Quotes / Immortality Immorality

Fan Works

...having been all but immortal from birth, never knowing vulnerability, far too many of them never developed notions of empathy or restraint, or found them far too late.

— Advice and Trust

Films — Animated

"Every harvest moon I must drain the life force from victims lured to my island, to preserve my immortality."

— Simon Lenore, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island

Films — Live-Action

"I'm going to be immortal, and I'm gonna wear your head as a watch fob!"

— Harry Bordon, Cast a Deadly Spell

"We're gonna kill your friend and the baby. And we're gonna live forever."

— Cultist, Drive Angry

Cardinal Alba: Hello, Jack. From your expression, I assume you couldn't understand my presence here. I'm sorry to disillusion you, Jack. As one grows old, as death approaches, we begin to question... our fate. And I found mine lacking. "Is there a god? Is there a heaven?" I can no longer answer this for certain. I've witnessed no miracles, had no visions, and the prospect of death terrifies me. I've realized I've only one... alternative, and I made a bargain. With the devil if you wish.
Jack Crow: You are truly a pile of dog shit, Cardinal.
Alba: Yeah, that's right. That's correct, Jack, and I can live with that. After I have given what Valek wants, he will fulfill our bargain. And I will be transformed into one of his... new children. It's beautiful, isn't it?

— John Carpenter's Vampires

"Now you know what we are, now you know what you are. You'll never grow old, Michael, and you'll never die. But you must feed!"

— David, The Lost Boys

Literature

"Did you ever think about living forever? I don't mean like fluttering off on angel wings and sipping tea with Jesus on a cloud, but living forever right here. Like a man. Well, I'm here to tell you, it can be done. Now, I know what you're thinking. If living forever looks like me, you're not interested. But you see me, this body, it's only part of the story. Immortality isn't what you think it is. It's not like in movies where you stay young and pretty forever. It's harder than that and in a way it's more poetic. You live your life and grow old and when the time is right, you're reborn in new flesh. A bit like a phoenix. You know what a phoenix is, don't you? Surely even a crude lad like you must know that. Your young friend here is my phoenix. When I shrug off this old meat, I'll be reborn in his. But first I have to clear away the clutter."

— The Old Man, Ambitious Boys Like You, by Richard Kadrey

Immortality didn't turn you into a monster. It merely showed you what kind of monster you already were.

— The Machineries of Empire: The Raven Stratagem

Live-Action TV

Buffy: These people aren't gonna get changed, are they? The rest of them... they're just fodder.
Ford: Technically, yes. But I'm in. I will become immortal.
Buffy: Well, I've got news for you, brain trust. That's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you.
Ford: It's better than nothing.
Buffy: And your life is nothing? Ford, these people don't deserve to die!
Ford: Well, neither do I! But apparently no one took that into consideration, 'cause I'm still dying. I look good, don't I? Well, let me tell you something: I've got maybe six months left, and by then what they bury won't even look like me. It'll be bald and shriveled and it'll smell bad. No, I'm not going out that way. [Buffy turns away] I'm sorry, Summers. Did I screw up your righteous anger riff? Does the nest of tumors liquefying my brain kinda spoil the fun?
Buffy: [turns back to him] I'm sorry. I had no idea. But what you're doing is still very wrong.
Ford: Okay, well, you try vomiting for twenty-four hours straight because the pain in your head is so intense, and then we'll discuss the concept of right and wrong. These people are sheep. They wanna be vampires 'cause they're lonely, miserable or bored. I don't have a choice.
Buffy: You have a choice. You don't have a good choice, but you have a choice! You're opting for mass murder here, and nothing you say is gonna make that okay!
Ford: You think I need to justify myself to you?
Buffy: I think this is all part of your little fantasy drama! Isn't this exactly how you imagined it? You tell me how you've suffered and I feel sorry for you. Well, I do feel sorry for you, and if those vampires come in here and start feeding, I'll kill you myself!

— Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Lie to Me"

"Eternal life for those who can afford it means eternal control over those who cannot."

— Quellcrest Falconer, Altered Carbon

"You and the rest of your kind take blind comfort in the belief that we are monsters, that you could never do what we did. The key ingredient in the anti-agapic cannot be synthesized. It must be taken from living beings. For one to live forever, another one must die. You will fall upon one another like wolves. It will make what we did pale by comparison. The billions who live forever will be a testimony to my work, and the billions that are murdered to provide that immortality will be the continuance of that work. That will be my monument!"

— Jha'Dur, Babylon 5, "Deathwalker"

"You are not yet ready for immortality."

— Ambassador Kosh, after destroying Jha'Dur and her formula, Babylon 5

Music

Give in to your temptation, transcend mortality
Why let yourself be bound by mortal morality?

— JT Music, "Shadow Of Myself"

Could this be the answer:
Uncorrupted carmine red?
Voices keep resounding
In my dazed bewildered head...
Have I found myself eternity
Someone has heard my prayers
Now I'll become divine...

— Kamelot, "Elizabeth: I. Mirror, Mirror", Karma

Radio

"What is morality to an immortal?"

— Sebastian Grayle, Big Finish Doctor Who, "Seasons of Fear"

Tabletop Games

Some dream of being able to evade death's cold grip forever. The most obvious way to obtain more life is to take it from others. All of us kill to live; our survival depends upon the deaths of countless plants and animals. However, in legends and stories, gaining a longer lifespan often requires the death of other humans. There are many ways to achieve this, but the end result is the same: bodies in shallow graves or souls consigned to whatever afterlife might exist, their lives taken and used by another.

— New World of Darkness: Immortals

Video Games

"Life has value because it is finite. Immortality will bring you nothing but pain."

— Eluca, Chaos Rings

Zouken Matou: If there is a way to prolong your life and if it is within reach — humans are creatures that will obtain it, even at the cost of the world itself!
Ilyasviel von Einzbern: Then you're saying you'll sacrifice everyone else so you can stay alive?
Zouken Matou: Of course. I would gladly kill everyone in the world if that would grant my wish.

— Fate/stay night

"Revenge is the prime ingredient in the fountain of youth. I've kept myself alive for hundreds of years with a steady diet of jealousy and hate, awaiting the day when I would finally eclipse your family's thieving reputation."

— Clockwerk, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

"Eternal beauty has a cost, one which Shavronne was happy to pay with the lives of others."

— The Offering, Path of Exile

"Crow's talents seem to lead more towards ending lives rather than prolonging them..."

— Anya, Timesplitters Future Perfect

"Immortality and technological progress are at your fingertips! And we will achieve it, no matter how many beings we have to sacrifice..."

— The Hospital Director, Veins

Webcomics

"Nazi science sneers at the boundary between life and death!"

— Colonel Haken, Irregular Webcomic!

Duncan: Women... children... by the hundreds of millions will suffer and die because of what we — what I am planning to do... And you act like that means nothing!
Sircea: When you live as an immortal, you come to realize that they all suffer and die eventually. Women and children receive no special dispensation.

— The Young Protectors

"Don't you get it? Be a vampire, or a ghost, or an immortal with a paint-by-numbers portrait in the rec room. Hell, even a brain-in-a-jar, in a pinch. Anything to avoid the Big Fire Below."

— Xykon the Lich, The Order of the Stick, "No Respect for the Wicked"

Web Original

"Why are characters like Lestat de Lioncourt and Dorian Gray held up as cautionary tales about the personal cost of immortality, anyway? In both stories, it’s an explicit plot point that they were already insufferable wankers before they became immortal."

— David J Prokopetz

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