quote · Legacy record
Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that person dies, the whole cluster dies,too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?
Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that person dies, the whole cluster dies,too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?
Approximate author period: c. 1931 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Irvin D. Yalom
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1931 AD · modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Irvin D. Yalom: documented birth year 1931; activity date not established. Wikidata Q362721, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q362721 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 153449; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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