Famous Last Words

A

Jackie, is it my birthday or am I dying?
Nancy Astor, politician (1879 - 1964)
When she woke briefly during her final illness and found her family all congregated around her bed.

B

How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?
P.T. Barnum, American showman (1810 - 1891)

If all the swords in England were pointed against my head, your threats would not move me.
Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (1119 - 1179)
To the four knights who had come to Canterbury Cathedral to murder him.

I shall hear in heaven.
Ludwig von Beethoven, German composer (1770 - 1827)
He had lost his hearing many years before his death.

No.
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor (1847 - 1922)
To his deaf wife who whispered “don’t leave me,” Bell wrote his reply.

I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.
Humphrey Bogart, American actor (1899 - 1957)

The executioner is, I believe, very expert, and my neck is very slender.
Anne Boleyn (1507 - 1536)

Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight.
Lord Byron, poet (1788 - 1824)

C

I fear, gentlemen, that I am an unconscionable time a-dying.
Charles II, King of England (1630 - 1685)

I haven’t had champagne for a long time.
Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright (1860 – 1904)
To his nurse who offered him champagne to ease his death from tuberculosis.

I’m bored with it all.
Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister and statesman (1874 - 1965)

Goodnight my darlings, I’ll see you tomorrow.
Sir Noel Coward, playwright (1899 - 1973)

Dammit, don’t you dare ask God to help me.
Joan Crawford, American actress (1905 - 1977)
To her housekeeper, who had started praying aloud.

That was a great game of golf, fellers.
Bing Crosby, American entertainer (1903 - 1977)
To his golfing partners just after finishing a round of golf.

D

I am not in the least afraid to die.
Charles Darwin, naturalist (1809 - 1882)

That guy's got to stop. He'll see us.
James Dean, American actor (1931 - 1955)

No it is better not. She will only ask me to take a message to Albert.
Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister (1804 - 1881)
On his deathbed, declining a visit from Queen Victoria.

E

All my possessions for a moment of time.
Elizabeth I, Queen of England (1533 - 1603)

F

I've never felt better.
Douglas Fairbanks Sr, American actor (1883 - 1939)

It is nothing... it is nothing.
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (1863 - 1914)
To Count Harrech after being shot in Sarajevo in 1914.

I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it.
Errol Flynn, Australian actor (1909 - 1959)

This is absurd ! This is absurd !
Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist (1856 - 1939)

G

Don't worry, relax !
Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (1944 - 1991)
To his bodyguards moments before being assassinated.

Bugger Bognor.
King George V, King of England (1865 - 1936)
To the royal physician who suggested to the King on his death bed at Sandringham that he would soon be well enough to visit Bognor.

It's stopped.
Joseph Henry Green, surgeon and philosopher (1791 - 1863)
To those at his death bed on checking his own pulse.

I know you've come to kill me, shoot, you are only going to kill a man.
Che Guevara, Argentinian revolutionary (1928 - 1967)
To his executioner in Bolivia, Sergeant Jaime Teran.

H

God preserve the Emperor.
Franz Joseph Hayden, composer (1732 - 1809)
He sang his last words to those at his death bed.

I

On the contrary !
Heinrich Ibsen, Norwegian playwright (1828 - 1906)
To his nurse who was telling a visitor that he was getting a little better.

J

Vancouver ! Vancouver ! This is it... this is...
David A Johnson, American volcanologist (1949 - 1980)
On a radio transmission when Mount St Helens erupted in 1980.

K

I should have drunk more champagne.
John Maynard Keynes, economist (1883 - 1946)

L

My bedfellows are cramp and crush - we three all in one bed.
Charles Lamb, essayist and poet (1775 - 1834)

I am going to the inevitable.
Philip Larkin, poet (1922 - 1985)

I wish I was skiing. [Nurse "do you ski, Mr Laurel?"] No, but I would rather be skiing than what I am doing.
Stan Laurel, American comedian (1890 - 1965)
To the nurse, before dying of a heart attack.

Why do you weep. Did you think I was immortal?
Louis XIV, King of France (1638 - 1715)

M

Cool it brothers...
Malcolm X, American civil rights leader (1925 - 1965)
To his three assassins who promptly shot him sixteen times.

Go on, get out ! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough !
Karl Marx, German revolutionary (1818 - 1883)
To his housekeeper, when asked what his last words were.

It's all been rather lovely.
John Le Mesurier, actor (1912 - 1983)

I've got to get to the top of the hill.
John Pierpont Morgan, American financier (1837 - 1913)

Shoot me in the chest.
Benito Mussolini, Italian fascist leader (1883 - 1945)
To his executioneer in Northern Italy.

N

I do not have to forgive my enemies. I have had them all shot.
Ramon Maria Narvaez, Spanish general and politician (1800 - 1868)
When the priest at his death bed asked him if he forgave his enemies.

Thank God I have done my duty.
Admiral Horatio Nelson, Naval hero (1758 - 1805)

You will not find me alive at sunrise.
Nostradamus, French seer (1503 - 1566)
To his secretary, Jean de Chavigny before retiring for the night. The following morning he was found dead.

O

I am just going outside. I may be some time.
Captian Lawrence Oates, explorer (1880 - 1912)
To his companions on Captain Scott's ill fated Antarctic expedition in 1912. Oates was suffering from extreme frost bite and exhaustion. In a bid to help his companions' chances of survival he got up and left the tent in which they were sheltering from a blizzard. It was his 32nd birthday.

This isn't Hamlet you know. It's not supposed to go into the bloody ear.
Laurence Olivier, actor (1907 - 1989)
To his nurse, who was trying to moisten his lips with water, misaimed and squirted the moisture into ear. In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet's father was murdered by poison dripped into his ear whilst he slept.

P

Die, my dear doctor ? That's the last thing I shall do.
Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister (1784 - 1865)

Drink to me.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter (1881 - 1973)

I think I could eat one of Bellamy's veal pies.
William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister (1759 - 1809)

I have not told half of what I saw.
Marco Polo, Venetian explorer (1254 - 1324)

Q

R

I have a long journey to take and must bid the company farewell.
Sir Walter Raleigh, explorer (1554 - 1618)

So little done, so much to do.
Sir Cecil Rhodes, magnate and politician (1853 - 1902)

Never forget, life is magnificent.
Rainer Rilke, Austrian Poet (1875 - 1926)
To his wife as he lay dying.

S

Put out that bloody cigarette.
Saki (pen name of Hector Hugh Munro), author (1870 - 1916)
To a brother officer in the trenches just before being shot by a German sniper.

They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.
General John Sedgwick, American commander during the American Civil War (1813 - 1862)

Dying is easy, comedy is hard.
George Bernard Shaw, playright (1856 - 1950)

T

I just had eighteen straight scotches. I think that's the record. After thirty nine years, that is all I've done.
Dylan Thomas, poet (1914 - 1953)

I feel that this time they have succeeded.
Leon Trotsky, Russian political thinker (1879 - 1940)
To his bodyguards just after they had failed to stop Stalinist agent Ramon Mercader from assassinating him with an ice pick in Mexico City.

U

V

I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath (1452 - 1519)

Now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.
Voltaire, French philospher (1694 - 1778)
To the priest who asked him on his death bed to renounce Satan.

W

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has to go.
Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright (1854 - 1900)

X

Y

Z

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