It’s hard for me to believe that I will die. Because I’m bubbling in a frigid freshness. My life is going to be very long because each instant is. The impression is that I’m still to be born.

Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

No matter how much you’ve been warned, Death always comes without knocking. Why now? is the cry. Why so soon? It’s the cry of a child being called home at dusk, it’s the universal protest against Time.

Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is unfamiliar. In spite of the fact that it happens all the time, we never see it.