Short Story Recommendations

The Ultimate Dark Academia Book Recommendation Guide Ever

The title of this post is clickbait. I, unfortunately, have not read every book ever. Not all of these books are particularly “dark” either. However, these are my recommendations for your dark academia fix. The quality of each of these books varies. I have limited this list to books that are directly linked to the world of academia and/or which have a vaguely academic setting.

Dark Academia staples:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Dead Poets Society by Nancy H. Kleinbaum

Vita Nostra by Maryna Dyachenko

Dark academia litfic or contemporary:

Bunny by Mona Awad

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

White Ivy by Susie Yang

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates

Attribution by Linda Moore

Dark academia thrillers or horror:

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

Dark academia fantasy/sci-fi:

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Betrayals by Bridget Collins

Dark academia romance:

Gothikana by RuNyx

Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

Dark academia YA or MG:

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Crave by Tracy Wolff

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Dark academia miscellaneous:

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip

beginner’s guide to the indie web

“i miss the old internet” “we’ll never have websites like the ones from the 90s and early 2000s ever again” “i’m tired of social media but there’s nowhere to go”

HOLD ON!

personal websites and indie web development still very much exist! it may be out of the way to access and may not be the default internet experience anymore, but if you want to look and read through someone’s personally crafted site, or even make your own, you can still do it! here’s how:

use NEOCITIES! neocities has a built in search and browse tools to let you discover websites, and most importantly, lets you build your own website from scratch for free! (there are other ways to host websites for free, but neocities is a really good hub for beginners!)

need help getting started with coding your website? sadgrl online has a section on her website dedicated to providing resources for newbie webmasters!

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the core of what all websites are built on. many websites also use JS (JavaScript) to add interactive elements to their pages. w3schools is a useful directory of quick reference for pretty much every HTML/CSS/JS topic you can think of.

there is also this well written and lengthy guide on dragonfly cave that will put you step by step through the basics of HTML/CSS (what webpages are made from), if that’s your sort of thing!

stack overflow is every programmer’s hub for asking questions and getting help, so if you’re struggling with getting something to look how you want or can’t fix a bug, you may be able to get your answer here! you can even ask if no one’s asked the same question before.

websites like codepen and jsfiddle let you test HTML/CSS/JS in your browser as you tinker with small edits and bugfixing.

want to find indie websites outside the scope of neocities? use the search engine marginalia to find results you actually want that google won’t show you!

you can also use directory sites like yesterweb’s link section to find websites in all sorts of places.

if you are going to browse the indie web or make your own website, i also have some more personal tips as a webmaster myself (i am not an expert and i am just a small hobbyist, so take me with a grain of salt!)

if you are making your own site:

get expressive! truly make whatever you want! customize your corner of the internet to your heart’s content! you have left the constrains of social media where every page looks the same. you have no character limit, image limit, or design limit. want to make an entire page or even a whole website dedicated to your one niche interest that no one seems to be into but you? go for it! want to keep a public journal where you can express your thoughts without worry? do it! want to keep an art gallery that looks exactly how you want? heck yeah! you are free now! you will enjoy the indie web so much more if you actually use it for the things you can’t do on websites like twitter, instead of just using it as a carrd bio alternative or a place to dump nostalgic geocities gifs.

don’t overwhelm yourself! if you’ve never worked with HTML/CSS or JS before, it may look really intimidating. start slow, use some guides, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. even if your site doesn’t look how you want quite yet, be proud of your work! you’re learning a skill that most people don’t have or care to have, and that’s pretty cool.

keep a personal copy of your website downloaded to your computer and don’t just edit it on neocities (or your host of choice) and call it a day. if for some reason your host were to ever go down, you would lose all your hard work! and besides, by editing locally and offline, you can use editors like vscode (very robust) or notepad++ (on the simpler side), which have more features and is more intuitive than editing a site in-browser.

you can use ctrl+shift+i on most browsers to inspect the HTML/CSS and other components of the website you’re currently viewing. it’ll even notify you of errors! this is useful for bugfixing your own site if you have a problem, as well as looking at the code of sites you like and learning from it. don’t use this to steal other people’s code! it would be like art theft to just copy/paste an entire website layout. learn, don’t steal.

don’t hotlink images from other sites, unless the resource you’re taking from says it’s okay! it’s common courtesy to download images and host them on your own site instead of linking to someone else’s site to display them. by hotlinking, every time someone views your site, you’re taking up someone else’s bandwidth.

if you want to make your website easily editable in the future (or even for it to have multiple themes), you will find it useful to not use inline CSS (putting CSS in your HTML document, which holds your website’s content) and instead put it in a separate CSS file. this way, you can also use the same theme for multiple pages on your site by simply linking the CSS file to it. if this sounds overwhelming or foreign to you, don’t sweat it, but if you are interested in the difference between inline CSS and using separate stylesheets, w3schools has a useful, quick guide on the subject.

visit other people’s sites sometimes! you may gain new ideas or find links to more cool websites or resources just by browsing.

if you are browsing sites:

if the page you’re viewing has a guestbook or cbox and you enjoyed looking at the site, leave a comment! there is nothing better as a webmaster than for someone to take the time to even just say “love your site” in their guestbook.

that being said, if there’s something on a website you don’t like, simply move on to something else and don’t leave hate comments. this should be self explanatory, but it is really not the norm to start discourse in indie web spaces, and you will likely not even be responded to. it’s not worth it when you could be spending your time on stuff you love somewhere else.

take your time! indie web doesn’t prioritize fast content consumption the way social media does. you’ll get a lot more out of indie websites if you really read what’s in front of you, or take a little while to notice the details in someone’s art gallery instead of just moving on to the next thing. the person who put labor into presenting this information to you would also love to know that someone is truly looking and listening.

explore! by clicking links on a website, it’s easy to go down rabbitholes of more and more websites that you can get lost in for hours.

seeking out fansites or pages for the stuff you love is great and fulfilling, but reading someone’s site about a topic you’ve never even heard of before can be fun, too. i encourage you to branch out and really look for all the indie web has to offer.

i hope this post helps you get started with using and browsing the indie web! feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions or want any advice. <3

Need a break?

Take a car drive

Look out the window

Take a walk in a forest

Tour a museum

Take a walk in the city

Listen to the radio

This is a compiled list of some of my favorite pieces of short horror fiction, ranging from classics to modern-day horror, and includes links to where the full story can be read for free. Please be aware that any of these stories may contain subject matter you find disturbing, offensive, or otherwise distressing. Exercise caution when reading. Image art is from Scarecrow: Year One.

PSYCHOLOGICAL: tense, dread-inducing horror that preys upon the human psyche and aims to frighten on a mental or emotional level. 

“The Frolic” by Thomas Ligotti, 1989

“Button, Button” by Richard Matheson, 1970

“89.1 FM” by Jimmy Juliano, 2015

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892

“Death at 421 Stockholm Street“ by C.K. Walker, 2016

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973

“An Empty Prison” by Matt Dymerski, 2018

“A Suspicious Gift” by Algernon Blackwood, 1906

CURSED: stories concerning characters afflicted with a curse, either by procuring a plagued object or as punishment for their own nefarious actions.

“How Spoilers Bleed” by Clive Barker, 1991

“A Warning to the Curious” by M.R. James, 1925

“each thing i show you is a piece of my death” by Stephen J. Barringer and Gemma Files, 2010

“The Road Virus Heads North” by Stephen King, 1999

“Ring Once for Death” by Robert Arthur, 1954

“The Mary Hillenbrand Cassette“ by Jimmy Juliano, 2016

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs, 1902

MONSTERS: tales of ghouls, creeps, and everything in between.

“The Curse of Yig” by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, 1929 

“The Oddkids” by S.M. Piper, 2015

“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” by Richard Matheson

“The Graveyard Rats” by Henry Kuttner, 1936

“Tall Man” by C.K. Walker, 2016 

“The Quest for Blank Claveringi“ by Patricia Highsmith, 1967

“The Showers” by Dylan Sindelar, 2012

CLASSICS: terrifying fiction written by innovators of literary horror. 

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843

“The Interlopers” by Saki, 1919 

“The Statement of Randolph Carter“ by H.P. Lovecraft, 1920

“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Pierce, 1893

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, 1820 

“August Heat” by W.F. Harvey, 1910

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843

SUPERNATURAL: stories varying from spooky to sober, featuring lurking specters, wandering souls, and those haunted by ghosts and grief. 

“Nora’s Visitor” by Russell R. James, 2011

“The Pale Man” by Julius Long, 1934

“A Collapse of Horses” by Brian Evenson, 2013

“The Jigsaw Puzzle” by J.B. Stamper, 1977 

“The Mayor Will Make A Brief Statement and then Take Questions” by David Nickle, 2013

“The Night Wire” by H.F. Arnold, 1926 

“Postcards from Natalie” by Carrie Laben, 2016

UNSETTLING: fiction that explores particularly disturbing topics, such as mutilation, violence, and body horror. Not recommended for readers who may be offended or upset by graphic content.  

“Survivor Type” by Stephen King, 1982

“I’m On My Deathbed So I’m Coming Clean…” by M.J. Pack, 2018

“In the Hills, the Cities” by Clive Barker, 1984

“The New Fish” by T.W. Grim, 2013

“The Screwfly Solution” by Racoona Sheldon, 1977

“In the Darkness of the Fields” by Ho_Jun, 2015 

“The October Game” by Ray Bradbury, 1948

“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, 1967 

HAPPY READING, HORROR FANS!

Poetry index: Irish

With that last set of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill poems, Irish has reached the arbitrary 25-poem minimum to get its own index, so. Here it is.

All poems are accompanied by an English rendering, of variable quality.

Breathnach, Colm: “Macha”

Brennan, Deirdre: “An Tobar”

Ellis, Conleth: “Faire”

Ellis, Conleth: “Oilithireacht”

Ellis, Conleth: “Sa Stáisiún”

Kelly, Rita: “Dán Grá”

Kelly, Rita: “An Ré ina Luí”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “Cadenza”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “An tEach Uisce”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “Fionnuala”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “Muintir m'Athar”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “Oscailt an Tuama”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “Sionnach”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “Tráigh Gheimhridh”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “Tsunami”

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala: “Turas na Scríne”

Ní Ghlinn, Áine: “Sa Chistin”

Ó Céileachair, Séamas: “Uaigneas”

Ó Fiannachta, Pádraig: “Caisleán Gainimhe”

Ó Maolfabhail, Art: “Ní Bhíonn an Páganach gan a Chuid Féin den Charthanacht”

Ó Murchú, Aodh: “An Charraig”

Ó Murchú, Aodh: “Leascultúr”

Ó Néill, Séamus: “Amhrán Mhanannáin Mhic Lir”

Prút, Liam: “Réal sa tSeachtain”

Rosenstock, Gabriel: “Leacht Ceartaithe”

This is part 1 of a few on dystopia that I’ll be publishing every Monday because I find it incredibly interesting that we are so fascinated by societies that are going horribly wrong.

basic verbs

be - essere / stare there is  - c’è there are - ci sono have - avere do - fare go - andare want - volere can - potere need - aver bisogno think - pensare know - sapere say - dire like - piacere speak - parlare learn - imparare understand - capire

Note - Verbs in Italian change all the time depending on the mood, tense and person. Here’s a useful Italian conjugator.

conjunctions

that (as in “I think that…” or “the woman that…”) - che and - e (if the following word starts with a vowel it is preferred that you use “ed”) or - o (if the following word starts with a vowel it is preferred that you use “od”) but - ma because - perché so (meaning “therefore” as in “I wanted it, so I bought it”) - per questo, perciò, quindi if - se

prepositions

of - di to - a  from - da in - in, a, da  at (a place) - in, a, da at (a time) - a with - con about - circa, su like (meaning “similar to”) - come for (warning, this one has several meanings that you need to take care of) - per before (also as a conjunction) - prima di, prima che after (also as a conjunction) - dopo di, dopo che  during - durante

Note - Prepositions in Italian are joined with the definite articles; e.g. di + la = della, a + il = al, etc.

question words

who - chi what - che where - dove  when - quando why - perché how - come  how much - quanto/-a, quanti/-e which - quale, quali

adverbs

a lot - molto, un sacco a little - un poco well - bene badly - male only - solo also - anche  very - molto  too (as in “too tall”) - troppo  so (as in “so tall”) - davvero, molto so much - tanto more (know how to say “more … than …”) - più  less (know how to say “less … than …”) - meno as … as … (e.g. “as tall as”) - tanto… quanto… best - meglio, migliore  worst - peggio, peggiore  now - ora, adesso  then - allora, quindi  here - qui  there - lì, là  maybe - forse  always - sempre usually - di solito  often - spesso  sometimes - a volte  never - mai  today - oggi yesterday - ieri tomorrow - domani  soon - presto  almost - quasi already - già  still - ancora  enough - sufficiente, abbastanza 

adjectives

this - questo that - quello good - buono bad - cattivo all - tutto no - nessuno many - molto  few - poco other - altro same - stesso different - diverso  enough - abbastanza, sufficiente one - uno two - due first - primo easy - facile hard - difficile early - presto  late - tardi important - importante  interesting - interessante fun - divertente  boring - noioso beautiful - bello big - grande  small - piccolo happy - felice  sad - triste busy - occupato  excited - emozionato  tired - stanco  ready - pronto favorite - preferito new - nuovo right (meaning “correct”) - corretto wrong - sbagliato true - vero

Note - Italian adjectives always have to agree in number and gender with the noun they modify. The above list presents the adjectives in their masculine, singular form.

subject pronouns

To know more about the pronouns, check out this post I wrote a while ago.

I - io you - tu  she - ella, lei, essa he - egli, lui, esso it - esso/-a formal you - Lei we - noi you (plural) - voi they - essi, esse, loro

nouns

everything - tutto something - qualcosa nothing - niente everyone - tutti someone - qualcuno no one - nessuno Spanish - lo spagnolo English - l’inglese thing - la cosa person - la persona place - il luogo time (as in “a long time”) - il tempo time (as in “I did it 3 times”) - la volta friend - l’amico  woman - la donna man - l’uomo money - i soldi  country  - il paese  city - la città language - la lingua word - la parola food - il cibo house - la casa store - il negozio office - la oficina manager - direttore job - il lavoro   work (as in “I have a lot of work to do”) - lavoro  problem - il problema  question - la domanda idea - l’idea  life - la vita  world - il mondo  day - il giorno year - l’anno week - la settimana month - il mese hour - l’ora mother, father, parent - la madre, il padre, il genitore daughter, son, child - la figlia, il figlio, il bambino  wife, husband - la sposa, lo sposo girlfriend, boyfriend - la ragazza, il ragazzo

Note - Italian nouns inflect by gender (masculine and feminine, with some instances of vestigial neuter) and number (singular and plural).

more verbs

work (as in a person working) - lavorare work (meaning “to function”, e.g. “the TV works”) - funzionare see - vedere use - usare should - dovere believe - credere practice - praticare seem - sembrare come - venire leave - andarsene return - ritornare give - dare take - prendere bring - portare look for - cercare find - trovare receive - ricevere buy - comprare try - provare start - iniziano  stop (doing something) - smettere di (fare qualcosa) finish - finire  continue - continuare wake up - svegliarsi get up - alzarsi  eat - mangiare eat breakfast - fare colazione eat lunch - pranzare eat dinner - cenare happen - succedere feel - sentire create (aka “make”) - creare cause (aka “make”) - causare meet (meeting someone for the first time) - conoscere  ask (a question) - chiedere wonder - chiedersi reply - rispondere mean - significare, voler dire read - leggere write - scrivere  listen - ascoltare hear - sentire remember - ricordare forget - dimenticare choose - scegliere decide - decidere be born - nascere die - morire kill - uccidere  live - vivere stay - rimanere  change - cambiare  help - aiutare  send - inviare  study - studiare  improve - migliorare  hope - sperare 

useful phrases

hello - ciao goodbye - addio  thank you - grazie you’re welcome - di niente excuse me (to get someone’s attention) - scusa  sorry - mi dispiace it’s fine (response to an apology) - non fa niente  please - per favore yes - sì no - no my name is … - mi chiamo what’s your name? - come ti chiami? (informal singular); come si chiama? (formal singular)                                  nice to meet you - piacere di conoscerti (informal singular); piacere di conoscerla (formal singular)  how are you? - come stai? I’m doing well, how about you? - sto bene, e tu?  sorry? / what? (if you didn’t hear something) - come? how do you say …? - come si dice …? what does … mean? - che vuol dire …? I don’t understand - non capisco  could you repeat that? - puoi ripetere? (informal singular); può ripetere (formal singular)   could you speak more slowly, please? - puoi parlare più lentamente? (informal singular); può parlare più lentamente? (formal singular) well (as in “well, I think…”) - bene  really? - davvero?  I guess that… - credo che… it’s hot (talking about the weather) - fa caldo  it’s cold (talking about the weather) - fa freddo

(instagram: myfairesttreasure)

how do i start to read marxist leninist/leftist stuff ? i searched on the internet but it’s super confusing lol

the most important value for me as an ML is anti-imperialism, so i guess i'll always recommend that people start with works centred on that

some suggestions below (all books should be available either on marxist.org or as pdf/epub files on libgen)

American Holocaust by David E. Stannard

about the colonization of america. not explicitly marxist, but it's probably done more to radicalize me than any other piece of writing. this is the pile of corpses capitalism is built on:

Within no more than a handful of generations following their first en counters with Europeans, the vast majority of the Western Hemisphere's native peoples had been exterminated. The pace and magnitude of their obliteration varied from place to place and from time to time, but for years now historical demographers have been uncovering, in region upon region, post-Columbian depopulation rates of between 90 and 98 percent with such regularity that an overall decline of 95 percent has become a working rule of thumb. What this means is that, on average, for every twenty natives alive at the moment of European contact-when the lands of the Americas teemed with numerous tens of millions of people-only one stood in their place when the bloodbath was over. To put this in a contemporary context, the ratio of native survivorship in the Americas following European contact was less than half of what the human survivorship ratio would be in the United States today if every single white person and every single black person died. The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. That is why, as one historian aptly has said, far from the heroic and romantic heraldry that customarily is used to symbolize the European settlement of the Americas, the emblem most congruent with reality would be a pyramid of skulls. - David E. Stannard

2. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. - Vladimir Lenin

3. The Wretched of The Earth by Franz Fanon

Let us look at ourselves, if we can bear to, and see what is becoming of us. First, we must face that unexpected revelation, the strip-tease of our humanism. There you can see it, quite naked, and it’s not a pretty sight. It was nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affectation of sensibility were only alibis for our aggressions. A fine sight they are too, the believers in non-violence, saying that they are neither executioners nor victims. Very well then; if you’re not victims when the government which you’ve voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving without hesitation or remorse have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of doubt, executioners. And if you chose to be victims and to risk being put in prison for a day or two, you are simply choosing to pull your irons out of the fire. But you will not be able to pull them out; they’ll have to stay there till the end. Try to understand this at any rate: if violence began this very evening and if exploitation and oppression had never existed on the earth, perhaps the slogans of non-violence might end the quarrel. But if the whole regime, even your non-violent ideas, are conditioned by a thousand-year-old oppression, your passivity serves only to place you in the ranks of the oppressors. - prefrace by Jean-Paul Sartre

4. Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire

Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa I have talked a good deal about Hitler. Because he deserves it: he makes it possible to see things on a large scale and to grasp the fact that capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophicrenunciation, there is Hitler - Aimé Césaire

5. Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

probably the most accessible introduction to communism that doesn't demonize countries that have undergone—or attempted to undergo—a transitation into socalism (like the ussr, cuba, etc.)

The very concept of "revolutionary violence" is somewhat falsely cast, since most of the violence comes from those who attempt to prevent reform, not from those struggling for reform. By focusing on the violent rebellions of the downtrodden, we overlook the much greater repressive force and violence utilized by the ruling oligarchs to maintain the status quo, including armed attacks against peaceful demonstrations, mass arrests, torture, destruction of opposition organizations, suppression of dissident publications, death squad assassinations, the extermination of whole villages, and the like. - Michael Parenti

The Last Words Of Famous Writers

When you’ve dedicated your life to words, it’s important to go out eloquently.

Ernest Hemingway: “Goodnight my kitten.” Spoken to his wife before he killed himself.

Jane Austen: “I want nothing but death.” In response to her sister, Cassandra, who was asking her if she wanted anything.

J.M Barrie: “I can’t sleep.”

L. Frank Baum: “Now I can cross the shifting sands.”

Edgar Allan Poe: “Lord help my poor soul.”

Thomas Hobbes: “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap into the dark,”

Alfred Jarry: “I am dying…please, bring me a toothpick.”

Hunter S. Thompson: “Relax — this won’t hurt.”

Henrik Ibsen: “On the contrary!”

Anton Chekhov: “I haven’t had champagne for a long time.”

Mark Twain: “Good bye. If we meet—” Spoken to his daughter Clara.

Louisa May Alcott: “Is it not meningitis?” Alcott did not have meningitis, though she believed it to be so. She died from mercury poison.

Jean Cocteau: “Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking towards me, without hurrying.”

Washington Irving: “I have to set my pillows one more night, when will this end already?”

Leo Tolstoy: “But the peasants…how do the peasants die?”

Hans Christian Andersen: “Don’t ask me how I am! I understand nothing more.”

Charles Dickens: “On the ground!” He suffered a stroke outside his home and was asking to be laid on the ground.

H.G. Wells: “Go away! I’m all right.” He didn’t know he was dying.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “More light.”

W.C. Fields: “Goddamn the whole fucking world and everyone in it except you, Carlotta!” “Carlotta” was Carlotta Monti, actress and his mistress.

Voltaire: “Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.” When asked by a priest to renounce Satan.

Dylan Thomas: “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies…I think that’s the record.”

George Bernard Shaw: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”

Henry David Thoreau: “Moose…Indian.”

James Joyce: “Does nobody understand?”

Oscar Wilde: “Either the wallpaper goes, or I do.” 

Bob Hope: “Surprise me.” He was responding to his wife asking where he wanted to be buried.

Roald Dahl’s last words are commonly believed to be “you know, I’m not frightened. It’s just that I will miss you all so much!” which are the perfect last words. But, after he appeared to fall unconscious, a nurse injected him with morphine to ease his passing. His actual last words were a whispered “ow, fuck”

Salvador Dali hoped his last words would be “I do not believe in my death,” but instead, they were actually, “Where is my clock?”

Emily Dickinson: “I must go in, the fog is rising.”