Jack Kevorkian Quotes

Jack Kevorkian's page delivers stark reflections on ethics, law and suffering for those grappling with tough moral choices.

65 quotes

1. When you have nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire.

2. Dying is not a crime.

3. My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized.

4. We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington.

5. A transfer of money should never be involved in this profound situation. Although illness is profound, too, but medicine's a business today. It's a business.

6. All the big powers...they've silenced me. So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right.

7. Am I a criminal? The world knows I'm not a criminal. What are they trying to put me in jail for? You've lost common sense in this society because of religious fanaticism and dogma.

8. Among doctors in general, I think more than half support what I'm doing.

9. As a medical doctor, it is my duty to evaluate the situation with as much data as I can gather and as much expertise as I have and as much experience as I have to determine whether or not the wish of the patient is medically justified.

10. First of all, do any of you here think it's a crime to help a suffering human end his agony? Any of you think it is? Say so right now. Well, then, what are we doing here?

11. Five to six thousand people die every year waiting for organs, but nobody cares.

12. I gambled and I lost. I failed in securing my options for this choice for myself, but I succeeded in verifying the Dark Age is still with us.

13. I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate.

14. I will go to what they call a court. Only they call it a court.

15. Listen, when you take my liberty away, you've taken away more-something more precious than life. I mean, what good is a life without liberty? Huh? None.

16. It's the boredom that kills you. You read until you're tired of that. You do crossword puzzles until you're tired of that. This is torture. This is mental torture.

17. Look at the forces against me. They don't want me out. They're afraid I'll cause trouble if I get out.

18. My religion centers in different areas than what's considered conventional religion.

19. Not one has shown an iota of fear of death. They want to end this agony.

20. Rotten travesty. Yeah. Send me to jail for contempt. Try that. Go ahead.

21. She made the decision that her existence had lost its meaning. And you cannot judge that.

22. The American people are sheep. They're comfortable, rich, working. It's like the Romans, they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right.

23. The patient decides when it's best to go [die].

24. The Supreme Court of the United States... has validated the Nazi method of execution in... concentration camps, starving them to death!

25. There is nothing anyone can do anyway. The public has no power. The government knows I'm not a criminal. The parole board knows I'm not a criminal. The judge knows I'm not a criminal.

26. This is not a trial. This is a lynching. There is no law.

27. When history looks back, it will prove what I'll die knowing.

28. When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it.

29. You're basing your laws and your whole outlook on natural life on mythology. It won't work. That's why you have all these problems in the world. Name them: India, Pakistan, Ireland. Name them-all these problems. They're all religious problems.

30. This could never be a crime in any society which deems itself enlightened.

31. You're going to watch a person suffer in agony while somebody's debating?

32. This is a medical service. It always was.

33. I don't like to think of him as the 'Doctor of Death', I think of him as a liberator.

34. So let's talk just a little bit more about you specifically. You were on bond to another judge when you committed this offense, you were not licensed to practice medicine when you committed this offense and you hadn't been licensed for eight years. And you had the audacity to go on national television, show the world what you did and dare the legal system to stop you. Well, sir, consider yourself stopped.

35. There will be those who will be Kevorkian with class. They will look respectable. They will sound respectable. Their patients will be just as dead.

36. He seems to be on a personal crusade not just to legalize it but to legitimize this type of activity.

37. If you don't have liberty and self-determination, you've got nothing, that's what this is what this country is built on. And this is the ultimate self-determination, when you determine how and when you're going to die when you're suffering.

38. I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.

39. Maybe I won't stay out of prison. Who knows?

40. I'm afraid of sudden death. I'd like to know I'm going to die. That's why death row wouldn't be so bad, although it's not pleasant. And cancer, inoperable, wouldn't be bad. That's not pleasant either. But to drop dead suddenly, it's hard on everybody else. My family, my relatives, my friends. It's just not a good way to go. I want to know I'm going to die.

41. I think the Supreme Court does have the authority, which is not used, to declare a blanket right for all people, all adults.

42. I don't enjoy good food. I don't enjoy flashy cars. I don't care if I live in a dump. I don't enjoy good clothes. This is the best I've dressed in months.

43. The Jews were gassed. Armenians were killed in every conceivable way... So the Holocaust doesn't interest me, see? They've had a lot of publicity, but they didn't suffer as much.

44. The American Medical Association says the humane way is to let people starve and thirst to death. If you did that to an animal, youd be put in jail immediately ... In the face of such insanity masquerading as authority, who wouldnt be strident?

45. The patient's autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary - the decision is contrary to best medical advice and what the physician wants.

46. I want some colleague to be free to come help me when I say the time has come. That's what I'm fighting for, me. Now that sounds selfish. And if it helps somebody else, so be it.

47. There's no doubt I expect to die in prison.

48. I would not want to live with a tube in my neck and not be able to move a finger. I wouldn't - that to me is not life.

49. I don't persuade to suicide.

50. Many support what I am doing.

51. I knew I was getting into one of the most illegal things in the world. It was the right thing to do.

52. The public has no power. The government knows I'm not a criminal. The parole board knows I'm not a criminal. The judge knows I'm not a criminal.

53. What are friends? Some people are nice. Some people aren't. There are some I'm fairly close with... we talk.

54. None of them want to delay. Understand that. None of them.

55. My intent was to carry out my duty as a doctor, to end their suffering. Unfortunately, that entailed, in their cases, ending of the life.

56. Freedom has a price. Most people aren't willing to pay it.

57. I have no regrets, none whatsoever.

58. I have a natural right to do whatever I want with my body... as long as it doesn't affect anybody else or any other property.

59. I don't crave publicity, you know.

60. The single worst moment of my life... was the moment I was born.

61. I'd find it demeaning to be cleaning toilets.

62. Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button.

63. You've gotta know what death is to know life!

64. I hate to say this, but I'll repeat it: After death, all we know that you do is stink.

65. [Persons] who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union [have] the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased... full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.