I learned to smile by going through hell. Now I know what hell is and you don't. I can't tell you how it is, cause you can't do it with words.
There's no doubt I expect to die in prison.
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.
Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button.
Not one has shown an iota of fear of death. They want to end this agony.
What I think a doctor should do is prevent disease, by any means necessary.
This is not a trial. This is a lynching. There is no law.
When history looks back, it will prove what I'll die knowing.
What looks like enjoyment is the sneer of contempt. That's not a smile.
I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.
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.
My ultimate aim is to make euthanasia a positive experience.
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.
I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate.
I'm not lying to myself like most people.
When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it.
All the big powers... they've silenced me. So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right.
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.
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.
Five to six thousand people die every year waiting for organs, but nobody cares.
Rotten travesty. Yeah. Send me to jail for contempt. Try that. Go ahead.
I have no regrets, none whatsoever.
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.
I'm not the kind of guy who has best friends.
I don't persuade to suicide.
I've seen schizophrenics who are so hopeless, you couldn't cheer them, and their lives are miserable and they end up as suicides. That's not right.
The Supreme Court of the United States has validated the Nazi method of execution in concentration camps, starving them to death.
Everyone is going to die. Aren't you interested in what's going to happen?
You've gotta know what death is to know life!
Many support what I am doing.
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.
I will go to what they call a court. Only they call it a court.
My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized.
The single worst moment of my life... was the moment I was born.
None of them want to delay. Understand that. None of them.
I'd find it demeaning to be cleaning toilets.
I'm for absolute autonomy of the individual, and an adult, competent woman has absolute autonomy. It's her choice.
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.
Well, let's take what people think is a dignified death. Christ - was that a dignified death? Do you think it's dignified to hang from wood with nails through your hands and feet bleeding, hang for three or four days slowly dying, with people jabbing spears into your side, and people jeering you? Do you think that's dignified? Not by a long shot. Had Christ died in my van with people around Him who loved Him, the way it was, it would be far more dignified. In my rusty van.
I suppose, if helping a patient die is killing, I suppose I'm a killer.
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.
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?
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.
When you have nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire.
Let's hope you feel better now.
Freedom has a price. Most people aren't willing to pay it.
If a man is terrified, it's up to me to dispel that terror.
How can you regret helping a suffering patient?
Liberty means more to me than life itself.
We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington.
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.
I always said all my life, if I wasn't born and they gave me the question, I'd say, I don't want to be born.
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.
[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.
I hate to say this, but I'll repeat it: After death, all we know that you do is stink.
What are friends? Some people are nice. Some people aren't. There are some I'm fairly close with... we talk.
The public can tolerate a Nazi America.
I knew I was getting into one of the most illegal things in the world. It was the right thing to do.
Among doctors in general, I think more than half support what I'm doing.
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.
I got to dislike parties, like Jefferson and Madison. I think they're harmful. But the system is flawed so badly. I like what Plato said, long ago. Democracy is fit only for a small country. Can't survive in a large country.
If Christ can die in a barn, I think the death of a human in a van is not so bad.
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.
My religion centers in different areas than what's considered conventional religion.
In quixotically trying to conquer death doctors all too frequently do no good for their patients' ease but at the same time they do harm instead by prolonging and even magnifying patients' dis-ease.
I don't crave publicity, you know.
The patient decides when it's best to go.
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?
The law doesn't create a right.
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.
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.
I didn't do this for other people; I did this for me. I fought for this right for me - does that sound selfish?
I think the Supreme Court does have the authority, which is not used, to declare a blanket right for all people, all adults.
There are certain things that words on paper can never make a crime, .. There are certain acts that by sheer common sense are not crimes.
I am not a sentimental person.
She made the decision that her existence had lost its meaning. And you cannot judge that.
Despite the solace of hypocritical religiosity and its seductive promise of an after-life of heavenly bliss, most of us will do anything to thwart the inevitable victory of biological death.
Maybe I won't stay out of prison. Who knows?
Anytime you interfere with a natural process, you're playing God. God determines what happens naturally. That means when a person's ill, he shouldn't go to a doctor because he's asking for interference with God's will. But of course, patients can't think that way.
Dying is not a crime.
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.
