The fear of death is also the fear of not being able to die. The fact that we cannot experience the reality of death to the end makes death unreal, and this irreality condemns us to fear dying only unreally, not really to die, to remain as if we are held, forever, between life and death, in a state of non-existence and non-death, from which our whole life perhaps takes its meaning and its reality. - Maurice Blanchot

I cannot rightly say that I die, since - dying a violent death or not - I am only partly present at the event. And a great part of the dread I feel at the idea of death is due perhaps to this: bewilderment of remaining suspended right in the midst of a crisis whose outcome my disappearance will prevent me, for the great forever, from knowing. This kind of irreality, of absurdity of death is...its radically terrible element. - Michel Leiris