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You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.

— Joan Baez Daybreak (1968)

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Variants

or paraphrase: You can't decide how you're going to die. Or when. What you can decide is how you're going to live now.

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More quotes by Joan Baez

The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence.

Daybreak (1968)

When the sun sinks in the west
Die a million people of the Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, Bangladesh
When the sun sinks in the west
Die a million people of the Bangladesh

in the Song for Bangladesh (1971)

Blessed are the persecuted
And blessed are the pure in heart
Blessed are the merciful
And blessed are the ones who mourn

Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

I saw the people gather/I heard the music start/The song that they were singing/Is ringing in my heart

All Joan Baez quotes →

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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.

Richard Francis Burton The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

Cary Grant Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Joan Baez (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.