Famous Last Words

I'm not sure why, but I've been researching the last words of notable, and not-so-notable, people. Some of the statements are dreadfully boring. Others are fiercely powerful, a few even laden with vengeance or political assertions. Many are quite eloquent and beautiful. And some are downright fabulous.

I've compiled many of my favorites here. I can only hope that when it's my time to go, I can whip up something as memorable, powerful, and/or funny as these.

-When she woke briefly during a long illness, Lady Nancy Astor saw her entire family gathered around her bedside and noted, just before expiring: "Am I dying, or is this my birthday?"

-"I should never have switched from Scotch to martinis." -Humphrey Bogart

-"I'm bored with it all." - Winston Churchill

-"That was the best ice cream soda I ever tasted!" -Lou Costello (of Abbot & Costello)

-Joan Crawford, upon noticing her housekeeper praying aloud at her deathbed: "Damn it...Don't you dare ask God to help me."

-"My God. What's happened?" -Diana, Princess of Wales

-"I must go in, the fog is rising." -Emily Dickinson

-"Adieu, mes amis. Je vais la gloire." (Farewell my friends! I go to glory!) -Isadora Duncan

-"All my possessions for a moment of time." -Elizabeth I

-"I've had a lot of a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed every minute of it." -Errol Flynn

-"I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring." -Richard Feynman (physicist)

-"I see black light." -Victor Hugo

-"Does nobody understand?" -James Joyce

-"Why not? Yeah." -Timothy Leary (spoken with true acid-trippy abstractedness)

-"Go on, get out. Last words are for fools who haven't said enough." -Karl Marx

-"Nothing matters. Nothing matters." -Louis B. Mayer

-"I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room -- and God damn it! -- died in a hotel room." -Eugene O'Neill

-"Get my swan costume ready." -Anna Pavlova (ballerina; this line would also be suitable upon Bjork's death)

-"Lord help my poor soul." -Edgar Allen Poe

-"Put out the light." -Teddy Roosevelt

-"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--" -Civil War General John Sedgwick

-"God bless....God damn." -James Thurber

-"Well gentleman, you are about to see a baked Appel." -convicted criminal George Appel, in the electric chair

-"Remember: the death penalty is murder." -convicted criminal Robert Drew, moments before his lethal injection

-"I love you." -last words spoken by convicted criminal Sean Flanagan to his executioner

-"How about this headline for tomorrow's paper? French fries." -convicted criminal James French, in the electric chair

-"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." -convicted criminal Johnny Frank Garrett, Sr., moments before his lethal injection

-"I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this." -convicted criminal Thomas J. Grasso, moments before his lethal injection

-After stepping on her executioner's foot, Marie-Antoinette's last words were: "Monsieur, I beg your pardon." (She never said "Let them eat cake.")

-"Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment." -convicted criminal John Spenkelink, in the electric chair

-Virginia Woolf's suicide note:

"Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that -- everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V."

-"Codeine....Bourbon...." -Tallulah Bankhead

-And the winner of this morbid contest is, hands-down, the great Oscar Wilde's last words: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go."