Death Quote by Yōko Tawada
““After the death of all living creatures, all our unfulfilled wishes and unspoken words will go on drifting in the stratosphere, they will combine with one another and linger upon the earth like fog. What will this fog look like in the eyes of the living? Will they fail to remember the dead and instead indulge in banal meteorological conversations like: "It's foggy today, don't you think?””
About This Quote
Source Novel: The Emissary, 2016
Unspoken wishes of the dead become a lingering fog, reminding the living of forgotten memories and the tendency to trivialize loss.
In simple terms: Dead wishes become a fog that the living ignore.
Key Takeaway
Remember the dead beyond small talk.
Themes
memory
loss
remembrance
trivialization
Mood
melancholy
reflective
Type
literary
philosophical
When to use this quote
- funerals
- personal reflection
- literary analysis
- environmental awareness
Key Concepts
existentialism
posthumanism
ephemerality
Questions to Reflect On
- How do we honor unspoken wishes?
- Can everyday conversations acknowledge loss?
A Different Perspective
The metaphor may be too abstract for practical mourning.
![“Eventually they [Sarunas Marciulionis and Don Nelson] got a call from a representative of the Grateful Dead, whose members had been inspired by Lithuania's struggle for independence. Nelson and Marciulionis showed up at the address they were given in San Francisco, which was a small, nondescript…” quote by Jack McCallum](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/cdb/jack-mccallum-56572_1992_eventually-they-sarunas-marciulionis-and_351112.jpg)
