Some people are experts on the most random of facts. For example, my mom and I have this weird ability to recall almost any movie quotation. My friend Aubrey can name all of the Academy Award Best Picture winners ever.
Shay, my roommate, knows famous last words. You'll reference a random historical figure and she'll immediately respond with, "oh they had really cool last words!" I'd never thought about it before. But, it says so much about the person and their life. Some are mysterious, some are sad, some are hilarious, and some are the most poignant thing you think you'll ever hear.
Shay was awesome and allowed me to conduct a "mini interview" on this quirky interest...
M: So, how did you become interested in famous last words?
SG: I read this
book once about a character who was interested in famous last words. And, it was just really interesting to me. I also remember learning about Emily Dickinson's last words in like the fifth grade and finding it really intriguing.
A List of Shay's Favorites...
Emily Dickinson:
"I must go in, the fog is rising."
Eugene O'neil:
"I knew it! I knew it! Born in a hotel room and goddammit, I died in a hotel room!"
Oscar Wilde:
"Either this wallpaper goes, or I do!"
James French:
An American serial killer to be executed by the electric chair. Before he died, he looked at the reporters and said,
"How's this for tomorrow's headline? French Fries."
Che Guevara:
(Has the most badass last words of all time.)
"I know you're here to kill me. Shoot coward. You're only going to kill a man."
William McKinley:
He was shot, and he was going in and out for a few days, but when he was clearly nearing the end, his wife started crying and threw herself on him, and said "I want to go too! I want to go too!" To which he replied:
"we are all going."
John Sedgwick:
(A Major-General in the Civil War) said,
"Don't worry, they couldn't hit an elephant from this dis--."
Lady Nancy Astor:
She woke up to find everyone she knew and loved in her room, and she said,
"am I dying, or is it my birthday?"
Karl Marx:
(Another badass set of last words.)
His nurse asked him if he had any last words, and he said,
"Get out of here! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"
Ludwig Van Beethoven:
"Friends, applaud. The comedy is over."
Thomas Jefferson:
"Is it the fourth?"
It was indeed. He died on the fourth of July. And, ironically, his nemesis John Adams died just a few hours later...
John Adams:
Said,
"Jefferson still survives."
Albert Einstein:
His last words go unrecorded due to the fact that he spoke them in German, and the maid in the room knew no German at all.
Isaac Newton:
"I do not know what I may have seemed to the world, but to myself I seemed only as a child playing along the sea shore. Every now and then bending to pick up a smoother pebble or prettier seashell than the ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lies undiscovered before me."
