Just before she died, American poet Emily Dickinson said this: “I must go in, for the fog is rising.”
It could have been a line from one of her powerful poems, such as these chilling words: “I heard a fly buzz when I died . . . With blue uncertain buzz between the light and me. And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see.”
I have a whole collection I’ve compiled throughout the years I call “Final Words/Famous People.” I just discovered online some I hadn’t heard before. They range from the comical to the touching, from the baffling to the insightful.
I’d like to share some favorites:
Pioneering playwright Eugene O’Neill, who had been born in a hotel room, the son of a traveling actor: “I knew it; I knew it. Born in a hotel room – and %**@# it! – died in a hotel room.”
Hollywood’s emotional whirlwind Joan Crawford, as her housekeeper began to pray for her: “Don’t you dare ask God to help me!”
Famed drummer Buddy Rich, when asked by a nurse if there was something (meds) he couldn’t take: “Yeah,” he quipped. “Country music.”
The greatest female comic of them all, Lucille Ball, was asked if she wanted anything: “My Florida Water” (her cologne).
French Queen Marie Antoinette who, seconds before being beheaded by the guillotine, accidentally stepped on the foot of her executioner: “Excuse me, sir, I did not mean to do it.”
American modernist author and literary salon host Gertrude Stein: “What is the answer?” (long pause, silence). “Well, in that case, what is the question?”
Genius movie director Alfred Hitchcock, who was a lapsed Catholic: “One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes.”
Classic novelist Jane Austen, who told her sister: “I want nothing but death.”
Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, as he was in bed dying, staring at the cruddy-looking wallpaper: “The wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”
Brilliant singer Amy Winehouse, who died from alcohol poisoning: “I don’t want to die.”
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: “Oh, I am so bored of it all.”
Movie legend John Wayne, after his wife asked him if he still knew who she was. “Of course I know who you are. You are my girl. I love you.”
Supreme actor Humphrey Bogart, whose wife, Lauren Bacall, had to leave to pick up the children: “Goodbye, kid. Hurry back.”
Silent movie actor Charlie Chaplin, after a priest said to him that God should have mercy on his soul: “Why not? After all, it belongs to him.”
Baseball great Joe DiMaggio, who had been married to Marilyn Monroe but divorced her years before her death and who had a rose delivered to her grave every day of his life: “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn.”
President John F. Kennedy, while riding in the limo in Dallas, heard the Texas governor’s wife Nelly Connelly say to him, “Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.” Seconds before the assassin’s bullets struck him, he replied to Mrs. Connelly, “No, you certainly can’t.”
Martin Luther King Jr. just seconds before his assassination in Memphis: “Ben, make sure you play Take My Hand, Precious Lord in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.”
Musical titan Beethoven: “Friends, applaud. The comedy is over.”
Jeanne Antoinette de Pompadour, a mistress of King Louis XV of France, who demanded that God “wait a second” so she could apply rouge to her cheeks before her final breath.
American short-story author O’Henry: “Turn up the lights; I don’t want to go home in the dark.”
My all-time favorite in my “Final Words/Famous People” collection is one engraved on a tombstone in a cemetery in Key West, Fla. B. P. Roberts, a woman who died in 1970 at age 50, was known as a hypochondriac and was often teased about her various imaginary ailments. Before she died, she said, “I told you I was sick!” That epitaph – such good humor – now adorns her grave.
