July 2009
1 post
June 2009
2 posts
“I’m tired. I’m going back to bed.”
– George Reeves, last words. Reeves committed suicide. This was the last thing he said to his friends before shooting himself in his bedroom.
“Put out the bloody cigarette!!”
– British Author Hector Hugh Munro, last words. Spoken to a fellow officer while in a trench during World War One, for fear the smoke would give away their positions. He was then shot by a German sniper who had heard the remark.
May 2009
23 posts
“Uh oh.”
– Michael J. Smith, crew member of the ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger 51-L mission, 28 January 1986. Last statement recorded on the spacecraft’s cockpit recorder, immediately before the shuttle exploded.
“God Bless, God Damn!”
– Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Santa Anna was known to spend many long hours trying to decide what his last words would be; one can only speculate if this is what he intended to say.
“Drink to me!”
– Pablo Picasso, last words.
“Et puis, tenez, monsieur Marius, je crois que j’étais un peu amoureuse de...”
– Éponine, last words. Les Miserables, a novel by Victor Hugo. Translation: “You know, Monsieur Marius, I think I was a little bit in love with you.”
“And you will keep me safe…and you will keep me close…and...”
– Eponine, shot, dies in the arms of the man she has always loved, Marius. Les Misrables, the Musical, lyrics by Alain Boublil.
Common Last Words in Film
Nooooooo!!!
Who: Generally spoken during a last ditch battle by someone who has seen a close friend / loved one shot down and as a result goes beserk, usually by firing wildly at the enemy. Character is him/herself usually shot down as well moments later. Also cried out by people who deny their fates, often villains.
Hey, what’s this button do? or some variation thereof.
Who:...
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Last Words of Caesar...
Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! - Julius Caesar Caesar, now be still:I kill’d not thee with half so good a will. - Brutus, as he runs on his sword
Wolfman Jack died of a heart attack in Belvidere, North Carolina, on July 1, 1995. The day before his death, he had finished broadcasting his last live radio program, a weekly program nationally syndicated from Planet Hollywood in downtown Washington, D.C.
Wolfman Jack said that night, “I can’t wait to get home and give Lou a hug, I haven’t missed her this much in years.”...
“I am just going outside. I may be some time.”
– Captain Lawrence Oates, last words. On Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition, while suffering from frostbite and sheltering from a blizzard, Oates felt he was decreasing his companions’ chances of survival. Oates voluntarily left the tent; it was his 32nd birthday. He was...
“Say good-bye to Pat, say good-bye to Jack and say good-bye to yourself, because...”
– Marilyn Monroe’s last words, to her doctor.
“Is everyone else alright?”
– Robert F. Kennedy, last words, whispered to his wife directly after he was shot and seconds before he fell into a coma. He died in the early morning hours of the next day.
“Now that I’m dying, there is nothing left to worry about. I know it was a...”
– James Colburn’s last words. He was executed in Texas on March 26, 2003
“I would suggest that when a person has a thought of doing anything serious...”
– William George Bonin’s last words. He was executed in California on February 23, 1996
“For 17 years the Attorney General has been pursuing the wrong man. In time he...”
– Thomas Martin Thompson’s last words. He was executed in California on July 14, 1998
“I’m ready to be released. Release me.”
– Kenneth Allen McDuff’s last words. He was executed in Texas on November 17, 1998
“I’m sorry for what happened. I love you all. I love you all. I’m ready.”
– Jimmy Dale Bland’s last words. He was executed in Oklahoma on June 26th, 2007.
Much of what Bland said to his family was inaudible because of a defect in the death chamber’s public address system.
Bland had a fatal case of lung cancer that had spread to his brain, and had undergone...
“I am guilty. I don’t deny that … They had good evidence. Witnesses...”
– Newton Anderson’s last words. He was executed in Texas on February 22, 2007
“Gentlemen, I bid you farewell…”
– Wallace Hartley, last words, to his fellow band mates before the Titanic sank, April 15, 1912.
(One survivor who clambered aboard Collapsible A distinctly heard Hartley say these words before he and the band were swept off the deck by the sea.)
“I have just had eighteen whiskeys in a row. I do believe that is a record.”
– Dylan Thomas, poet, last words.
“I just feel so bad about the dying part.”
– Randy Pausch of Last Lecture fame, last words
“Dave, stop. Stop will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. ...”
– HAL-9000, last words. From the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
April 2009
12 posts
“It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch”
– Gravestone of Page Smith and Eloise Pickard Smith - who died 36 hours apart and were cremated together.
This American Life: 114: Last Words →
Stories of people’s last words before death. Their one last shot at figuring things out, summing things up. One last moment of asserting the fact of our existence, at the moment of our annihilation.
One hour. (info)
“I kiss’d thee ere I kill’d thee: no way but this,
Killing myself,...”
– Othello, last words. From the play, Othello, by William Shakespeare.
September 25, 1978 San Diego, California Pacific...
Are we clear of that Cessna?
Suppose to be.
I guess.
I hope.
Oh yeah, before we turned downwind, I saw him about one o'clock, probably behind us now.
There's one underneath.
I was looking at that inbound there.
Whoop!
Aghhh!
[Sound of impact]
Oh shit!
Easy baby, easy baby.
[sound of electrical system reactivation tone on CVR, system off less than one second]
What have we got here?
It's bad.
We're hit man, we are hit.
Tower, we're going down, this is PSA.
Okay, we'll call the equipment for you.
[sound of stall warning]
This is it baby!
Bob [name of F/O]
Brace yourself.
Hey baby..
Ma I love you..
[End of recording]
-- Midair collision. planecrashinfo.com/cvr780928.htm
“I should have asked for a stunt double!”
– Vic Morrow, last words. (Morrow said this before filming a challenging scene for “Twilight Zone: The Movie” with a helicopter. During filming, the helicopter lost control, and fell on the actors. He and one of the two children were decapitated while the other was crushed by the falling...
“I should have drunk more Champagne.”
– John-Maynard Keynes, last words.
“No permitas que esto acabe así. Cuentales que he dicho algo.”
– Pancho Villa, last words. (Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.)
“Go on, get out. Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”
– Karl Marx, last words. (To his housekeeper, who urged him to tell her his last words so she could write them down for posterity.)
Raymond Carver - inscribed on his gravestone
“Late Fragment” And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.