The best The Death of Ivan Ilych quotes

Ivan Ilych’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.

It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death.

It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong!

Death is finished, he said to himself. It is no more!

Can it be that I have not lived as one ought? Suddenly came into his head. But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?

Suddenly some force struck him in the chest and side, making it still harder to breathe, and he fell through the hole and there at the bottom was a light.

Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same.