BY ANTONELLA GAMBOTTO-BURKE

The first human corpse I saw had housed my grandmother's soul. I expected a serene mien. I expected to find her sleeping. I expected a transforming beauty, something painted by Millais. Instead, the old whore petticoats of skin. (p19)

Pills are the great infantilizers of our time. Adulthood can be wearying, and so some grow nostalgic about childhood dependencies. (p22)

Does any man have the right to dispose of his own life? This is the ultimate question of moral entitlement, and relevant only if right is relevant in this context, and it is not. A suicidal man cannot be concerned - and nor should he be - with questions of moral entitlement. (p53)

In wanting to kill himself, a man wants only to kill his consciousness of pain. I think therefore I am; therefore if I am not, I cannot think. (p54)

It takes real sangfroid to stare death out. Planning your own murder is a delicate undertaking, requiring as much foresight and paperwork as that invested by some girls into their first weddings. (p93)

Recollections fell from me in flakes, in scales. All that remained of me was all that remains of anyone: a kind of iridescence. There was a fear that I would never again feel substantial, a fear that I would be a kind of psychic amputee. (p120)

Psychological autopsies are also necessary to identify errors or oversights and expunge guilt. (p148)

Death is a process as straightforward as mowing a lawn. (p188)

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