Dying to Say This

As Mark Twain intoned, I've got nothing against dying; I just don't want to be there when it happens. Or, as others have observed: death always comes out of season.

You've probably seen these last words before, but they bear repeating:

Pancho Villa

Pancho Villa: “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”

Roman emperor Gaius Caligula: “I am still alive!”

Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian: “I am about to — or I am going to — die: either expression is correct.”

Henrik Ibsen by Edvard Munch

Henrik Ibsen, after his housekeeper told a guest he was feeling better: “On the contrary!”

Karl Marx, to his housekeeper, who had just asked whether he had any last words: “Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!”

British surgeon Joseph Henry Green, after checking his own pulse: “Stopped.”

Union general John Sedgwick, sizing up enemy sharpshooters: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist…”

Marie Antoinette

On her way to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette stepped on the executioner’s toe. Her last words were “Pardonez-moi, monsieur.”