Suicide notes - ‘Good Reads’

[LittleJem]

My favourite is the ancient Egyptian one written on papyrus:
'Death is before me today
As a man longs to see his house
When he has spent years in captivity'
Here's the collection:

Suicide Note Quotes (42 quotes)

42 quotes have been tagged as suicide-note: Ned Vizzini: ‘Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, an...

www.goodreads.com

 

[Sprite_Geist]

Here is a lengthy quote from the page that you linked. It is not a suicide note itself but it has something very interesting to say about the act.

"The verdict of the coroner's inquest had been that Adrian Finn (22) had killed himself 'while the balance of his mind was disturbed.' I remember how angry that conventional phrase made me: I would have sworn on oath that Adrian's was the one mind which would never lose its balance. But in the law's view, if you killed yourself you were by definition mad, at least at the time you were committing the act. The law, and society, and religion all said it was impossible to be sane, healthy, and kill yourself. Perhaps those authorities feared that the suicide's reasoning might impugn the nature and value of life as organised by the state which paid the coroner? And then, since you had been declared temporarily mad, your reasons for killing yourself were also assumed to be mad. So I doubt anyone paid much attention to Adrian's argument, with its references to philosophers ancient and modern, about the superiority of the intervening act over the unworthy passivity of merely letting life happen to you."

- Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending.

 

[SheJumped]

All suicide notes works of art.

" In the case of suicide, people think that no fight was involved they merely think that the person couldn't take it and felt weak. They forget all the mental struggles the person faced because the were invisible and sometimes unspoken and unexposed to anyone. This attitude of society is wrong."
Deeksha Arora

 

[Lordsudbury]

My suicide note so far is a 47 page book I've been writing all week. Lots of juicy stuff

 

[Lintaga]

My suicide note so far is a 47 page book I've been writing all week. Lots of juicy stuff

may i ask how you have so much content to write about?.. my boyfriend ctb in February this year. he wrote a book, but he was only 22 so it wasnt very long.

 

[singsreignrebuilder]

There's a couple I like.

First of all, of course, the famous tome by Mitchell Heisman, guy wrote 2000 pages and then shot himself on harvard campus.

Suicide Note

Mitchell Heisman, the man who shot himself September 18, 2010 in Harvard Yard, killed himself as ”Experimental Elimination of Self-Preser...

www.goodreads.com

On a more serious note, one that always resonated a lot with me is "Punched Out" by Will H. Moore

Punched Out

Assuming I did not botch the task, by the time this posts I will have been dead via suicide for several hours. Nope, that’s not a setup to a joke.[1] Why would someone who is healthy, employ…

willopines.wordpress.com

While not directly a suicide note but closely related, My Twisted World by Elliott Rodger is surprisingly readable and funny at times.

Goodreads

Discover and share books you love on Goodreads.

www.goodreads.com

Lastly of course, there's the philosophers. While not quite suicide notes, there's a pattern of them writing their magnum opus at a fairly young age and immediately commiting suicide once the work is finished. The following come to mind:

Otto Weininger, Sex and Character

Sex and Character

Otto Weininger's controversial book Sex and Character, first published in Vienna in 1903, is a prime example of the conflicting discourse...

www.goodreads.com

Philipp Mainländer, The Philosophy of Redemption

The Philosophy of Redemption

In his central work Die Philosophie der Erlösung (The P…

www.goodreads.com

Carlo Michelstaedter, Persuasion and Rhethoric

Persuasion and Rhetoric

Carlo Michelstaedter (1887-1910) committed suicide at the age of 23, days after completing this devastating treatise on the human conditi...

www.goodreads.com

All of these three are very well written and highly recommended, although they can be quite technical at times.
Of course keep the critical distance, especially with Sex and Character.
Wittgenstein said about it that if one were to put a negation sign before the entire work, it would reveal great truths.

 

[Lordsudbury]

may i ask how you have so much content to write about?.. my boyfriend ctb in February this year. he wrote a book, but he was only 22 so it wasnt very long.

Sorry to hear about your boyfriend. :(

I think if you just sit there and write out all your thoughts everyday you can fill up hundreds of pages of material. Mines become quite the essay

 

[Breadbfra]

My suicide note so far is a 47 page book I've been writing all week. Lots of juicy stuff

My respect. I'd love to see someone's long suicide notes edited

 

[Lordsudbury]

My respect. I'd love to see someone's long suicide notes edited

At this point its more like a treatise on the dissolution of the ego, man's sense of purpose, failure in society, sabotage, and a plethora of other consequent issues that lead me here.

 

[Panna]

While not directly a suicide note but closely related, My Twisted World by Elliott Rodger is surprisingly readable and funny at times.

Goodreads

Discover and share books you love on Goodreads.

www.goodreads.com

By far, saint elliots manifesto was a wonderful read, you can see his passion, what he wanted from life, and despite trying, he never had it happen. Manifestos are a wonderful beast that let you see the world from the life of another and to just empathize if you like them enough. I won't lie, there are funny bits, him shooting a couple with a squirt gun with water that he bought earlier that day because of seeing them together, and just taking off without any words whatsoever, and a few other bits similar to that. One of my favorites was how he had no problem going full barrel with his insults, though that's probably my twisted humor speaking. "I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves." To be clear, I don't have any problems with pretty much anyone, I just found him to be funny.

 

[Deleted member 17949]

Interesting thinking about ancient suicides and realizing that people have hated life for as long as it's existed

 

[inactive]

I was literally just reading that link an hour ago, weird coincidence, haha.

 

[Lilacmoon]

These are good reads. Thank you for sharing.