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Suicide notes

message left behind before a person kills themself

A suicide note is a document written by a person preparing to commit suicide, often to explain the reasons for this act and to say goodbye to loved ones, although sometimes simply as a means to make an additional statement. A suicide note typically relays the last words of its author, although in several instances the author survives the attempt, or at least survives long enough to utter some additional "last words".

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  • I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away. Peace, Love, Empathy. Kurt Cobain.
    • Who: Kurt Cobain (last lines of his April 5, 1994 suicide note), lead singer for American grunge band Nirvana, referencing a song by Neil Young; reported in Scott Stanton, The Tombstone Tourist: Musicians (2003), p. 48.
  • To my friends: My work is done. Why wait?
    • Who: George Eastman, Inventor (in his March 14, 1932 suicide note), reported in Harvard Business Review (2001), Volume 79, p. 78.
  • Dear Eddie, This quite rational. Please give my love to my mother, but there was nothing left to do. Things just went wrong too many times.
    • Who: Tony Hancock (one of his June 25, 1968 suicide notes), as cited in John Fisher Tony Hancock: The Definitive Biography (London: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 469.
    • Edward Joffe, with whose family Hancock was temporarily living, directed Hancock's uncompleted Australian television series.
  • All fled – all done, so lift me on the pyre;
    The feast is over, and the lamps expire.
    • Robert E. Howard (June 11, 1936), writer, reported in Kristine Bertini, Understanding and Preventing Suicide: The Development of of Self-Destructive Patterns and Ways to Alter Them (2009), p. 134.
  • I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity.
    • Who: Jerzy Kosinski, Polish-American novelist, reported in Jim Glendinning, Footloose Scot: Travels in a Time of Change (2012), p. 193.
  • Excuse all the blood, but I have slit my wrists and neck. It was the intention that I would die in the woods so that it would take a few days before I was possibly found. I belong in the woods and have always done so. No one will understand the reason for this anyway. To give some semblance of an explanation I'm not a human, this is just a dream and soon I will awake. It was too cold and the blood kept clotting, plus my new knife is too dull. If I don't succeed dying to the knife I will blow all the shit out of my skull. Yet I do not know. I left all my lyrics by "Let the good times roll"—plus the rest of the money. Whoever finds it gets the fucking thing. As a last salutation may I present "Life Eternal". Do whatever you want with the fucking thing.
    • Who: Per Yngve Ohlin, AKA Dead, ex-vocalist with black metal band Mayhem, reported in Andrew O'Neill, A History of Heavy Metal (2017), p. 110.
    • Ohlin left this remark in his suicide note before cutting his wrists, then shooting himself in the head with a shotgun.
  • I must end it. There's no hope left. I'll be at peace. No one had anything to do with this. My decision totally.
    • Who: Freddie Prinze, comedian (January 29, 1977), reported in Kristine Bertini, Understanding and Preventing Suicide: The Development of of Self-Destructive Patterns and Ways to Alter Them (2009), p. 132.
  • Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool - good luck.
  • I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.
  • When I am dead, and over me bright April
    Shakes out her rain drenched hair,
    Tho you should lean above me broken hearted,
    I shall not care.
    For I shall have peace.
    As leafey trees are peaceful
    When rain bends down the bough.
    And I shall be more silent and cold hearted
    Than you are now.
    • Sara Teasdale (poet), addressing her lover, d. 1933, reported in Kristine Bertini, Understanding and Preventing Suicide: The Development of of Self-Destructive Patterns and Ways to Alter Them (2009), p. 133.
  • The future is just old age and illness and pain … I must have peace and this is the only way.
    • James Whale (May 29, 1957), film director, reported in Kristine Bertini, Understanding and Preventing Suicide: The Development of of Self-Destructive Patterns and Ways to Alter Them (2009), p. 133.
  • The act of taking my own life is not something I am doing without a lot of thought. I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time. I do believe strongly, however, that the right to do so is one of the most fundamental rights that anyone in a free society should have. For me much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear and a place where there is no self, only calm. Love always, Wendy. (suicide note)
    • Who: Wendy O. Williams (in her April 6, 1998 suicide note), punk rocker, lead vocalist for the Plasmatics, reported in David K. Frasier, Suicide in the Entertainment Industry: An Encyclopedia of 840 Twentieth Century Cases (2002), p. 347.
  • I feel certain that I'm going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices.
    • Who: Virginia Woolf (March 28, 1941), reported in Kristine Bertini, Understanding and Preventing Suicide: The Development of of Self-Destructive Patterns and Ways to Alter Them (2009), p. 132.
  • [front side] To Harald, May God forgive you and forgive me, too but I prefer to take my life away and our baby’s before I bring him with shame or killin him. Lupe [backside] How could you, Harald, fake such a great love for me and our baby when all the time you didn’t want us? I see no other way out for me so goodbye and good luck to you. Love Lupe
    • Who: Lupe Vélez (December 14, 1944), reported in Fregoso, Rosa Linda. "Lupe Vélez: Queen of the B’s." From Bananas to buttocks: The Latina body in popular film and culture. University of Texas Press, 2007. 51-68.
  • I don't quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed. I don't really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts. These thoughts constantly recur, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and progressive tasks. ...
    • Who: Charles Whitman (August 1, 1966). Whitman C: "Whitman Letter," July 31, 1966. Austin, TX, Austin American-Statesman: The Whitman Archives, 1966.
  • I made mistakes from ignorance, inexperience and overwork I did not knowingly violate any law or standard of conduct No one in The White House, to my knowledge, violated any law or standard of conduct, including any action in the travel office. There was no intent to benefit any individual or specific group The FBI lied in their report to the AG The press is covering up the illegal benefits they received from the travel staff The GOP has lied and misrepresented its knowledge and role and covered up a prior investigation The Ushers Office plotted to have excessive costs incurred, taking advantage of Kaki and HRC The public will never believe the innocence of the Clintons and their loyal staff The WSJ editors lie without consequence I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport.
  • In my case, I am driven by, at the very least, a vague sense of unease: some indistinct sense of unease towards my future. It is possible that you will not be able to take me at my word. Ten years of experience have taught me that for those who are not my close and constant acquaintances, my words dissipate like a song in the wind. So I would not blame you... [The note continues for a few pages.]
  • Until yesterday I had no definite intention of killing myself. But more than a few must have noticed that lately I have been tired both physically and mentally. As to the cause of my suicide, I don't quite understand it myself, but it is not the result of a particular incident, nor of a specific matter. Merely may I say, I am in the frame of mind that I lost confidence in my future. There may be someone to whom my suicide will be troubling or a blow to a certain degree. I sincerely hope that this incident will cast no dark shadow over the future of that person. At any rate, I cannot deny that this is a kind of betrayal, but please excuse it as my last act in my own way, as I have been doing my own way all my life. [The note continues for 3 pages.]
    • Who: Yutaka Taniyama (November 17, 1958). Quoted in Shimura, Goro. "Yutaka Taniyama and his time: very personal recollections." (1989): 186-196.
  • [excerpt] Like the Italian Croce is saying, I think that it is a fact that liberty, an essential part of human nature, absolutely cannot be destroyed. Even though it appears as if it is suppressed, deep down it is always fighting, and in the end it surely will win. Although authoritarian and totalitarian countries may prosper temporarily, it is certainly a plain fact that they will be defeated in the end. I think that we can see that truth in the Axis countries of the present world war. How about Fascist Italy? Nazi Germany also already has been defeated, and now authoritarian countries are collapsing one after another like buildings whose stone foundations are destroyed. ... The ambition to make my beloved homeland Japan a great empire like the former British Empire became futile in the end. I think that if persons who truly love Japan had been allowed to stand up, Japan would not have been driven to a situation like now.
    • Who: Ryōji Uehara (11 May 1945), kamikaze pilot. Quoted in Uehara, Ryōji. 2005. Ā sokoku yo koibito yo (Ah, my country, my lover). Edited by Hiroaki Nakajima. Nagano: Shinano Mainichi Shinbun. English translation source.

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