JULES BARBEY D'AUREVILLY
Les Diaboliques

They had finished their lives before their death – which is not always the end of life and often comes long before the end.

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JAMES JOYCE
"The Dead"

One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.