--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: I want to end my life like a human being…" description: "\"“I want to end my life like a human being: in Intensive Care, high on morphine, surrounded by cripplingly expensive doctors and brutal, relentless life..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/446/greg-egan-8766_death_i-want-to-end-my-life-like-a-human-being_2135057.jpg" --- # I want to end my life like a human being: in Intensive… ![“I want to end my life like a human being: in Intensive Care, high on morphine, surrounded by cripplingly expensive doctors and brutal, relentless life-support machines. Then the corpse can go into orbit—preferably around the sun. I don't care how much it costs, just so long as I don't end up party…” quote by Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/446/greg-egan-8766_death_i-want-to-end-my-life-like-a-human-being_2135057.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/446/greg-egan-8766_death_i-want-to-end-my-life-like-a-human-being_2135057.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/446/greg-egan-8766_death_i-want-to-end-my-life-like-a-human-being_2135057.jpg) > ““I want to end my life like a human being: in Intensive Care, high on morphine, surrounded by cripplingly expensive doctors and brutal, relentless life-support machines. Then the corpse can go into orbit—preferably around the sun. I don't care how much it costs, just so long as I don't end up party of any fucking natural cycle: carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen. Gaia, I divorce thee. Go suck the nutrients out of someone else, you grasping bitch.”” [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. The narrator desires a technologically mediated death to escape natural cycles, expressing alienation and disdain for biological continuity. **In simple terms:** He wants a high‑tech, non‑natural death. Key Takeaway Consider the ethics of extreme body autonomy. Themes mortality technology environment alienation ethics Mood somber provocative Type ethical existential When to use this quote - medical decisions - space burial - environmental impact - philosophical debate Key Concepts transhumanism bioethics existentialism Questions to Reflect On - What responsibilities do we have to natural cycles? - Is a non‑natural death ethically acceptable? 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About the only relatively new artists whose albums I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/i-m-rarely-grabbed-by-anything-the-way-i-was-when-i-was-10-years/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) > [If we spend all our time gazing at the wonders ahead without remembering where we're standing right now, we're going to trip and fall…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/if-we-spend-all-our-time-gazing-at-the-wonders-ahead-without/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) > [“The Transmuters had built a structure that dwarfed universes, but touched each one only lightly. They hadn’t turned whole worlds to rubble, they hadn’t…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/the-transmuters-had-built-a-structure-that-dwarfed-universes-but/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) > [“I have no strength now to speak of my loss of strength.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/i-have-no-strength-now-to-speak-of-my-loss-of-strength/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) > [“The only way up is up.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/the-only-way-up-is-up/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) > [“My earliest memories are of CP4 — that's a Kähler manifold that looks locally like a vector space with four complex directions, though the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/my-earliest-memories-are-of-cp4-that-s-a-k-hler-manifold-that-looks/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) > [“We’ve been half right about a lot of things, but there’s something missing from our theories, something whose nature we haven’t even guessed yet.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/we-ve-been-half-right-about-a-lot-of-things-but-there-s-something/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) > [A story in Asimov's is read by hundreds of thousands of people.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/a-story-in-asimov-s-is-read-by-hundreds-of-thousands-of-people/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) > [“Imagine a universe entirely without structure, without shape, without connections. A cloud of microscopic events, like fragments of space-time … except that there is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-egan/imagine-a-universe-entirely-without-structure-without-shape-without/) [Greg Egan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) [Explore all 78 Greg Egan quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-egan/) ## More Corpse quotes > [“WORDS ARE TEETH. AND THEY EAT ME ALIVE. FEED ON MY CORPSE INSTEAD.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gail-giles/words-are-teeth-and-they-eat-me-alive-feed-on-my-corpse-instead/) [Gail Giles](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gail-giles/) > [“So I should not hate Adolin Kholin for wielding a corpse!”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/brandon-sanderson/so-i-should-not-hate-adolin-kholin-for-wielding-a-corpse/) [Brandon Sanderson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/brandon-sanderson/) > [ René of Anjou \[(1409-80)\] painted a picture of his mistress's corpse as he found it eaten by worms on having it \[her tomb\] openedon… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/horace-walpole/ren-of-anjou-1409-80-painted-a-picture-of-his-mistress-s-corpse-as-he/) [Horace Walpole](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/horace-walpole/) > [“such is their image of man’s nature: the battleground of a struggle between a corpse and a ghost,”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ayn-rand/such-is-their-image-of-man-s-nature-the-battleground-of-a-struggle/) [Ayn Rand](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ayn-rand/) > [“She was dry, dry inside like a ten-thousand-year-old tomb, with the last of her life barely dampening the dirt underneath.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/kat-rosenfield/she-was-dry-dry-inside-like-a-ten-thousand-year-old-tomb-with-the/) [Kat Rosenfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/kat-rosenfield/) > [The government increasingly resembles somebody who is trying to give the kiss of life to a corpse.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/vince-cable/the-government-increasingly-resembles-somebody-who-is-trying-to-give/) [Vince Cable](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/vince-cable/) > [I never change, I'm like a corpse in a coffin.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/j-cole/i-never-change-i-m-like-a-corpse-in-a-coffin/) [J Cole](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/j-cole/) > [“You and I are victims of the same disease. We're fighting the same war, just different battles in different theaters, and it's way too…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/isaac-marion/you-and-i-are-victims-of-the-same-disease-we-re-fighting-the-same-war/) [Isaac Marion](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/isaac-marion/) > [Alas, poor Yorick! How surprised he would be to see how his counterpart of today is whisked off to a funeral parlor and is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jessica-mitford/alas-poor-yorick-how-surprised-he-would-be-to-see-how-his-counterpart/) [Jessica Mitford](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jessica-mitford/) > [Well, my friend, this earth will one day be that cold corpse; it will become uninhabitable and uninhabited like the moon, which has long…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jules-verne/well-my-friend-this-earth-will-one-day-be-that-cold-corpse-it-will/) [Jules Verne](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jules-verne/) > [“Bagpipe Music' It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw, All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/louis-macneice/bagpipe-music-it-s-no-go-the-merrygoround-it-s-no-go-the-rickshaw-all/) [Louis MacNeice](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/louis-macneice/) > [“Now, feel free to call me what I am-call me a corpse, call me dead, call me a killer if you want. I've killed…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lia-habel/now-feel-free-to-call-me-what-i-am-call-me-a-corpse-call-me-dead-call/) [Lia Habel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lia-habel/) > [“I’ve heard that sometimes a version of you must die before another more enlightened version can be born. I think that’s true after watching…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/julie-flygare/i-ve-heard-that-sometimes-a-version-of-you-must-die-before-another/) [Julie Flygare](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/julie-flygare/) > [“In some warped way, having an embalmed body with us made perfect sense.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/tahir-shah/in-some-warped-way-having-an-embalmed-body-with-us-made-perfect-sense/) [Tahir Shah](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/tahir-shah/) > [Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-galsworthy/memory-heaps-dead-leaves-on-corpse-like-deeds-from-under-which-they/) [John Galsworthy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-galsworthy/) Browse all 240 Corpse quotes ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“I want to end my life like a human being: in Intensive Care, high on morphine, surrounded by cripplingly expensive doctors and brutal, relentless life-support machines. 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