This is really very sad, but the fantasy novelist, Sir Terry Pratchett, 61, author of the hugely successful Discworld books, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s diseasein 2007, has made an emotional plea for the right to take his own life, saying: ‘I live in hope I can jump before I am pushed’. ‘I’ll die before the endgame, says Terry Pratchett in call for law to allow assisted suicides in UK.
Sir Terry, who was knighted in the 2009 New Year Honours, said in an article in the Mail on Sunday: ‘I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod.
‘Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, “If wet, in the library”. Who could say that this is bad?’
Sir Terry said he would be happy to accept help from the medical profession. He said he had no doubt that there were people with a ‘passion for caring’, but asked them to accept there are people ‘who have a burning passion not to need to be cared for’.
The author rejected the idea that allowing assisted suicide would amount to legalising euthanasia, in which those unwilling to die would be killed off.
He said some ways of looking after those with chronic illnesses, including forcible or ‘peg’ feeding of Alzheimer’s sufferers, were degradpulsorying and painful. ‘I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.’
Sir Terry added: ‘I have seen people profess to fear that the existence of a formalised approach to assisted dying could lead to it somehow becoming part of national health policy.
‘I very much doubt this could be the case. We are a democracy and no democratic government is going to get anywhere with a policy of comor even recommended euthanasia.
‘If we were ever to end up with such a government, we would be in so much trouble that the problem would become the least of our worries. But neither do I believe in a duty to suffer the worst ravages of terminal illness.’
Terry Pratchett quotes
“Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”
“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”
inocntlilgrlNOT Terry Pratchett quote
“And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns for exactly the same reason.”
“It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.”
“The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp”
“The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.”
“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”
rainstormsong Terry Pratchett quote
“Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.”
“I meant,” said Ipslore bitterly, “what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?” Death thought about it “Cats,” he said eventually, “Cats are Nice”
“It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.”
Great Quotes Every Day 