the world, surrounded by the best doctors and the best equipment available at the time, and he still wouldn't have had a chance.
• "Tois de stratiôtais narêggeilen aristopoieisthai ôs en Haidou deipnopoiêsomenous" (Τοῖς δὲ στρατιώταις παρήγγειλεν ἀριστοποιεῖσθαι ὡς ἐν Ἅιδου δειπνοποιησομένους, "Eat heartily, for tonight we shall dine with Hades in the Underworld") — attributed to King Leonidas of Sparta by Plutarch, as his last order to his troops before the Battle of Thermopylae, where they all died. It became much more memetic in the form it took in 300: "Tonight we'll dine in Hell!"
• "Opfer müssen gebracht warden." ("Sacrifices must be made.") — aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal, as he lay dying from injuries in a glider crash
• "They won't think anything about it." — Abraham Lincoln (sixteenth President of the United States), to his wife Mary, moments before he was shot. She had asked him what would other people think about an old couple like them holding hands in the theater.
• "Please continue sleeping." — Franz Liszt, Magyar virtuoso pianist, composer, arranger, essayist and teacher. His daughter Cosima (widow of Liszt's Frenemy Richard Wagner) claimed he'd said "Tristan." But his student Lina Schmalhausen had kept a diary with the graphic details of what Liszt's illness was really like and how he died. This was suppressed for years, partly because his friendship with Lina was resented by his students and family; also, he died at Bayreuth in the middle of the Wagner Festival (bad publicity), while repeating that he hoped he wasn't going to die there!
• "I think I'm going to make it!" — Richard Loeb, half of the Leopold & Loeb duo of murderers, after being stabbed ninety times by another inmate.
• "Happy anniversary. I love you." — Vince Lombardi
• "God, don’t let me die. I have so much to do." — Huey Long, senator of Louisiana, who was shot as he exited the Capitol rotunda and died two days later.
• "This is for you!" — Ricardo López, stalker of musician Björk, just before he fired a small-caliber pistol into his mouth.
• « Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours. » ("I am going, but the State shall always remain.") — King Louis XIV of France. There's a variant that ties in with his famous line L'État, c'est moi ("I am the State"): « L'État, Versailles » ("The State is Versailles"), meaning essentially the same thing (i.e. the State will be there as long as there is a King at Versailles). His penultimate line is also famous and proves the point: « Pourqoui pleurez-vous ? Avez-vous imaginé que j'étais immortel ? » ("Why are you weeping? Did you imagine I was immortal?") in response to the lamentations of his subjects, for many of whom Louis was the only king they had ever known.
• "I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France." — King Louis XVI of France, before being guillotined during The French Revolution.
• "A king should die standing." — King Louis XVIII of France. He was the last King of France to die while still reigning.
• "Sometimes the pain is unbearable." Last known words of H. P. Lovecraft, spoken to his friend Harry Brobst as he was dying of intestinal cancer at Jane Brown Hospital in Providence, RI. He died two days later.
• "Tell Georgie I want to get into the movies, one way or another." — Lucky Luciano. As anyone familiar with the history of home video and Magnetic Video Corporation will tell you, he got his wish.
• "I think I will go to sleep now." — Harold Macmillan, former British Prime Minister.
• "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear. I always talk better lying down." — James Madison to his niece
• "Radi ti, dijete, svoj posao." ("Do your job, child.") — Saint Vukasin Madrapa of Klepci, Orthodox saint killed in the Jasenovac extermination camp in Croatia during World War II. He said these words several times to the prison guard who mutilated him to death.
• "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 prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald and died when it was bombed by the Allies.
• "Mozart!" Gustav Mahler, apparently explaining what he was hearing in his head and "conducting" from his deathbed.
• "Brothers, break it up — be cool, be calm." — Malcolm X, who was trying to stop a fight in the audience at the Audubon Ballroom, where he planned to speak to the Organization of Afro-American Unity. The fight was a deliberate distraction; he was gunned down by members of the Nation of Islam seconds later.
• "Frederick!" Child Prodigy Thomas Williams Malkin, creator of the imaginary land of Allestone, saying goodbye to his brother, as recorded in A Father's Memoirs of His Child by his father Benjamin Heath Malkin. Thomas died of what we now know as Crohn's disease and peritonitis at six. Frederick and the other Malkin boys were child geniuses also and had fine adult careers.
• "Cheerio!" — Antonio Mancini, as he was being strung up by the man who also hanged both Timothy Evans and the murderer who had framed him.
• "I'm the most famous human being not only that is alive but the most famous human being that has ever lived. And I'm not even dead yet. What do you think is gonna happen when I die?" — Charles Manson
• "Chairman, your student and fighter is coming to see you!" — Jiang Qing, popularly known as "Madame Mao", last wife of Mao Zedong, who had been imprisoned for her role in the Cultural Revolution and the "Gang of Four" after Mao's death. These were her last written words before she hanged herself in prison in 1991.
• "Aidez-moi, ma chère amie!" ("Help me, my dear friend!") — Jean-Paul Marat, after being stabbed in his bathtub by a sympathizer of a rival group during The French Revolution. The assassin, Charlotte Corday, was captured and beheaded afterwards.
• "I feel great." — "Pistol" Pete Maravich, former NBA star, seconds before his death of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect during a pickup basketball game.
• "Money can't buy life." — Bob Marley
• "Gentlemen, the uh, camper and the car sitting over to the south of me is covered. It's gonna get me, too. I can't get out of here." — Gerry Martin, amateur radio operator, killed by a pyroclastic flow after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980. The campsite he's referring to belonged to David Johnston, who's also on this page; he witnessed the explosion that destroyed Johnston's trailer and knew he was next.
• "Oh, I love him. My God, I love you." — St. Thérèse Martin of Lisieux, the "Little Flower", author of Story of a Soul and the idea of the little way to God through faithfulness in everyday life rather than epic martyrdom and striving. Her death from tuberculosis was extremely painful. She was just 24. One of the most popular saints, thanks in part to energetic promotion of her "brand" on the part of her sisters, who had sat by her bedside during her final months taking down every word she said.
• "Look, Mother! What a pretty light, there, by the door — Now I don't see it anymore." — St. Francisco Marto, one of the three children who saw the Virgin Mary at Fatima. He died a few hours later, aged ten.
• "But I am going to die, father, this very night!" — last recorded words of St. Jacinta Marto, Francisco's sister. She was asking the hospital chaplain to give her the last rites. He laughed, and told her her condition^note by all medical accounts she was a burned-out skeleton wasn't that serious. He was wrong. She was nine, and this made her the youngest canonized saint outside of the child martyrs.
• "Remember, Honey, don’t forget what I told you. Put in my coffin a deck of cards, a mashie niblick, and a pretty blonde." — Chico Marx on how he wanted to be buried.
• "Die, my dear? Why, that's the last thing I'll do!" — Groucho Marx, and also Lord Palmerston. Also attributed to Marx was "This is no way to live!"
• "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.
• "Ya thes kero pou dialexe o Haros na me parei, tora p'anthizoun ta klaria kai vganei i yis hortari." (Για δες καιρό που διάλεξε ο Χάρος να με πάρει, τώρα π' ανθίζουν τα κλαριά και βγάνει η γης χορτάρι, "Look at the time Charon chose to take me, now that the branches are flowering, and the Earth sends forth grass.") — Athanasios Nikolaos Massavetas, a.k.a. Athanasios Diakos, Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence, considered a venerable national hero in Greece, before being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by the Turks.
• "We all get the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summer. The poor get it in the winter." — Bat Masterson
• "I think that the governor's phone is broke. He hasn't called yet." — David Matthews, drugged to death for killing his uncle.
• "Yrittääkö kersantti opettaa minulle lentämistä?" ("Is Sergeant attempting to teach me how to fly?") — Major Auvo Maunula of the Finnish Air Force, when he intended to take Sergeant Bengt Ringbom's Morane 406 fighter for a mission. Sergeant Ringbom warned Maunula that the particular plane behaved somewhat capriciously and he should be cautious with it. Turned out Sgt. Ringbom was right.
• "¡Mexicanos! Muero por una causa justa, la de la independencia y libertad de México. ¡Ojalá que mi sangre ponga fin las desgracias de mi nueva patria! ¡Viva México!" ("Mexicans! I die for a noble cause, the independence and freedom of Mexico. I hope my blood puts an end to the disgrace of my new homeland! Long live Mexico!") — Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, before being shot by liberal troops.
• "Nothing matters. Don't let them worry you. Nothing matters." — Louis B. Mayer, film mogul, longstanding head at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and one of the founders of Hollywood's old Studio System, on October 29, 1957, as he hallucinated under a morphine drip while dying from complications of leukemia. As Mayer was an infamous Control Freak, these words were considered wildly out of character for him.
• "Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history. Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless America." — The final statement of U.S. Senator John McCain, prepared in his final days and released in the hours after his passing. The full statement can be read here.
• "Oh, I'm sorry — I wasn't trying to do that. I just can't breathe correctly." Musician, massage therapist, and Kind Hearted Cat Lover Elijah McClain, age 23, after vomiting on one of the officers restraining him in Aurora, Colorado on August 30, 2019. It started when an Aurora citizen called 9-1-1 for reportedly seeing McClain "wearing a ski mask and flailing his arms" (family members would later state he was probably just dancing, as he was known to be listening to music at the time) as he walked home from an errand. After being confronted by the police and reportedly "resisting", Elijah was put in an illegal chokehold and given a massive injection of ketamine, his body weight being judged at 220 (his actual weight was 140), which caused him to go into cardiac arrest.^note There is a movement now in Colorado to ban the use of ketamine in arrests. A new law restricts its use, but Elijah's mother supports a complete ban, as described in Rep. Joe Neguse's version. The paramedics who sedated him were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in December 2023. His death, like those of George Floyd, Eric Garner, and others, has become a rallying point for African Americans and allies who seek an end to police brutality, although his mother has asked that his final words should not be politicized: "Use your voice and intellect to change the laws so that EVERYONE WORLDWIDE has the best chance possible for an abundant life."
• "Daddy flight. Save your auxiliary fuel tanks." — Thomas McGuire, the second-highest scoring American WWII Ace Pilot. His undoing was to attack a lone Japanese Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa at low altitude with a heavy and cumbersome P-38 Lightning.^note The Lightning was actually famed for being a very fast and agile craft for a twin engine fighter at higher altitudes, but its weakness was that it struggled to keep up with single-engine planes at low altitude. This was compounded by the extra weight of the fuel drop tanks, which McGuire was reluctant to have his squadron jettison, as that Lightnings could not land on carriers and therefore would be shit out of luck if they ran out of fuel returning to their airstrip. Unfortunately, his adversary was Akira Sugimoto, a flight instructor with over 3,000 hours with the type. Sugimoto evaded the attack, and as McGuire attempted to come around for another pass, his heavily laden plane stalled and snap-rolled in the turn, falling in jungle and exploding. McGuire was killed instantly.
• "We are all going, we are all going. God's will be done, not ours." — President William McKinley, twenty-fifth President of the United States. Dying from gangrene brought on by Leon Czolgosz's bullet, his wife Ida begged him to take her with him. McKinley said this in response, used the last of his strength to hug her and died.
• "We are holding our own." — Captain Ernest M. McSorley, on November 10, 1975, 17 minutes before the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (the very same vessel immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot's famous song) sank with the loss of all 29 men on board. While it's likely that he said other things before he died, these were the last words he transmitted to SS Arthur M. Anderson, and so his last recorded words. Though the wreckage was soon found, the exact cause of the sinking was never determined.^note The Fitzgerald and the Anderson were both trying to escape the storm by making it to the safety of Whitefish Bay. McSorley had previously reported that the Fitzgerald was listing and taking on water. A few minutes after that last radio communication, the Fitzgerald sank so quickly that no distress call was sent.
• "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul." —Timothy McVeigh, a far-right terrorist known for the Oklahoma City Bombing. He was quoting the classic poem "Invictus" by William Henley.
• "I am done here; they're coming to take me back." — Syd Mead, a futurist designer who served as a special visual consultant on TRON, and one of the last people to die during The New '10s, having succumbed to lymphoma on December 30, 2019.
• "Jesus, Mary, Mommy, Daddy." Antonietta "Nennolina" Meo, aged six, in 1937. Her cause for sainthood was turned in in 1972. If she's canonized, she'll be the youngest child saint who wasn't a martyr (they may designate her a Confessor due to her having declared her faith in over 100 letters to Jesus and Mary).
• "Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with me, my doctors, and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease. My privacy has always been very special to me and I am famous for my lack of interviews. Please understand this policy will continue." — Freddie Mercury, his last public statement which confirmed he had AIDS.
  • "Thank you." — His actual last words, to which he said to his assistant Peter Freestone, just before slipping into a coma he would never awake from.
• "Where are my equipment cooling circuit breakers?" — Captain Hans-Jürgen Merten of Helios Airways Flight 522, also known as the "Ghost Plane" Incident. Merten was suffering from the early symptoms of hypoxia at the time, and asked this question in response to one asked by his flight engineer about the plane's cabin pressurization system, which had been inadvertently turned off prior to the flight. He and the rest of the crew never realized the danger due to the plane depressurizing so slowly that none of them felt the symptoms clouding their mind (hence why Merten ignored the flight engineer's question; he believed that the alarm signals going off in the cockpit were caused by a malfunction in the plane's air conditioning system) until they lapsed into unconsciousness soon after. The plane itself continued in autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed, killing all onboard.
• "The following is a report on the measurement of the velocity of light made at the Irvine Ranch, near Santa Ana, California, during the period of September 1929 to—" — Albert Abraham Michelson, who studied the speed of light to the last. That Was the Last Entry.
• "I regret that I should leave this world without again beholding him." — James Monroe, the fifth President, on James Madison, his predecessor in the role. He was the third, and thus far last, President to die on the Fourth of July.
• "Then, it is time to die!" — Simon de Montfort, upon hearing his son died in battle. Simon then charged against Edward I's knights and was cut down.
• "And if you don't like it, then fuck off!" — Keith Moon, demanding that his girlfriend make him steak for breakfast, just before dying of a heart attack brought on by his abuse of a drug intended to treat his alcoholism.
• "I've never forgiven that smart-alecky reporter who named me Butterfingers. To me, it’s not funny." — Thomas B. Moran, the "Dean of Pickpockets".
• "Shoot straight, you bastards! Don't make a mess of it!" — Sergeant Harold "Breaker" Morant to his firing squad.
• "You know, I always wished to die this way, I hope the people of England will be satisfied! I hope my country will do me justice!" — British General John Moore, who was fatally wounded during the Battle of Corunna while leading his troops in a rear-guard action to hold off a French attack so his outnumbered army could evacuate from Spain on January 16, 1809. Moore said his last words after his troops informed him that his army had successfully held off the French attack, and after his death, his army went on to successfully complete the evacuation the following day.
• "This hath not offended the king." — Thomas More, moving his long beard out of the way of the chopping block before being executed for high treason, as reported by Francis Bacon.
  • The Paris Newsletter reporting the death of Thomas More says that his last words are "Qu’il mouroit son bon serviteur et de Dieu premierement", or "I die the king's good servant, and God's first", as translated in English.
• "Thank God that's over." — Eric Morecambe, just after coming off stage, and just before dying of a heart attack.
• "I've got to be crazy to do this shot. I should've asked for a double." — actor Vic Morrow, to his co-star Dick Peabody shortly before the helicopter crash that killed him and two child stars during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie. The director, John Landis, called for an Army helicopter to pursue Morrow and the children across a flooded village while pyrotechnics went off around him, and he had the pilot fly dangerously low to the ground for the shot, ignoring the warnings from the pilot and safety experts that the chopper was too close to the pyrotechnics. As a result, the helicopter became damaged by the blast, and crashed down on top of Morrow and the kids, decapitating Morrow and one child and crushing the other underneath the landing skid.
• "The taste of death is upon my lips... I feel something, that is not of this earth." — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• "Rather, on to God Most High"- The Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him)
• "Did they get off?" — Douglas Albert Munro, a Coast Guardsman who was killed while evacuating a group of pinned-down Marines from a beach during the Battle of Guadalcanal. He had ordered his boats to land on the beach in a position where they could provide cover for the Marines as they withdrew. (They did.)
• "Put that damned cigarette out!" — Hector Hugh Munro, a.k.a. "Saki", who had left his writing career to become an officer in World War I. Said cigarette allowed enemy snipers to draw a bead on the smoker in the foxhole. Munro was promptly killed by a German sniper who had overheard the remark, just before the Armistice in 1918.
• "Are you guys okay?" — New York Yankees catcher and team captain Thurman Munson, to his friend Jerry Anderson and flight instructor David Hall, immediately after crashing his twin-engine Cessna Citation at Akron Canton Regional Airport in Ohio. It was August 2, 1979. Anderson and Hall escaped but were unable to pull Munson out before the plane was engulfed in flames. Munson had begun flying so he could go home on off days. Keith Olbermann, then barely twenty, a cub reporter for United Press International and a huge Yankees and Munson fan, had to go on live radio at 5:45 p.m., immediately as the story broke on the UPI wires accompanied by ten loud Second Coming bells, and covered it for the next six or seven hours. On August 2, 2022, he spoke on his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast (episode 2) about Baseball Digest editor Rick Cerrone confiding in him four months before Munson's death that "he's not as good a pilot as he thinks he is," and that one of the Yankee executives had tried to get Steinbrenner to trade him to Cleveland so he'd stop flying: "They're all terrified he'll end up killing himself." Sure enough, Munson's crash was investigated and attributed to pilot error.
• "I'm dying. I'm going to die. Mommy, I love you." Brittany Murphy, just before the responders got there. Her death has been attributed to pneumonia complicated by medications she was taking to help her breathe. She was severely anemic. Her husband died in the same house five months later.
• "Well, Jan, we were lucky at that." — Edward R. Murrow, dying of lung cancer (another lifelong heavy smoker).
• "Sparatemi nel petto" ("Shoot me in the chest!") — Benito Mussolini, hammy even in death, before getting shot everywhere by the execution squad.

N-R

• "Come in, brother." — Daoud Nabi, the first of 49 victims of the Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shootings.
• "A certain butterfly is already on the wing." — Vladimir Nabokov
• Admiral Horatio Nelson's last words are famous, but what exactly there are is disputed: they could be "Thank God I have done my duty", or "Kiss me, Hardy", or "Drink, drink... rub, rub... fan, fan..." A round on QI addressed this controversy specifically, only to note that most pithy last words are most likely some clever thing that the dying person happened to say at some point before their death and that their real last words are remarkably mundane — like asking for a drink of water.
• "Tak, davaite vyidem. Vyidem, i chto... nu chto-chto, poproschayemsya. Davai proschatsya. Da. Nyet-nyet-nyet-nyet-nyet-nyet, slushai, dazhe ne priglashai, do svidaniya, poka. A vam vsem OK, bud'te zdorovy i ne boleite." («Так, давай выйдем. Выйдем, и что... ну что-что, попрощаемся. Давай прощаться. Да. Нет-нет-нет-нет-нет-нет, слушай, даже не приглашай, до свидания, пока. А вам всем ОК, будьте здоровы и не болейте.» "Well, let's exit. Exit, and what... well, what-what, saying goodbye. Let's say goodbye. Yes. No-no-no-no-no-no, listen, don't even invite me, goodbye, bye. And OK to you all, bless you, take care of yourself.") - Nikolai "Neolux Neolux", a 73-years old Russian Dark Souls letsplayer in a video taken one hour before his death.
• "Qualis artifex pereo!" (literally "I die such an artist!", more colloquially "Such a great artist is lost to the world!") — Emperor Nero, before his slave killed him by his orders. Supposedly, he also said after this "Sero! Haec est fides!" ("Too late! This is fidelity!") to a soldier who burst in on him and tried to save him (so that he could be executed, Nero apparently not understanding the situation).
• "I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." — Sir Isaac Newton, discoverer of the law of gravity
• "I'm not afraid. I've done more in my life that I could have ever imagined." — Olivia Newton-John in response to her niece Tottie Goldsmith asking if she was afraid of dying
• « 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 ! » ("Comrades, fire at me and aim true! Frenchmen, I protest before God and the Nation against the judgment which condemns me. I call to all men, to posterity, to God — long live France! Soldiers, aim straight for the heart!") — Napoleon's Marshal Michel Ney, who had asked (and been granted) the right to direct the execution squad himself.
• "T-the saints! The saints!" — Venerable Galileo Nicolini, who was studying to be a Passionist priest. He was staring at a painting of the Virgin Mary as he lay dying.
• "Too kind, too kind." — Florence Nightingale, on hearing she had received the Order of Merit from King Edward.
• "A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP^note Short for "Live long and prosper"" — Leonard Nimoy's last tweet.
• "Help!" — Richard Nixon to his housekeeper as he lay dying of a stroke.
• "Tomorrow, at sunrise, I shall no longer be here." — 16th-century French astrologer and physician Michael Nostradamus, best known for Les Prophéties, which became famous in popular culture for the 942 quatrains contained within (and then some) being interpreted by many as accurate predictions of events that took place centuries later.
• "I'm going outside and I might be some time." — Captain Lawrence Oates, a Polar explorer on the expedition of Robert Falcon Scott (also on this page), who realized his severe frostbite was putting the whole team at risk. He stepped outside into the blizzard and his body was never found.
• "I'd like to thank the Academy for my lifetime achievement award that I will eventually get." — Donald O'Connor, who has yet to receive it as of 2022.
• "Ran, don't let them come in..." — Oda Nobunaga to his page Mori Ranmaru as the temple they were in was surrounded by Akechi Mitsuhide
• "All harsh judgements I e'er made / On Munster's nobles, I repay; / Greay Meagher's stark servant / has passed like harsh judgement on me." — Angus O'Daly, 17th-century Irish poet, stabbed by the servant of O'Meagher, one of the many Irish lords who were victims of his stinging satires. He saw fit to compose a poem as he lay dying to finger his assassin. The line is a translation from the original Irish, which conforms perfectly to the ludicrously complex rules of Irish poetic meter. Of course, this probably wasn't spontaneous; given the "Red Bard"'s unpopularity, he probably composed the poem in advance and just slotted in the culprit's name when the time came.
• "Maak het kort." ("Make it short.") — Johan van Oldebarnevelt, Dutch nobleman, while he was about to be beheaded. A fit of Gallows Humor, as "short" here could either refer to time (i.e. make it quick) or length (i.e. like what you would ask a barber).
• "This isn't Hamlet, you know. It's not meant to go into the bloody ear." — Laurence Olivier, comparing his nurse's failed attempt to moisten his lips to the assassination of King Hamlet by Claudius.
• "I'm sorry." — David Olney, apologizing to his audience at a Florida festival for having a fatal heart attack during the third song of his set.
• "I told you I did it! I told you I did! I killed him! I killed him and I don't know why I did it!" — Brynn Omdahl, wife of Phil Hartman, who shot her husband dead in his sleep before turning the gun on herself.
• "I knew it. I knew it! Born in a hotel room, and Goddammit, dying in a hotel room." — attributed to Eugene O'Neill, or at least some variation thereof.
• "I love you." — Heather O'Rourke, the tragic child star of the Poltergeist trilogy, to her mother.
• "At 50, everyone has the face he deserves." — George Orwell, who died short of that age
• "Fuck!" — Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy, after himself being assassinated by Jack Ruby, possibly to ensure he wouldn't squeal about how far up it went.
• "Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn't made that will kill me." — William Owen "Buckey" O'Neill
• "My battery is low and it's getting dark." — NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover, shortly before it was engulfed by a global sandstorm on the Red Planet. The sandstorm would likely cover the rover's solar panels, which would prevent it from recharging and maintaining the heating elements against Mars' frigid temperatures, meaning it would likely shut down. Space fans treated it as if it were an actual being dying alone on Mars and hoped it would find a way to save itself such as going into "hibernation".Essentially entering its low-power "sleep mode" as designed, only using its battery power for essential systems and heating elements; however, many doubted this would be enough since the aging rover had already been malfunctioning at the time, including a case of "amnesia" where it failed to write data, indicating that it really was on its last legs-er...wheels. They have suggested that the first humans on Mars might repair Opportunity or return it to Earth, and NASA only declared Opportunity "dead" on February 13, 2019, almost nine years after its mission was supposed to end.
• "Battalion Seven to Ladder 15." — Orio Palmer, Chief of Battalion 7 of the New York City Fire Department — the only group to make it up to the 78th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, after it was struck there by a plane. He was trying to raise FDNY Ladder 15, probably to coordinate rescue and fire suppression efforts and perhaps save people who were higher than the impact site, but the South Tower collapsed only a minute later, killing everyone still inside.
• "Is it safe?" — William Palmer, checking to make sure the implement of his execution was working right.
• "Hurry it up, you dumb Hoosier bastard! I could kill a dozen men while you're fucking around!" — Carl Panzram, Serial Killer, to his hangman.
• "Please don’t hurt me, I won’t say anything." — Steve Parent, the first victim of the Tate-LaBianca murders.
• "Will I be allowed to speak, O men of America? Let me speak, Sheriff Matson! Let the voice of the people be heard! O--" Albert Parsons, a cohort of the above-mentioned George Engel, before he was hanged for the same reasons as his partner.
• "As God pleases." — Kara Mustafa Pasha
• "I can't hear very well. And there's a mist in front of my eyes. But it will go away, won't it? Don't forget to open the window tomorrow..." — Boris Pasternak, Russian poet and writer, better known to Westerners as the author of Doctor Zhivago.
• "Napoleon was a great man and a great general. He conquered armies and he conquered nations, but he couldn't jump the Genesee Falls. Wellington was a great man and a great soldier. He conquered armies and he conquered nations, but he couldn't jump the Genesee Falls. That was left for me to do, and I can do it, and will." — Sam Patch, American daredevil, before his fatal jump over Rochester's Genesee Falls.
• "Hell of a way to die." — General George S. Patton, after the doctor told him the car accident he'd been in had damaged his spine, meaning he would be paralyzed from the neck down and would never be able to take military command, resume a normal life, or ride a horse ever again.^note Riding a horse was actually a serious thing for Patton; he'd grown up loving horseback riding and it was considered his favorite lifelong hobby. Thankfully for him, he died peacefully in his sleep that night.
• "Akademik Pavlov zanyat. On umirayet." («Академик Павлов занят. Он умирает.», "Professor Pavlov is busy. He is dying.") — Ivan Pavlov, Russian professor famous for his experiments with his dog, requested that any calls should be answered thus.
• "Get my 'Swan' costume ready," then (after a few gestures) "Play that last measure very softly." — Anna Pavlova, the famous Russian ballerina. She was referring to the famous dance and role she created of The Dying Swan.
• "I am murdered." — Spencer Perceval, the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated, and about as unpithy and unquotable as one would expect from him. He was astonishingly unlucky, as he wasn't particularly unpopular and was assassinated by an opportunistic and deluded man who was personally very badly affected by a ministerial decision somewhere.
• “Oh, so warm water swirling around makes you feel good? I'm Mattman” — last Instagram post of Matthew Perry before he drowned
• "I leave everything to..." — Peter the Great. He had decided that he would name his successor only immediately before he died, so as to make the best-informed decision possible. It didn't work out how he planned.
• "Well, I’ve got to be alive for it, haven't I?" — Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, playfully joking with Prince Charles, now His Majesty Charles III, about ideas for a reception to celebrate Philip's 100th birthday. Charles said "I knew you'd say that!" Philip died a few hours later.
• "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink anymore." — Pablo Picasso. Paul McCartney made a song out of that.
• "Visor! (Ground control: What was that Nick?) EMERGEN-" -Nick Piantanida when his pressure suit depressurized on the edge of space while he was attempting the world's highest jump. His blood boiled in his veins from the low air pressure and he fell into a coma, eventually slipping away a week later.
• "If we must fall, then let us fall like men!" — William Pitt The Elder, during a speech in the House of Lords about the possibility of Great Britain being invaded by the French during The American Revolution. He collapsed immediately after this, although he didn't die until some days later.
• "I think I could eat one of Bellamy's veal pies." — William Pitt The Younger, unfortunately for him, remembered for posterity. His penultimate words were much more dignified: "Oh, my country! How I leave my country!"
• "Lord, help my poor soul." — Edgar Allan Poe, dying delirious from a still-unknown disease, possibly rabies. Earlier he had also repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds"; to this day it is unknown what he meant.
• "I'm going to lay down." — Pol Pot, who died in his sleep shortly after.
• "I love you, Sarah. For all eternity, I love you." — James K. Polk, eleventh president of the United States, to his wife.
• "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.
• "I don't call that much of a lunch." — Enoch Powell, on being told he'd be fed intravenously.
• "Meri kuch iccha nahin" ("I have no desire.") A.C. Bhaktivedanta, Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, on being asked if he wanted any fruit juice.
• "Judges, Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal. With disdain, I reject your verdict! I have taken poison!" — Slobodan Praljak, a Croatian general on trial for crimes against humanity in the Croat-Bosniak War, shortly before drinking a vial of what he claimed was poison. The trial was postponed and he died shortly afterwards in a hospital.
• "Okay, I won't." — Elvis Presley to his fiancée Ginger Alden some time before his infamous death on the shitter. He'd told her he was going to read in the bathroom and she said "Okay but don't fall asleep."
• "Bring me a glass of champagne." — William Price, the eccentric Welsh surgeon and druid who successfully challenged British corpse disposal laws. A few days after his passing, in accordance with his wishes, his body was consumed by fire on the same hill where his legal challenge began nearly a decade before.
• "Yolanda...158." — Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, renowned Tejano musical artist, referring to the hotel room where she had been shot by Yolanda Saldivar, the director of her fan club who had been stealing money from Selena and shot her when confronted about it, severing a major artery and essentially bleeding out.
• "Vi faccio vedere come muore un Italiano!" ("I'll show you how an Italian dies!") — Fabrizio Quattrocchi, on being executed by Iraqi terrorists.
• "I'm convicted unfairly and I die innocent." — Vidkun Quisling, traitor, protesting his innocence even as he faced the firing squad.
• « Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-être; tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée. » ("I go to see a Great Perhaps; let the curtain fall, the comedy has been played.") — François Rabelais, as mentioned in Looking for Alaska. The last line is a reference to Augustus's last words, also on this page.
• "Bear this message to my precious wife: I die a Christian and hope to meet her in heaven." — Confederate General Stephen Dodson Ramseur, after being wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek in 1864.
• "Happy." — Raphael Sanzio
• "I'm tired. I'm going back to bed." — George Reeves, just before his alleged suicide. The controversy resulted in an autopsy which ensured his body couldn't be burned for three years following his death.
• "Please accept my apology for not going public with what I've been facing the last six years. I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you." — Paul Reubens, actor and comedian known for his character Pee-wee Herman, in his final written statement, published on his Instagram hours after his death from cancer, which he kept private, on July 30, 2023.
• "I miss her so much, I want to be with Carrie." — Debbie Reynolds, actress and mother of Carrie Fisher, just prior to having a fatal stroke the day after her daughter's death.
• "God protect Germany. God have mercy on my soul. My final wish is that Germany should recover her unity and that, for the sake of peace, there should be understanding between East and West. I wish peace to the world." — Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Number Two to Hitler, and creator of the infamous Pact of Steel and Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, sentenced to death by hanging in the Nuremberg Trials. Right before having the hood placed on him, he looked at the prison's chaplain and added, "I'll see you again."
• "Treason! Treason!" — King Richard III, as he laid about him with a sword during the Battle of Bosworth Field, a little before he was cut down by his massed enemies.
• "Now I'm going to tell you a story from the Bible about spiritual courage." — Branch Rickey, baseball executive and innovator, speaking before the Missouri Hall of Fame just before the heart attack that killed him. He is best known for signing Afro-American second baseman Jackie Robinson into the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the game's color line forever. His actual last words were "I don't believe that I'm going to be able to speak any longer."
• ''Just the two of us." — Naya Rivera's last tweet, posted a day before her disappearance and six days before her body was found at sea.
• "Consummatum est!" ("It is finished!") — Jose Rizal, Philippine national hero, as he was about to be shot by a firing squad. It's also a reference to one of Jesus Christ's Seven Last Words (specifically, John 19:30).
• "Don't worry, I'll be where it's warm soon." — James W. Rodgers before his execution in 1960 for the murder of a minor. It was a chilly day, and this was his response to his executioners asking him if he wanted a coat.
• "Do you think I'm a sheep?" — Fred Rogers (host of the PBS series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) talking to his wife (Joanne Rogers) on his deathbed at his home in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh on the morning of Feburary 27, 2003. He was reflecting on Jesus's judgment parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 and wondered whether he had done enough good in the world. As he slipped into a coma from which he never awoke, she reassured him he did all the good he could in the nearly 75 years he had walked this Earth ("Fred, if ever there was a sheep, you're one."). This final exchange between husband and wife highlights perfectly how nobody's perfect, not even the best the human race has to offer.
• "If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself." — Ernst Röhm, leader of the Brownshirts, on being offered a chance to commit suicide rather than be summarily executed.
• « O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom ! » ("O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!") — Madame Marie-Jeanne Roland, just before being guillotined, toward the image of Liberty in the Place de la Révolution.
• "What? What?" — Tsar Nicholas II Romanov of Russia, after being told he and his whole family would be executed to solidify Communist rule and prevent a possible restoration. The royal family was massacred by a firing squad seconds later; this includes the 13-year old heir to the throne, Alexei, who survived the first salvo and was personally finished off with a couple more headshots from the captain before the family was unceremoniously buried in a pit.
• "In the name of God, I implore you—I beg you—I ORDER you—STOP THE REPRESSION!" — Archbishop Oscar Romero, moments before a state-sponsored assassin cut both his life and his sermon short.
• "Ausserdem haben wir keine Munition mehr." ("Besides, we've no ammunition.") — Erwin Rommel to his son Manfred, a few minutes before he bit into the cyanide pill that ended his life. Rommel had been implicated in the failed July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler, and, to prevent a blow to German morale by allowing a decorated war hero to be dragged in front of the People's Court and executed for treason, the Gestapo essentially ordered him to commit suicide. Manfred asked his father if the family should not try to fight the charges, since Rommel's involvement had been marginal at best (he basically knew of the plot but did not tell anyone about it), but Rommel replied that it would be better for him alone to die rather than drag his family into the deadly game of Nazi politics, and ended the conversation with the above quip; which was both a remark about how he would have "fought" the charges, and a commentary on Germany's warfighting state at the time, given that they were completely on the defensive by this point.
• "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, thirty-second President of the United States, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.
• "Please put out that light, James." — Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United States, to his servant James Amos. He died overnight in what was, and still is, widely accepted as the only way he could—in his sleep ("Death had to take him sleeping, for if he had been awake there would've been a fight.").
• "Nein." ("No.") — Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, sentenced to death by hanging at Nuremberg, when he was asked if he had any last word to say.
• "You're so strong." — Bob Ross, talking to his son (Steve Ross) after Steve had to hold him up due to Bob's declining health and weakness from lymphoma sometime in 1995. At this point, Ross's throat had already started closing up making it very difficult for him to swallow and speak.
• "You know I always speak very distinctly." — Charlie Ross, press secretary to Harry S. Truman. While giving a briefing to NBC News on December 5, 1950, his assistant told him not to mumble, and he said the line — then he fell off his chair and died of a heart attack.
• "Nothing is forever." — The last words spoken in a video message from Wyndham Rotunda, aka Bray Wyatt.
• "Meanwhile, don't let anyone into my room, even if it's the Emperor." — Rudolf, prince of Austria-Hungary and son of Emperor Franz Joseph, with whom he was not on the best of terms. These aren't his actual last words (those being about asking for his breakfast and his horses the next morning), but it's a bit of Gallows Humor, as Rudolf and his lover Mary Vetsera died in a planned Murder-Suicide in what became known as the Mayerling incident, and he had sent farewell letters to everyone of importance in his life except the Emperor.
• "And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will be near my latest breath, I here repeat and would willingly proclaim my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, and the perfidious, malignant and vile Yankee race." — The final entry in the diary of Confederate soldier Edmund Ruffin, who participated in the inciting incident of the Civil War at Fort Sumter and eventually committed suicide as Robert E. Lee surrendered; while many Confederate generals saw their Union counterparts as Worthy Opponents, Ruffin was among those who had...less than flattering views of the Union, and himself was a member of the "Fire-Eaters", a group of pro-slavery Democrats that saw popularity in the Antebellum South before the war.
• "I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for the Lord. If I had a thousand lives, all these I shall offer to Him." — St. Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint, tortured to death in Japan during the persecution of Japanese Christians.
• "Hurry it up! I'd like to be in hell in time for dinner!" — Edward H. Rulloff, before he was hanged in 1870 for the murder of a store clerk in Binghamton, NY.
• "Reading red on the A power bus. I switched to B. At 3457 meters sounds more aft." — Stockton Rush, on board the Titan submersible. This is the last broadcast from him before it imploded. Somewhat mercifully, simulations showed that the actual implosion — from the initial point of failure to complete destruction — would have occurred faster than it takes for the brain to even register that something was wrong, meaning none of the occupants had the time to realize the submarine was imploding before it was over.
• "I'm going over the valley." — Babe Ruth, hailed by many even today as the King of Baseball.

S-Z

• "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." — Hassan-i Sabbah, leader of the Hashâshīn. Yes, that is where Assassin's Creed got it from.
• "No! No!" — Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, moments before he was gunned down at the Suez Canal parade by members of al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya, a Sunni terrorist group, on October 6, 1981.
• "I’m back in comedy like I was when I was 26. I guess I'm finding my new voice and loving every moment of it. Goin' everywhere until I get the special shot. And then probably keep going cause I’m addicted to this shit." — Bob Saget, in an Instagram post just prior to being found dead in a hotel room.
• "To you that have grown rich from the sweat of my brow while keeping myself and my family in partial misery or worse, I ask only that from those profits you find the funds to pay for my funeral. Breaking my pen, I salute you. —Emilio Salgari." — Italian Dime Novel author Emilio Salgari, addressing his publishers in a letter found shortly after he committed suicide.
• "For the Holy Father! Our Lady, Our Lady, holy angels, Heart of Jesus, Heart of Jesus! We are going, we are going." — Lucia Santos, the last of the three children who saw Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. She was 97 years old. Mary had told her her little cousins would die "soon" (they did, within two years) but that Lucia would stay "a while longer". The words are common short prayers among Fatima devotees. When the mother superior asked "Where are you going?", she replied, "To heaven, with Our Lord, and Our Lady, and the little shepherds" (meaning her cousins).
• "Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. What now?" — William Saroyan
• "Oh, that this were for Ireland!" — Patrick Sarsfield, Irish leader, who died at the 1693 Battle of Landen, part of the Nine Years' War. After losing the Williamite War, he went on to become one of the many "Wild Geese", a group of Irish mercenaries.
• "It's good." (「おいしい」, "Oisi") — Sadako Sasaki, a 12-year-old casualty of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, famous for (almost) folding 1,000 paper cranes, on tasting her last meal, tea on rice.
• "Goodbye, Dad, goodbye ... what was it the parish priest suggested to me ... I don't seem to remember ... Oh, what wonderful things I see ..." St. Dominic Savio, age 14, in 1857. He was a student of St. John Bosco, who documented his lifelong piety, his wish to become a priest, and his premonitions of an early death. Before St. Jacinta Marto was canonized, Dominic was the youngest non-martyred child saint.
• "I shoot better than you." — Hannie Schaft, Dutch resistance fighter, shortly before being shot by a German soldier.
• "Es lebe die Freiheit!" ("Let freedom live!") — Hans Scholl, executed by guillotine for nonviolently protesting the Nazi regime in 1943. His sister Sophie was executed minutes before (along with their co-conspirator Christoph Probst); her last words were "How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"
• "Keep going, finish your book." — Charles M. Schulz, to his son Monte, before falling asleep and dying of colon cancer.
• American gangster Dutch Schultz lingered for 22 hours after being fatally shot in 1935; during much of that time he was delirious and hallucinating, but a police stenographer transcribed almost every word he said. The resulting document is too long is quote (although you can read it here), but it is a fascinating stream-of-consciousness babble that later influenced and was used by numerous writers, including William S. Burroughs and Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
• "Roger, go at throttle up." — Dick Scobee, Commander of the Space Shuttle Challenger, in the last communication from the shuttle before it exploded during launch. This communication confirm the move to full power.
  • "Uh-oh." — Pilot Michael J. Smith, just after Scobee said the above and just before the explosion.
• "Last entry. For God's sake look after our people." — Robert Falcon Scott, leader of an ill-fated British expedition to the South Pole. That Was the Last Entry.
• "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance!" — Union Major General John Sedgwick, right before he was shot by a sniper at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House. The line is famous enough that it named the trope the Sedgwick Speech; for added effect, the line is often misquoted to imply that he was Killed Mid-Sentence.
  • Unfortunately for the memesters, he got another line out before he was shot: "All right, my man, go to your place."
• "You can't kill this tough Jew." — Rod Serling
• "I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War and that the lesson taken from this world war will be that peace and understanding should exist between peoples. I believe in Germany." — Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who was the last Chancellor of Austria prior to the Anschluss, and was later the overseer of the Netherlands during World War II. His actions in the latter role got him sentenced to death in the Nuremburg Trials, with Seyss-Inquart being the final Nazi to be executed.
• "Dying is easy, comedy is hard." — George Bernard Shaw
• "I'm losing." — Frank Sinatra, just prior to having a fatal heart attack.
• "This is the first time authorities helped me escape prison." — George Sitts, just before riding the lightning.
• "I believe we should adjourn this meeting to another place." — Adam Smith
• "I am doing famously and shall be in England soon after Christmas." Geoffrey Bache Smith, his last letter, written to his mother after unsuccessful surgery to stop gas gangrene from a minor shrapnel wound. His famous letter to his friend J. R. R. Tolkien, written nearly a year earlier, about their TCBS creative fellowship, declaring that death could not separate the "immortal four",^note TCBS member Rob Gilson had been killed in the Battle of the Somme. Tolkien feared that with Rob gone and the possibility of other TCBS members dying, the survivors wouldn't be able to accomplish the great deeds they had planned. Smith insisted that dead members could still communicate and influence the living ones from the next life. At the war's end, only Tolkien and Christopher Wiseman were left. is often mistaken for Smith's very last letter written just before he died. It's also been mistaken for a gay love letter. Smith had been gearing up for a dangerous mission that night, explaining why he wrote the way he did. But he survived and the two of them met in Acheux six months later. Smith's actual last letter to Tolkien, about two weeks before he was wounded, said only "I hope I shall be able to come to Great Haywood [where Tolkien was recovering from trench fever], for my leave is assuredly on the wing."
• "Oh Lord, my God!" — Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, after being shot by a lynch mob while trying to escape through the window of the prison where he was being held. It's generally thought that Smith fell from the window, hit his head and died instantly, though some claim he lived a little longer before being executed by a makeshift firing squad; accounts of this scenario vary as to what his actual last words were.
• "Ô Kritôn, tô Asklêpiô opheílomen alektryóna, alla apódote kai mê amelêsête." (Ὦ Κρίτων τῷ Ἀσκληπιῷ ὀφείλομεν ἀλεκτρυόνα. ἀλλὰ ἀπόδοτε καὶ μὴ ἀμελήσητε, "Oh, Crito, we owe a rooster to Asklepios — pay it to him, and don't forget about it!") — Socrates, to his friend Crito, on his being administered hemlock. Asklepios was the Greek god of medicine, and it was customary for those who were healed to sacrifice a rooster to him. (Despite the joke, his last words were not "I drank what?!")
• "Oh, my God. Something's happened. Lower the curtain." — Chung Ling Soo, stage magician who was actually a white man who performed in Yellowface. He was famous for a trick where he would appear to do a Bullet Catch with his teeth — until the show where it went wrong and he was shot in the chest by a real bullet.^note The entire act itself used real bullets and live ammunition, but with a muzzle-loading gun designed to fire the gunpowder in a chamber below the barrel, so as to give the illusion of the gun properly firing without the bullet ever leaving the weapon. Unfortunately, in Soo's final act, the gun catastrophically malfunctioned, and the powder charge's detonation went up into the chamber and propelled the bullet (loaded for show) out of the barrel, hitting Soo in the lung. That line was the only time he ever spoke English in his Chinese persona.
• "It must have been the coffee." — Jack Soo, Japanese-American actor and star of Flower Drum Song and Barney Miller. "It" was his esophageal cancer, and "the coffee" was a reference to the legendarily bad coffee his character Sgt. Nick Yemana served on Barney Miller. This is the last thing he ever said to his castmate Hal Linden, with some stories attributing the words to him as he was being wheeled into the operating room.
• "Blessed Mary, Mother of God, pray for me! A poor sinner, a poor sinner!" — Saint Bernadette Soubirous, visionary of Our Lady of Lourdes, who became a nun and died at age 35 of bone tuberculosis. The words are from the familiar "Hail Mary" prayer.
• "Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment." — John Spenkelink, making his own definition of capital punishment just before becoming the first Floridian to be executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty to the country.
• "The Jerry Springer and Jene Galvin Folk Hour! Starting Sunday, February 5 at nine in the morning, you can have breakfast and listen to folk music from the 1960s that literally shaped a culture, all on Cincinnati's WMKV (89.3 FM)." — The last tweet from the account of Jerry Springer.
• "Whatever God wants is fine by me ... I've had the very best life. I have tasted beauty." — John Paul Larkin's last public words before his passing of lung cancer on December 3, 1999. John Larkin is best known as Scatman John by the general public.
• "Not like this, don't leave like this." — Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice in Chains, to his bandmate Mike Starr after an argument with him. Starr was the last person to see him alive. Staley died the next day from a drug overdose.
• Joseph Stalin's last words were a series of unintelligible responses to Peter Lozgachev, Deputy Commandant of Kuntsevo, as he had suffered a stroke and couldn't talk. His only intelligible response is supposedly, "You!!", but that wouldn't make any sense.
• "Es lebe unser heiliges Deutschland!" ("Long live our sacred Germany!") — Claus von Stauffenberg.
• "Núna þurfa allir að vakna og bursta tennurnar, Farið úr rúminu að fá sér kaffi og kíkja á sólina. Núna, nú um daginn, ástin mín."^note Now everyone needs to wake up and brush their teeth, Leave bed, have breakfast and take a look at the sun. Now, the other day, my love. — Stefán Karl Stefánsson, singing a song with an ukulele probably composed by himself, at a hospital bed in at least few hours before his death.
• "Does my face look strange?" — Robert Louis Stevenson, just before collapsing from a cerebral hemorrhage.
• "I'm going to be with Gloria now." — Jimmy Stewart, talking about his wife who'd preceded him in death.
• "My request is that my Father forgive them. Thank you." — Bigler Stouffer, the oldest man on death row.
• "Heil Hitler! This is my Purim celebration 1946. I go to God. The Bolsheviks shall hang you all one day!" — Julius Streicher, notorious Nazi journalist who was executed after the Nuremberg trials. Purim is a Jewish holiday commemorating Esther's victory over Haman, a great persecutor of the Jews, but the Nazis sided with Haman and used the holiday as a sadistic symbol of the triumph of the supposed Jewish conspiracy. He also supposedly told his executioner, "May the Jews one day serve you as they have me!", to which the executioner apparently replied, "I hope you enjoyed saying that — now you can choke for it!" — and moved the noose to a spot where Streicher would be killed slowly by strangulation.^note (Though this part is disputed, not least because deliberately giving someone a drawn-out, painful execution could potentially have constituted a war crime. Other accounts have indicated that Streicher himself accidentally moved the noose out of the intended position by trying to wriggle out of his bonds, causing it to strangle him instead of breaking his neck)
• "Thank God I gave up my life so that Helen might live. God help her to live without me when I go." — Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller's lifelong companion, teacher, interpreter and, she would say, liberator.
• "Peace. Democracy. Save China." — Sun Yat-sen
• "Please, don't let me fall." Mary Surratt, the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government for her alleged part in the murder of Abraham Lincoln. She maintained her innocence until her death, and so did the conspirators. Her case is still extremely controversial.
• "I'm not afraid to die. I'm going home." — Patrick Swayze, according to his family.
• "Oh, my God, we are way too low!" — Amy Sweeney, at least her last recorded words, flight attendant, before Flight 11 crashes into the World Trade Center.
• "Art, I wish I would have quit sooner." Robert Taylor, dying of lung cancer, so he probably meant smoking.
• "I am about to die. I expect the summons very soon. I have tried to discharge my duties faithfully. I regret nothing, but I am sorry I am about to leave my friends." — Zachary Taylor before dying of food poisoning, the circumstances surrounding which remain controversial to this day.
• "Hello, everyone! Technoblade here. If you're watching this, I am dead. So let's sit down, and have one final chat. My real name is Alex. I had one of my siblings call me Dave one time in a deleted video from 2016, and it was one of the most successful pranks we've ever done. Thousands of creepy online dudes trying to get overly personal, going, 'Oh, hey, Dave, how's it going?' Sorry for selling out so much in the past year, but thanks to everyone that bought hoodies, plushies, and channel memberships. My siblings are goin' to college! Well, if they want to. I don't wanna put any dead-brother peer pressure on them. But that's all from me. Thank you all for supporting my content over the years. If I had another hundred lives, I think I would choose to be Technoblade again every single time, as those were the happiest years of my life. I hope you guys enjoyed my content, and that I made some of you laugh. And I hope you all go on to live long, prosperous, and happy lives. Because I love you guys. Technoblade out." — Technoblade, as spoken by his father
• "Your Serene Highness [Miklós Horthy]: We broke our word, out of cowardice, with respect to the Treaty of Permanent Peace [with Yugoslavia] outlined in your Mohács speech. The nation feels it, and we have thrown away its honor. We have allied ourselves to scoundrels since not a single word is true about the alleged atrocities. Not against Hungarians, not even against Germans. We will become body-snatchers! A nation of trash. I did not hold you back. I am guilty." — Count Pál Teleki, Prime Minister of Hungary, written before committing suicide with a pistol. A few days later, Hungary would ally with Germany and assist them in invading Yugoslavia.
• "Tanomu kara shigoto wo sasete kure!" ("頼むから仕事をさせてくれ！", "I'm begging you, let me keep working!") — Osamu Tezuka, hospitalized and dying of stomach cancer, as a nurse took away his pens and paper so he could rest. Fans interpret this as him screaming at the gods.
• "Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngo Dinh Diem to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism." — Thích Quảng Đức, Vietnamese Buddhist monk, in a final letter before his Self-Immolation in a busy Saigon street during protests against then-South Vietnamese Minister Ngo Dinh Diem. The famous picture of Đức peacefully seated in the lotus position while he literally burned to death became one of history's most distinctive pictures, and ultimately led to the collapse of the Diem regime itself ^*And, by extension, helped end the Vietnam War itself, since the United States, who had backed the Diem regime to oppose the North Vietnamese Communist Party, lost one of their biggest stakes in the region when Diem was ousted. His final spoken words were a recitation of the Nam mô A Di Đà Phật, a Buddhist prayer.
• "I just had eighteen straight whiskys, I believe that is the record." — Dylan Thomas before suffering a fatal stroke. The bartender serving him spent the rest of his life swearing that this must have been some kind of drunken joke since he served him at most half of that.
• "Pretty weak, but I'll be all right in a little while, don't worry, darling." Actress and Ziegfeld Girl Olive Thomas, to her husband, actor Jack Pickford (Mary Pickford's brother). She had accidentally drunk from a bottle of toilet cleaner in her Paris hotel bathroom, mistaking it for tonic water. Jack immediately called for an ambulance and she was rushed to the American Hospital. Everything possible was done for her, while she, Jack and their friend Owen Moore (Mary Pickford's ex-husband) repeatedly insisted it was a mistake and not a suicide or murder attempt.^note This didn't stop the press from creating the first big Hollywood scandal. Police and medical investigations proved this to be the case. Olive hung on for five days, unbelievably long for a victim of mercury poisoning. She died an hour after telling Jack not to worry.
• "Relax. This won't hurt." — Hunter S. Thompson, before turning his gun on himself.
• "Now comes good sailing. Moose... Indian..." — Henry David Thoreau
• "Ennek így kellett lennie..." ("It had to be this way...") — István Tisza, Prime Minister of Hungary, after being shot by soldiers who blamed him for World War I.
• "I'm Pat Fucking Tillman! What are you shooting at me for?! I'm Pat Fucking Tillman!! I'M PAT FUCKING TILLMAN!!!" Spc. Pat Tillman, former safety for the Arizona Cardinals, just before getting his head blown off by members of his own outfit, the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion, on April 22, 2004, outside Sperah, Afghanistan. What really happened is controversial, complicated by military PR portraying Spc. Tillman as a macho badass who died heroically in battle and covering up the fact it was friendly fire — possibly murder. He had already spoken against the war and President Bush, and was about to meet with Noam Chomsky, possibly gearing up to run for office himself.
• "I feel on top of the world." J. R. R. Tolkien's last recorded words, to his assistant Charles Carr, as he left his house to go to a party. He died of pneumonia complicated by a gastric ulcer, five days later. His real last words were probably the responses in the Last Rites or the Hail Mary prayer.
  • "It is stuffy, sticky, and rainy here at present – but forecasts are more favourable." Tolkien's last words in a letter he wrote to his daughter Priscilla.
• "I can yet find words to thank you sir; it is the most welcome news you could give me. What should I wish to live for?" — Theobald Wolfe Tone, one of the leaders of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. When his request to be convicted as a soldier and killed by firing squad was denied, he attempted to slit his own throat rather than be hanged as a criminal. The doctors present managed to save him, but the injury was so severe that the simple act of speaking would cause it to re-open and would kill Wolfe in seconds. When the doctors told him this, Wolfe simply responded with the above statement.
• "Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has supported me so far! I am not sure how much more I can do, as I am not very confident about my health, probably due to my lifestyle when I was younger, but I will try my best to create more interesting pieces of work, so please continue to support me!" — Akira Toriyama
• "I would like to apologise to Mark's family and friends for what I did to them. I would like to apologise to my family. So many times in my life I went left when I should have gone right and I went right when I should have gone left. It was mistake after mistake. I love my family. Potato, potato, potato." —Robert Charles Towery, before his execution in 2012 for robbing and murdering philanthropist Mark Jones 21 years prior. Harley-Davidson fans say "potato potato" to imitate a motorcycle idling; Robert and his nephew, who was present, used it as private slang for "everything is okay."
• Leon Trotsky has several candidates:
  • His last written paragraph, found on his desk on the day he was murdered, was from a biography of Joseph Stalin: "All traditional moral principles are getting worse, not just those emanating from Stalin. However, a historical explanation is not a justification. Nero was also a product of its time, but when he died, his statues were destroyed, and his name was removed from everywhere. The revenge of history is more terrible than the most powerful general secretary. I dare say that this is comforting."
  • His political testament is even longer.
  • His last coherent spoken words, as he was being transported to the hospital: "This time they've done it. I think Stalin has finally finished the job he has started."
  • His last incoherent spoken words, just before he fell unconscious: "I am close to death from the blow a political assassin... struck me down in my room. I struggled with him... we... entered... talk about French statistics... he struck me... Please say to our friends... I am sure... of the victory... of the Fourth International... Onward".
• "Yeah, I'll go back to the main lobby, otherwise... oh, I'll get a cup of tea on the way, too." — Patrick Troughton, English actor best known for playing the second incarnation of the Doctor on Doctor Who; while these likely weren't the last words he said, they're the last words available on record, taken from a home video shot just hours before his death.
• "Ein davar, tov lamoot bead artzenu." ("It does not matter, it is good to die for our country.") — Joseph Trumpeldor, a Jewish settler, at the Battle of Tel Hai (1920), after being asked how he felt by a doctor while bleeding. His legacy carries on, as his last words have become the slogan for dying for Israel.
• "It's all my fault." — Admiral Sir George Tryon, before drowning after his flagship was accidentally rammed during a precision maneuver in which he misjudged the distance in which his fleet's two columns could turn in on each other without colliding. It really was mostly his fault.
• "The police, they have started shooting at us, they are chasing us. Mama, I love you." — Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing. While it is unclear how he died, he was either run over by his brother Dzohkhar Tsarnaev, or shot to death by police. Dzohkhar was captured and is currently awaiting execution.
• "I go to prepare a place for you". — Harriet Tubman, quoting John 14:2.
• "I would like to say to all of you – the Thornton family and Jerry Dean’s family that I am so sorry. I hope God will give you peace with this. Baby, I love you. Ron, give Peggy a hug for me. Everybody has been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I am going to be face to face with Jesus now. Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you." — Karla Faye Tucker
• "Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta." ("Mother Earth, witness how my enemies shed my blood.") — Tupac Amaru, last Inca emperor, right before being beheaded by the Conquistadores.
• "The Sun is God." — attributed to painter J.M.W. Turner
• "It's in God's hands now." — Nat Turner on the cause he fought for, before being hanged, drawn, and quartered as the leader of a slave rebellion in 1831.
• "They will be satisfied now." — the infamous "Boss" W.M. Tweed, on his deathbed in jail.
• "Doctor, I'm dying. Perhaps it is best." — John Tyler, the only President to turn traitor after his Presidency, dying as a Confederate Congressman.
• "Lord, open the King of England's eyes!" — William Tyndale, before being strangled and burned at the stake for being a Protestant.
• "Don't pull down the blinds. I feel fine!", then to his doctor, "Don't worry, chief. I will be all right." — Rudolph Valentino, dying of peritonitis. He didn't know it and thought he was just having minor complications from ulcer surgery.
• "I love you." — Eddie Van Halen, to his wife Valerie and son Wolfgang
• "Serenely, I take my first step on the road to eternity, and I leave life to enter history." — Brazilian President Gètulio Vargas, who wrote these down before defusing a massive political crisis by shooting himself dead.
• "Please leave the window open." — Jim Varney
• "Call me when you get back. I love ya." — Stevie Ray Vaughan to drummer Chris Layton, his last recorded words before boarding an ill-fated helicopter in Alpine Valley, Wisconsin.^note There were no survivors from the helicopter, so anything he might have said after that will never be known.
• "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.
• "Too bad you can only live so long!" — sung by opera tenor Richard Versalle, five minutes into Leos Janáček's The Makropoulous Case, before dropping dead of a heart attack on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
• "Ut puto, deus fio." ("Oh damn it, I think I'm becoming a god.") — Roman Emperor Vespasian, being snarky about his traditional apotheosis.
• "These men are supposed to be American? My ass!" (translated from the French) — Boris Vian, French Renaissance Man, angrily complaining about the film adaptation of his book J’irai cracher sur vos tombes (filmed as I Spit on Your Graves) during its premiere. He then suddenly collapsed into his seat, dying of heart failure en route to the hospital.
• "Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Mary! Goodbye, Mother! Now I die happy!" Bl. Laura Vicuña, age twelve, dying of tuberculosis complicated by prolonged, extreme abuse from her stepfather. Her mother had basically sold herself to the man in exchange for financial aid for her kids' education. Laura had secretly vowed to give her life to save her mom's soul and her real father, back in Chile^note he had sent Mom and the kids away for safety after the Chilean Civil War of 1891. On her deathbed, Laura begged her mother to get away from the stepfather and change her life. Her mother promised to, and did, leaving her surviving daughter with the Salesian nuns and returning to Chile. Laura's motto was Suffer silently and smile always.
• « Allons allons, mon bon monsieur, ce n'est point le moment de nous faire des ennemis. » ("Now now, my good man, this is no time to be making enemies.") — attributed to Voltaire, when asked on his deathbed by an attending priest to renounce Satan. It's probably apocryphal, but it's just so something he would have said.
• "For such a gentle prince, death is sweet." — Lieutenant Hans Hermann von Katte, before being beheaded in front of his best friend Frederick, a.k.a. the soon-to-be Frederick the Great (also on this page), who had been Forced to Watch his execution and had apologized to Katte for his part in this tragedy.
• "Jawohl, ich bin General von Schleicher." ("Yes, I am General von Schleicher.") — Kurt von Schleicher, right before being gunned down by Nazi assassins. We only know this is what he said because he'd been talking with a friend on the phone, so he put it down to answer the door.
• "Well, this should be interesting." — Tom Waddell, former Olympian, founder of the Gay Games and one of the subjects of Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt.
• "Meine Uhr!" ("My watch!") — Richard Wagner. He had had a heart attack^note possibly brought on by a violent quarrel with his wife Cosima over a pretty young "Flower Maiden" in Parsifal and was dying in his wife's arms when the watch fell from his pocket onto the floor.
• "Leave me alone." — Diana, Princess of Wales, to first responders and photographers who tried to help get her out of the wreck of her vehicle following her fatal car crash in August 1997. She was actually conscious but reported to be in a state of shock immediately following the accident, but while being transported to the hospital she went into cardiac arrest and died a few hours later from severe internal injuries.
• "I've fought in so many battles seeking martyrdom that there is no spot in my body left without a scar or a wound made by a spear or sword. And yet here I am, dying on my bed like an old camel. May the eyes of the cowards never rest." — Khalid ibn al-Walid
• "The flag, the flag. Oh, the flag!" — Gouverneur Warren, Union general, on his deathbed in 1882.
• "Gioia, o gioia!" (Joy, oh joy!) — sung by opera baritone Leonard Warren, on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York on March 5, 1960, just before he dropped dead. Worse still, he had just completed an aria that begins with the words Morir! Tremenda cosa! ("To die, a tremendous thing!")
• "I trust you." — Gene Wilder's dying words to his wife Karen Wilder on his deathbed. Karen recalled him repeating this to her three times before passing away of Alzehimer's disease. While dying, Wilder was surrounded by his family members while listening to Ella Fitzgerald's cover of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" (which was his favorite song).
• "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, who had a fear of being buried alive.
• "Of course I know who you are. You’re my girl. I love you." — John Wayne, to his daughter Aissa
• "Just don't talk, please don't talk / Don't you talk about me when I'm gone!" — Edith Webster, playing Grandmother in the stage play The Drunkard (probably the Brian Burton musical parody version) on November 22, 1986, at the Towson Moose Lodge in Baltimore, singing the last line of "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" — after which her character dies. Webster dropped dead on stage amid enthusiastic applause. When the stagehands started calling for help, the audience thought it was All Part of the Show.
• "Go away! I'm all right." H. G. Wells. He did not know he was dying.
• "Jeg hadde slig en vidunderlig drøm, jeg drømte jeg sov i min moders favn." ("I had such a wonderful dream; I dreamt I slept in my mother's lap.") — Henrik Wergeland. His mother had died a few years before.
• "Allen..." — Betty White, in reference to her late husband Allen Ludden.
• "I never could quite make it. These thoughts are too much for me." — Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower shooter.
• "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do." — attributed to Oscar Wilde, who was dying of cerebral meningitis, which is known to cause hallucinations. That, or he may have just really hated the wallpaper and let everyone know in his trademark way. In any event, these probably weren't actually his last words (those probably were the responses in the Last Rites), but this is just so like Oscar Wilde that people will insist this is what he said whether or not he said it.
• "Why, yes, a bulletproof vest." — Dominic Willard, when asked if he had any last requests before the firing squad emptied their guns into his body.
• "You clown police. You gonna stop with all that killing all these kids. You're gonna stop killing innocent kids, murdering young kids. When I kill one or pop one, y'all want to kill me. God has a plan for everything. You hear? I love everyone that loves me. I ain't got no love for anyone that don't love me." — Jeffrey Williams before he was executed for killing a police officer.
• "You guys doin' that right?" — Stanley "Tookie" Williams, convicted killer who wrote a series of children's books about the perils of gang violence while on death row, expressing concern that the executioners were having trouble with the machine that would kill him.
• "I am ready." — Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States.
• "Now I'll find out what happened to Catherine!" — Dr. William Asa Winters, father of Catherine Winters, who vanished in March 1913 at the age of nine. He never stopped looking for her.^note This was almost exactly two years after the Elsie Paroubek tragedy and a very similar massive search took place for Catherine, again with Romani initially blamed. Most likely according to new evidence uncovered in 2017, Catherine was killed by her stepmother's railroad worker boyfriend when she found out about their affair.
• "Now, God be praised, I can die in peace." — British General James Wolfe, after being fatally wounded at the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham. He made this statement right after being told by his troops that the French Army was retreating from the field. Incidentally, the French commanding officer, General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, was also killed in the battle.
• "It's a fallacy to think that Hitler was the cause of the world's present woes. Germany was the cause of Hitler." — Alexander Woollcott, playwright and Caustic Critic, probably most famous today from his portrayal in The Man Who Came to Dinner. He spoke these words at a radio panel show, The People's Platform. He then stopped and wrote the words "I am sick." He had suffered a massive heart attack. He was taken to hospital where he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
• "I'd just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back like Independence Day, with Jesus June 6. Like the movie, big mother ship and all, I'll be back." — Aileen Wuornos, the subject of the film Monster.
• "Seven lives for my country. Ten thousand years for His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor!" (「七生報國天皇陛下万歳」, "Shichisei Hōkoku! Tennouheika Banzai!")— Otoya Yamaguchi, assassin of politician Inejiro Asanuma. More exactly, he wrote them on the wall of his cell before hanging himself.
• "Forgive me! I won’t do it again!" — Serial rapist Akku Yadav, as he was being brutally beaten to death by a mob of over 200 women after mocking one of his victims in court. No one was ever tried for his murder.
• "I don't feel bad at all. He died years later because he ate himself to death. He also asked me to cut him so I did." — The final tweet of professional wrestler Jerome Young, better known as New Jack, in response to a question of the infamous Mass Transit Incident.
• "Naui jugeumeul allijimara." ("나의 죽음을 알리지 마라", "The battle is at its height — do not announce my death.") — 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. He won the battle, cementing Korea's decisive victory over Japan's invasion.
• "Viva Italia! Goodbye to poor people everywhere! Push the button! Go ahead, push the button!" — Giuseppe Zangara, attempted assassin of Franklin D. Roosevelt and assassin of Anton Cermak, who said these as he was about to be executed on the electric chair. To be clear, Roosevelt was the intended target, and it didn’t matter that Zangara had killed the wrong person- he was sentenced to death anyway.
• "Curtain! Fast music! Lights! Ready for the last finale! — Great! The show looks good, the show looks good!" — Florenz Ziegfeld, in his final delirium imagining he was directing one of his stage shows. Producer of the "Ziegfeld Follies", a wildly popular series of extravaganzas starting in the early 1900s. Actresses and dancers vied to become "Ziegfeld Girls". A romantic version of his life story is shown in The Great Ziegfeld, which has him saying "I've got to have more steps. I need more steps. I've got to get higher — higher."

Other/Unsorted

• In many cases, and as demonstrated in a few specific examples above, the last words of air pilots are often recorded on either cockpit voice recorders or on air traffic control logs, recording them for posterity (and investigation). Usually they're either totally innocuous (in the case of a sudden accident) or screaming and Tear Jerkers (because plane crashes are frigging scary). In the case of crashes involving professional and/or military pilots, the last words often are a dry but stressed recounting of what is happening and what they are doing, as such pilots are specifically trained to not lose their cool, and keep talking for the recorder.
• The Texas Department of Justice has compiled a list of the final statements of criminals before execution. These are literally the final things those people said as they were being strapped to the lethal injection table — not really all that famous, but still making a morbidly fascinating reading of what people actually say while facing imminent doom.

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