When I die there may be a paragraph or two in the newspapers. My name will linger in the British Museum Reading Room catalogue for a space at the head of a long list of books for which no one will ever ask.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Ideally my goal is, before I die, to have some information about every word that's ever been used in print.
I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.
If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing.
So an autobiography about death should include, in my case, an account of European Jewry and of Russian and Jewish events - pogroms and flights and murders and the revolution that drove my mother to come here.
I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure.
When I'm dead, somebody can write my biography. I wrote a national hymn, an anthem, which I don't want to present to that country. But I have a deal with my wife - when I'm dead, she should offer it, because then I'm safe.
My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now. I'm so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don't have the guts to take their names out of the book.
I will try to write books until I drop dead.
I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you're immortal.
Every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death.