Famous Last Words - Timelines of Liberty

Last updated June, 2007. Ordered by year, No particular order within the year. In the end we all must die, some will find a beginning as others would eternally wish an end. The last words of an individual often reflect the life they lived.
177 0s - 1800s - 1900s - 2000
1755-1776	Nathan Hale - Patriot - American Spy	"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." is attributed to Nathan Hale. "It is the duty of every good officer to obey any orders given him by his commander-in-chief," is thought to be his accurate last words. Hale was arrested, tried, and hanged for spying. Nathan Hale during the U.S. revolution volunteered to spy on the British in New York City disguised as a Dutch school teacher.
1788	Charles Wesley	"I shall be satisfied with Thy likeness -- satisfied."
1738- 1789	Ethan Allen U. S. Patriot	"Waiting are they? Waiting are they? Well... Let 'em wait." said Ethan Allen in reply to his doctor's attempt to comfort him saying, "General, I fear the angels are waiting for you."
1706- 1790	Benjamin Franklin - inventor, journalist, printer, diplomat, statesman & Patriot	"A dying man can do nothing easily." said Franklin, in reply to the suggestion of his daughter that he might breathe easier if he were to lay on his side.
1791	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	"You spoke of a refreshment, Emile; take my last notes, and let me hear once more my solace and delight."
1791	John Wesley	"The best of all is, God is with us."
1732- 1799	George Washington - 1st Constitutional President	"Tis well." Washington says after being reassured by his doctor of his request, "I am just going. Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead. Do you understand?" Another account has him saying "I die hard but am not afraid to go."
1800s
1757-1804	Alexander Hamilton - founding father	"This is a mortal wound, doctor." stated Hamilton having lost a duel with Aaron Burr, Vice Presidential candidate.
1774-1809	Meriwether Lewis - explorer	"I am not coward, but I am so strong. It is hard to die." said Lewis after being shot, shattering his skull. The mysterious but violent incident at a tavern southwest of Nashville, Tennessee was never investigated. President Jefferson believed it was suicide, however the Lewis family thought it to be murder.
1781-1813	James Lawrence - naval commander	"Tell the men to fire faster and not to give up the ship; fight her till she sinks." Mortally wounded Lawrence delivers his last orders as commander of the frigate Chesapeake during a naval battle in the War of 1812.
1779- 1820	Stephen Decatur - Naval Commander	"I am mortally wounded, I think" says Decatur, after losing a duel with a disgraced Navy Captain who he had presided over the captain's court-martial.
1821	John Keats	"Severn -- lift me up -- I am dying -- I shall die easy; don't be frightened -- be firm, and thank God it has come."
1822	Michael Martin "Captain Lightfoot"	"Captain Lightfoot" was granted permission to signal his own execution. "When shall I drop the handkerchief?" to which came the reply, "Whenever you are ready."
1743-1826	Thomas Jefferson 3rd President	"This is the Fourth? " Jefferson asked, and was consoled that it was, "I resign my spirit to God, my daughter to my country." Jefferson died the next day on the forth of July,1826 just past noon.
1735- 1826	John Adams 2nd President	"Thomas Jefferson still surv...[ives]," stated John Adams as he dies, not knowing that Jefferson on the same day, July 4th 1826, preceded him in death. Earlier in the day Adams replying to an inquiry as to what day it is, said "Oh, yes, it is the glorious fourth of July. God bless it. God bless you all."
?- 1828	George Appel - death row	"Well, gentlemen, you are about to see a baked Appel" George Appel was executed in electric chair in New York.
1758- 1831	James Monroe - 5th President	"I regret that I should leave this world without again beholding him." says Monroe in regard for James Madison.
1800- 1831	Nat Turner - slave rebel	"It's in God's hands now." Turner says before he was hanged.
1751- 1836	James Madison - 4th President	"Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear. I always talk better lying down." replied Madison after being asked by his neice, "What is the matter, Uncle James?"
1786- 1836	David Crockett "Davy Crockett" - woodsman, politician	"I'm warning you boys, I'm a screamer." Crockett informs his captors, prior to his execution after the Battle of the Alamo.
1773- 1841	William Henry Harrison - 9th President	"Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." Harrison, delirious, says to Vice President John Tyler.
1845	Andrew Jackson - 7th President	"I hope to meet you all in Heaven. Be good children, all of you, and strive to be ready when the change comes." Another variation of the same has been credited to Jackson as well, perhaps one is earlier in the conversation. "Oh, do not cry - be good children and we will all meet in heaven."
1767- 1848	John Quincy Adams - 6th President	"This is the last of earth! I am content." John Quincy Adams collapsed during session of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was carried into the Speaker's Room dying two days later. During that last illness he also said, "I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair."
1795- 1849	James K. Polk - 11th President	"I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you." Polk says to his wife after making her aware of the provision he made for her care.
1809- 1849	Edgar Allan Poe - author	"Lord help my poor soul." Poe said from his deathbed when asked, "Would you like to see your friends?"
1784- 1850	Zachary Taylor - 12th President	"I am about to die. I expect the summons very soon. I have tried to discharge all my duties faithfully. I regret nothing, but I am sorry that I am about to leave my friends." Another variation contributed to President Taylor is, "I have tried to do my duty, and am not afraid to die. I am ready."
1850	William Wordsworth	"God bless you! Is that you, Dora?"
1782- 1850	John C. Calhoun - Southern politician	"The South! The poor South! God knows what will become of her."
1782- 1852	Daniel Webster - U.S. Statesman	"I still live." Another has Webster's last words as, "Life, life! Death, Death! How curious it is!"
1782- 1862	Martin Van Buren - 8th President	"There is but one reliance..."
1790- 1862	John Tyler - 10th President	"Perhaps it is best." Tyler says in reply to his doctor's reply of "I hope not sir." after his stating, "Doctor, I am going." Tyler died in office of the Confederate Provisional Congress on January 18, 1862 in Richmond, Virginia.
- 1862	David Henry Thoreau "Henry David Thoreau" - writer, philosopher	"I did not know that we had ever quarreled." replied Thoreau to being urged to make peace with God. Another account has "Moose . . . Indian . . ." as his last words. Still another has "I leave this world without regret."
1824-1863	Thomas Jonathan Jackson "Stonewall Jackson" - Confederate General	"Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks. . . . Let us cross over the river and sit under the shade of the trees." Stonewall Jackson was killed in error, "friendly fire," during the Civil War, at the battle of Chancellorsville.
1809- 1865	Abraham Lincoln - 16th President	"It doesn't really matter." was Lincoln's response to his wife's admonition not to hold hands at Ford's Theater, "people might see them." One account has him saying "They won't think anything about it." Laughter was last heard from President Lincoln in Ford's Theater at an ad-libbed line, "You are mistaken, Miss Mary, the draft has already been stopped by order of the President!" It was at this line he was laughing as he was shot by John Wilkes Booth.
?- 1865	Edmund Ruffin - Confederate activist	". . . And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will be near my latest breath, I here repeat and would willingly proclaim my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule--to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, and the perfidious, malignant and vile Yankee race." Ruffin wrote in a suicide note as the last entry in his diary.
1823- 1865	Mary Surratt - death row	"Please don't let me fall." asked Mary prior to being hanged as the first woman executed by the U.S. Government. She was executed for her participation as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.
1839- 1865	John Wilkes Booth - assassin	"Tell mother, tell mother, I died for my country... unless... unless..." mumbled Booth after being dragged from the flames of a burning barn during the man-hunt after John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln at the Ford Theater. Booth had asked a message be sent to his mother and then asked to see his hands which bore an engagement ring. More recently it is believed that his last two word were actually, "Lucy... Lucy..." the name of his lover, Lucy Hale, daughter of Senator John P. Hale.
?-1865	Henry Wirz - death row - Confederate officer	"This is too tight." Wirz complains at the gallows, convicted of ordering or personally committing acts of assault or murder at the Andersonville Civil War prison camp.
1833- 1866	William J. Fetterman - 18th U.S. Infantry	"Give me 80 men and I'll ride through the whole Sioux nation." boasts Fetterman insisting on the mission based on rank. Fetterman and 80 troops were later found stripped and mutilated.
1791- 1868	James Buchanan - 15th President	"Whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that at least I meant well for my country. Oh Lord God Almighty, as thou wilt."
1804- 1869	Franklin Pierce - 14th President	(unknown last words)
1807-1870	Robert E. Lee - Confederate General	"Strike the tent."
1872	Horace Greeley	"It is done."
1800- 1874	Millard Fillmore - 13th President	"The nourishment is palatable." Millard Fillmore in response to the inquiry about the food, as his physician helps with a spoonful of soup.
1808- 1875	Andrew Johnson - 17th President	"I need no doctor. I can overcome my troubles." are Johnson's last words to his daughter as he struggled to move. He had fallen from a chair and said, "My right side is paralyzed."
1839- 1876	George Armstrong Custer - U.S. General	"Hurrah Boys! Let's get these last few reds then head on back to camp. Hurrah!" (attributed) Of course, this would have been prior to Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn. His actual last words were likely to have been orders, or an underestimated observation of the Indian strength.
1877	William P. Longley	"I deserve this fate. it is a debt I owe for a wild and reckless life. so long, everybody!"
1851- 1878	Sam Bass - Texas Outlaw	"Let me go - The world is bobbing around me." Is attributed to Sam Bass, however two other quotes are attributed to him as well: "The room is jumping up and down" and "The world is a bubble - trouble wherever you go"
1881
1831-1881	James A. Garfield 20th President	"Oh Swaim, there is a pain here. Swaim, can't you stop this? Oh, oh, Swaim!" begs Garfield of his chief of staff, David G. Swaim. His doctor attempted but could not find the bullet fired by Charles Guiteau.
1859- 1881	Henry McCarty "William Bonney" "Billy the Kid" - gunslinger	"Who is it?" asks McCarty, while in a dark room. Sheriff Pat Garrett recognized his voice and, with a single shot to the heart, killed Billy the Kid.
1809- 1882	Charles Darwin - evolutionist.	"I am not the least afraid to die." According to his family Darwin stood firm on his theories of evolution through to his dying day.
1841-1882	Charles Guiteau - assassin	"Glory hallelujah! I am with the Lord, Glory, ready, go!" Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882 for the assassination of President James Garfield.
1885
1822- 1885	Ulysses Simpson Grant - Union General - 18th President	"Water." Another account has him saying, "I want nobody distressed on my account."
1821- 1885	William H. Vanderbilt - Millionaire	"I have had no real gratification or enjoyment of any sort more than my neighbor on the next block who is worth only half a million." Vanderbilt dying with a net worth of 200 million dollars.
1829- 1886	Chester Alan Arthur - 21st President	Last words unknown - The man's words for the future :
1830- 1886	Emily Dickinson - poet, author	"I must go in, the fog is rising" Emily Dickinson possibly recalling her poem "I've seen a dying eye."
1813- 1887	Henry Ward Beecher -abolitionist, clergyman	"Now comes the mystery."
1851- 1887	Doc. Holliday - gun fighter, Earp deputy	"This is funny," exclaimed Doc Holliday, looking down at his bootless feet. During his life he had thought he would die from lead poisoning (gun fight), the end of a rope, knife in his ribs, or drink himself to death, however "with his boots on."
1855- 1887	August Vincent Theodore Spies - anarchist, labor activist	"There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!"
1832- 1888	Louisa May Alcott - Novelist	"Is it not meningitis?"
1889	Jefferson Davis	"Saying"
1831- 1890	Sitting Bull - Indian Leader	"I am not going. Do with me what you like. I am not going. Come on! Come on! Take action! Let's go!" said Sitting Bull as a skirmish broke out among a crowd of supporters and the police. Sitting Bull was shot accidentally in the side by Lieutenant Henry Bull Head discharging a round as he fell, who had just been shot by Catch the Bear.
1810- 1891	Phineas Taylor Barnum "P. T. Barnum" - Barnum and Bailey	"How were the circus receipts in Madison Square Gardens?"
1892	Walt Whitman	"Garrulous to the very last."
1821- 1893	Rutherford Birchard Hayes "Rutherford B. Hayes" - 19th President	"I know that I am going where Lucy is." referring to his wife who had preceded him in death.
1893	Robert Louis Stevenson	"My head! My head!"
1876- 1896	Crawford Goldsby "Cherokee Bill"	"No! I didn't come here to make a speech. I came here to die." answered Goldsby when asked if he wished to say something prior to his being hanged. Earlier when stepping into the court yard and seeing the gallows he said, "This is as good a day to die as any."
1900s
1854- 1900	Oscar Wilde - Irish writer	"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."
1833- 1901	Benjamin Harrison - 23rd President	"Are the doctors here? Doctor...my lungs."
1843- 1901	William B. McKinley - 25th President	"Good-bye -- good-bye, all. We are all going. It's God's way. His will be done, not ours. Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee. We are all going, we are all going, we are all going. Oh, dear." McKinley said having suffered days of pain after being shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.
1873- 1901	Leon Czolgosz - death row - anarchist	"I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people, the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime." Convicted, of the assassination of President William McKinley, Czolqosz was executed in 1901.
1863- 1901	"Black Jack" Ketchum - death row - notorious train robber	"I'll be in Hell before you start breakfast!" said Ketchum as he then stepped up his pace to the gallows. The rope was too long and his head was wrenched off.
1837- 1908	Stephen Grover Cleveland "Grover Cleveland" 22nd & 24th President	"I have tried so hard to do right."
1861- 1909	Frederic Remington - Artist	"Cut 'er loose, Doc!" Remington said, prior to an appendectomy in which complications killed him. Frederic Remington was an artist of the American West.
1862-1910	William Sidney Porter "O. Henry" - writer	"Don't turn down the light. I'm afraid to go home in the dark." O. Henry quoting a popular song. A famous American writer, he wrote, "The Gift of the Magi." Another account has him saying "Turn up the lights— I don't want to go home in the dark."
1910	Leo Tolstoy	"But the peasants- how do the peasants die?"
1864- 1912	John Jacob Astor, IV - richest man in the world	"The ladies have to go first. . . . Get in the lifeboat, to please me. . . . Good-bye, dearie. I'll see you later." said Astor, bidding farewell to his much younger but pregnant wife, Madeline, as the Titanic takes on water.
1860-1915	Charles Frohman - theatrical manager	"Why fear death? Death is only a beautiful adventure." encouraging passengers of the British passenger ship, Lusitania that was sank by a German submarine in 1915.
1879- 1915	Joe Hill - Labor Activist	"Don't mourn for me! Organize!" Hill shouted at supporters while being led to to the firing squad for his execution. He was convicted in a controversial trial, for murder.
1917	Buffalo Bill Cody	"Let's forget about it and play high five." "I wish Johnny would come."
1856- 1917	Lyman Frank Baum - Author	"Now I can cross the Shifting Sands." L. Frank Baum wrote "The Wizard of Oz."
1858- 1919	Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. - 26th President	"Please put out the light."
1853- 1921	Bat Masterson - U. S. Marshal	We all get the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summer. The poor get it in the winter.
1847- 1922	Alexander Graham Bell - inventor	"No," signed Bell, in reply to his wife signing, "Don't leave me." Another quote contributed to him is "So little done, so much to do."
1865- 1923	Warren Gamaliel Harding "Warren G. Harding" - 29th President	"That's good. Go on, read some more." Harding requesting his wife continue reading flattering newspaper articles about him.
1856- 1924	Woodrow Wilson - 28th President	"I am a broken piece of machinery. When the machine is broken... I am ready." stated Wilson, speaking to his wife, Edith.
1895- 1926	Rudolph Valentino	"Don't worry chief, it will be alright."
1874- 1926	Harry Houdini "The Great Houdini" - magician	"I'm tired of fighting." Houdini says after an intestinal rupture that proves fatal caused by a young man who sucker-punches him in the stomach. Houdini would tighten the muscles in his stomach and invite strong men to punch him in the stomach, as one of his tricks, he would withstand the blow. The fatal punch occurred when asked if he could withstand such a blow, Houdini replied yes and was immediately punched before bracing himself, by tightening his stomach muscles. Another account has him concluding with, "I guess this thing is going to get me."
1849- 1926	Luther Burbank - horticulturist	"I don't feel good."
1857- 1926	William Henry Johnson "Zip the Pinhead" - freak show performer	"Well, we fooled 'em for a long time, didn't we?" Zip the Pinhead was presented as a microcephalic (pin-head) although he was not. He did not have the mental retardation as do the real microcephalics.
1878- 1927	Angela Duncan "Isadora" - Actress	"Farewell, my friends. I go to glory." Duncan says after her scarf was caught on a vehicle that dragged her, breaking her neck.
1882- 1928	Arnold Rothstein - death row -Kingpin, organized crime	"Don’t go away. I don’t want to be alone. I can’t stand being alone."
1892- 1929	Frank Gusenberg "Tight Lips" - mobster	"Nobody shot me." Tight Lips replied to a police officer asking, "Who shot you?" after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Six men died immediately, Frank, the seventh, survived for 3 hours with 14 rounds in his body.
1930
1857- 1930	William Howard Taft - 27th President	Last words unknown - The man's words for the future : "Having thus reviewed the questions likely to recur during my administration, and having expressed in a summary way the position which I expect to take in recommendations to Congress and in my conduct as an Executive, I invoke the considerate sympathy and support of my fellow-citizens and the aid of the Almighty God in the discharge of my responsible duties." - President William Taft Inaugural Address, March 4, 1909
1891- 1930	Carl Panzram - death row - serial killer	"Hurry up, you Hoosier bastard, I could kill ten men while you're fooling around!" Panzram says to the executioner during the placement of the noose at Leavenworth by order of the State of Kansas.
1847- 1931	Thomas Alva. Edison - inventor	"It's very beautiful over there." as Edison turns to a window to speak his last words Suffering from pneumonia Edison replied "No, just waiting," to his wife Mina's leaning close asking "Are you Suffering?" Then came the last words. Edison invented the electric light bulb.
1852- 1931	Antonio Mancini - death row - mobster	"Cheerio!" says ganster Antonio Mancini after the noose was placed around his neck.
1879- 1931	Nicholas Vachel Lindsay - Poet	"They tried to get me - I got them first!" Lindsay committed suicide by drinking Lysol.
1911- 1931	Francis Crowley "Two Gun"	"You sons of bitches. Give my love to Mother."
1889- 1932	Hart Crane - Poet	"Good-bye, everybody." is Crane's bid of farewell prior to jumping overboard, returning from a Guggenheim fellowship in Mexico.
1854- 1932	George Eastman - inventor	"My work is done, why wait?" Eastman wrote in a note along with putting his affairs in order. Eastman at age 77 with a painful spinal disease committed suicide. He was inventor of the mass-produced photographic plate then later the flexible film.
1969- 1932	Florenz Ziegfeld - Broadway Producer	"Curtain! Fast music! Lights! Ready for the last finale! Great! The show looks good. The show looks good." Ziegfield said, hallucinating, about one last show, perhaps.
1872- 1933	John Calvin Coolidge Jr. "Calvin Coolidge" - 30th President	"Good morning, Robert." Coolidge said to a contractor that was working on his home.
- 1933	Sara Teasdale - Poet	"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. " From the suicide note Sara Teasdale wrote to the lover who left her.
1900- 1933	Giuseppe Zangara - death row - would be assassin	"You give me electric chair. I no afraid of that chair! You one of capitalists. You is crook man too. Put me in electric chair. I no care! Get to hell out of here, you son of a bitch [spoken to the attending minister]... I go sit down all by myself... Viva Italia! Goodbye to all poor peoples everywhere!... Lousy capitalists! No picture! Capitalists! No one here to take my picture. All capitalists lousy bunch of crooks. Go ahead. Pusha da button!" Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate President-elect Franklin D. Rooselvelt, mortally wounding Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago. Another account has him saying, "Adios, to the world!"
1893- 1935	Huey P. Long "The Kingfish" - Louisiana politician	"Don't let me die, I have got so much to do."
- 1935	Charlotte Perkins Gilman - writer	"When all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one." Gilman's Suicide note; she chose an overdose of Chloroform over her condition of cancer.
- 1936	Robert E. Howard - writer	"All fled--all done, so lift me on the pyre; The feast is over, and the lamps expire." Suicide note of Robert E Howard, 1936.
1897- 1937	Amelia Earhart - woman pilot	"KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you, but cannot see you. Gas is running low." is the last call received from Amelia Earhart prior to the plane's "mysterious" disapperance. In her last letter to her husband before the flight she wrote, "Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."
1856-1939	Sigmund Freud - founder of psychoanalysis	"My dear Schur, you remember our first talk. You promised to help me when I could no longer carry on. It is only torture now, and it has no longer any sense." A heavy smoker, after all treatments for cancer had failed Freud commented, "It is tragic when a man outlives his body." Appealing to his personal physician for relief. He slipped into a coma and died the next day.
- 1939	Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. - actor	"I've never felt better."
1882- 1941	Virginia Woolf - British novelist	"I feel certain that I'm going mad again. I feel we can't go thru another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices" Virginia Woolf's suicide note.
1882- 1942	John Barrymore (Blyth) "Jack or Jake" - actor	"You heard me, Mike." said Barrymore in reply to his brother asking "What did you say, Jake?" having missed the words, Barrymore had just murmured.
1943	George Washington Carver	"I think I'll sleep now."
1908- 1944	Lupe Vélez - actress, commedian	"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 killing him, Lupe." Lupe writes in a suicide note after a failed romance with Harald Maresch.
1882- 1945	Franklin D. Roosevelt "FDR" - 32nd president	"Be Careful" Roosevelt is heard by Laura Delano as he is carried to his bed. Prior to that during the painting of his picture Roosevelt places his hand to the back of his head and says, "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." Roosevelt had a cerebral hemorrhage. Lucy Page Mercer Rutherford, was escorted away before his wife, Eleanor arrived.
1880-1946	W.C. Fields - vaudeville comedian	"God damn the whole friggin' world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta." said W.C. Fields, on Christmas morning of 1946 in excruciating pain of a massive untreatable stomach hemorrhage. WC Fields was a heavy drinker consuming up to two quarts of martinis each day.
1866- 1946	Herbert George Wells "H. G. Wells" - writer	"Go away. I'm all right."
1874- 1946	Gertrude Stein - writer, poet	"In that case, what is the question?" asked Stein, after getting no response from Alice B. Toklas when Gertrude asked, "What is the answer?"
1892-1949	James Forrestal - Sec. of the Navy	"Frenzy hath seized thy dearest son, Who from thy shores in glory came The first in valor and in fame; Thy deeds that he hath done Seem hostile all to hostile eyes. . . . Better to die, and sleep The never waking sleep, than linger on, And dare to live, when the soul's life is gone." Quoting a poem from the Chorus from Ajax by Sophocles, that turned out to be Forrestal's suicide note.
1895- 1949	George Herman Ruth "Babe Ruth"	"I'm going over the valley." informed Ruth, while wandering around his hospital bed in response to a doctor asking where he was going. He then got back into bed, lapsed into a coma and within the hour died.
1856- 1950	George Bernard Shaw - playwright	"Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die." Shaw says to his nurse.
- 1951	Martha Beck - murderess	"My story is a love story, but only those who are tortured by love can understand what I mean. I was pictured as a fat, unfeeling woman. True, I am fat, but if that is a crime, how many of my sex are guilty. I am not unfeeling, stupid or moronic. My last words and my last thoughts are: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." says Martha Beck before her execution.
1914- 1953	Dylan Thomas - poet	"I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record . . ." Thomas says, while in New York City after a long drinking bout.
1931- 1955	James Dean - Actor	"That guy's got to stop. . . . He'll see us." said Dean, prior to slamming into a car pulling out ahead of his speeding Porsche. Dean was killed instantly by decapitation. "My fun days are over." said James Dean before embarking on the fatal drive.
- 1955	Barbara Graham - Death Row	"Good people are always so sure they're right" states Graham before her execution at San Quentin Penitentiary .
- 1956	Alben W. Barkley - Vice President	"I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty." says Barkley after a heart attack as a U.S. Senator speaking at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia on April 30, 1956.
1899- 1957	Humphrey Bogart - actor	"Hurry back", Bogart said to Lauren Bacall, his wife, as she closed the door. She had left the house briefly and returned to find he had died. Also acredited to him is, "I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis."
1889- 1957	James Whale "Henry Wales" - film director	"The future is just old age and illness and pain.... I must have peace and this is the only way." James Whale's suicide note of May 29, 1957.
1882- 1957	Louis Burt Mayer "Eliezer Meir" "of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer" - film Producer	"Nothing matters. Nothing matters."
1879- 1959	Ethel Barrymore "Ethel Blyth" - Actress	"Are you happy? I'm happy." Said Ethel Barrymore taking her maid, Anna Albert's, hands then fell asleep until her death several hours later.
- 1959	Lou Costello - comedian	"That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted."
- 1959	Errol Flynn - actor	"I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it."
1888- 1959	Eugene O'Neill - playwright	"I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room - and God damn it - died in a hotel room."
1909- 1959	Max Baer - boxer	"Oh God, here I go..." Max Baer was the Heavyweight Champion in 1934 & '35
1875- 1959	Edmund Gwenn - British actor	"Yes, it's tough, but not as tough as doing comedy." replied Gwenn when he was asked if dying was tough.
1894- 1961	James Thurber - humorist	"God bless... God damn." Thurber died of a blood clot on the brain in New York in November, 1961.
1917-1963	John Fitzgerald Kennedy "JFK" "John F. Kennedy" - 35th President	"That's obvious," Kennedy replies to the wife of the Governor of Texas who had just said, "Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you," as the first bullet is fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. A secret Service agent says that Kennedy made no remarks after being shot.
1874- 1964	Herbert Clark Hoover "Herbert Hoover" - 31st President	"Levi Strauss was one of my best friends." replied Hoover after being told that Admiral Strauss had come to pay a visit. Hoover had began speaking in the past tense.
1813- 1964	John Sedgwick "Uncle John" - Union General	"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--." said Sedgwick, interrupted by a bullet to his head, delivered by a confederate sharpshooter. His men had been urging him to take cover. Scoffing he said "What! What men! This will never do, dodging from single bullets!"
1931- 1964	Sam Cooke - Songwriter Gospel,R&B,Soul,pop	"Lady, you shot me!" exclaimed Cooke in his hotel room.
1890-1965	Stan Laurel - comedian, actor - Laural & Hardy	"I wish I was skiing." Said Laural and his nurse asked if he skied to which he replied "No, but I'd rather be skiing than doing what I'm doing." Stan Laurel then died of a heart attack.
1925- 1965	Malcolm Little "El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz" "Malcolm X" - black nationalist	"Brothers! Brothers, please! This is a house of peace!" Malcolm exclaims addressing two men who were staging a fight as a distraction for the two armed assassins drawing their guns. It is reported that before Malcolm hit the floor, he was dead.
- 1966	James French - death row - murderer	"Hey, fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? 'French Fries'!" French punctuated to the press, at his execution in the electric chair in Oklahoma. James French had been convicted for murder.
1929- 1968	Martin Luther King Jr. - Civil Rights activist