There have been times when I have deliberately tried to take my life ... I think I must have been crying for some attention. Judy Garland
I can
almost understand
why
people
leap
from
bridges. Charles Bukowski
Not a bad idea – falling from the back of the flats. Better than living to be honest with you. Derek – The Special, Kev in hospital, Channel 4 2014
Diana Driven To Five Suicide Bids By ‘Uncaring’ Charles. The Sunday Times headline
He’s dying, Biff. He’s been trying to kill himself. Death of a Salesman 1985 ***** starring Dustin Hoffman & John Meldovich & Stephen Lang & Kate Reid & Charles Durning & Louis Zorich et al, director playwright Arthur Miller, Linda
A suicide kills two people, Maggie, that’s what it’s for! Arthur Miller, After the Fall, 1964
You realize that suicide’s a criminal offence – in less enlightened times they’d have hung you for it. Peter Cook
Perkins, I want you to lay down your life. We need a futile gesture at this stage. To raise the whole tone of the war. Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook to Jonathan Miller
Common sense got to Shelley before the bullet did. But he was distraught. Later that night he took an overdose of Laudanum. His two suicide attempts had failed. Robert Winston, Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster, BBC 2017
Kill myself – that’s what I’ll do. The History of Mr Polly by H G Wells 1949 starring John Mills & Betty Ann Davies & Megs Jenkins & Finlay Currie & Gladys Henson & Diana Churchill & Shelagh Fraser & Edward Chapman & Dandy Nichols & Sally Ann Howers & Juliet Mills et al, director Anthony Pelissier, Polly to self
More than three hundred Dutchmen mainly Jews preferred to commit suicide. The World at War 18/26: Occupation, ITV 1974
I think suicide is the most perfect thing you can do in life. Damien Hirst
Without the possibility of suicide I would have killed myself long ago. E M Cioran, 1911-95
I can’t imagine how Mrs Kane would make such a terrible mistake. Citizen Kane 1941 starring Orson Welles & Joseph Cotten & Dorothy Comingore & Everett Sloane & Ray Collins & George Coulouris & Agnes Moorehead & Paul Stewart & Rut Warrick & Erskine Sanford & William Alland et al, director Orson Welles, Charles to doctor
The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort: with it a calm passage is to be made across many a bad night. Friedrich Nietzsche
Kenneth Williams died from an overdose of barbiturates on 14th April 1988. Heroes of Comedy: Kenneth Williams, 1995
Yes I’ve put stuff down about suicide. How one would go about it. What would be the best method, all that kind of thing. Kenneth Williams, Good Afternoon, 1976
Lots of people on about Joe’s [Orton] death. Everyone phoning and asking the same thing – why? Kenneth Williams, Fantabulosa! BBC 2006
I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top. John Keats
There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of immortality. John Keats
Nor at all can tell
Whether I mean this day to end myself,
Or lend an ear to Plato where he says,
That men like soldiers may not quit the post
Allotted by the Gods. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lucretius
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly longed for death. Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Two Voices
I am the ghost of an infamous suicide,
My own blue razor rusting in my throat.
O pardon the one who knock for pardon at
You gate, father – you hound-bitch, daughter, friend.
It was my love that did us both to death. Sylvia Plath, Electra on Azalea Path, 1959
I can’t deceive myself that out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light. And if you have no past or future which, after all, is all that the present is made of, why then you may as well dispose of the empty shell of present and commit suicide. Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Cobwebs touched my face with the softness of moths. Wrapping my black coat round me like my own sweet shadow, I unscrewed the bottle of pills and started taking them swiftly, between gulps of water, one by one.
At first nothing happened, but as I approached the bottom of the bottle, red and blue lights began to flash before my eyes. The bottle slid from my fingers and I lay down.
The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life. Then, at the rim of vision, it gathered itself, and in one sweeping tide, rushed me to sleep. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Four weeks after The Bell Jar was published in 1963 Sylvia Plath committed suicide. Sylvia Plath: Inside the Bell Jar, BBC 2018
The longest suicide note in history. Gerald Kaufman, re Labour Party manifesto 1983
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory, 1897
Oh what a mess! I’ll kill myself. I’ll kill myself. Why did I wait so long to kill myself? What am I waiting for now? Get me a knife. Lend me a gun. Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: The Proposal starring Sheridan Smith & Mathew Horne, pater to daughter, Sky Arts 2010
In Church your grandsire cut his throat;
To do the job too long he tarried,
He should have had my hearty vote,
To cut his throat before he married. Jonathan Swift, Verses on the Upright Judge
I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I’m easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me,
to me ... Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody
Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me. Stephen Fry, Moab is My Washpot
Russia: One in every four gay teens here has attempted suicide. Stephen Fry, Out There II, BBC 2013
The capsules have been taken with some whisky. What is striking is the unreality of the situation. I feel no different. But suddenly the decision came that it must be done. It’s a bright sunny morning full of life. Such a morning as many people have died on. I cannot believe I have committed suicide. Since nothing has happened – no big bang or cut wrists. Sixty-five is long enough for me. It wasn’t a complete failure. I did some ... Keith Vaughan, diary entry 4th November 1977
Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It’s so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You’re given comedy and miss all the jokes. Every hour you get weaker. Sometimes as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it is, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls. Martin Amis, Money, suicide note
Impartially, shrewdly, I considered suicide, though not in my worst moments. The bottle of pills. The note: ‘No hard feelings, everyone, but I’ve thought about it and it’s just not on, is it? It’s nearly on, but not quite. No? Anyway, all the best, C.’ Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers