Jack Kevorkian quotes:

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Let's hope you feel better now.

I'm not the kind of guy who has best friends.

My ultimate aim is to make euthanasia a positive experience.

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

Fear controls you.

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

I'm not lying to myself like most people.

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.

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

I didn't do this for other people; I did this for me. I fought for this right for me - does that sound selfish?

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

I suppose, if helping a patient die is killing, I suppose I'm a killer.

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

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

If Christ can die in a barn, I think the death of a human in a van is not so bad.

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?

How can you regret helping a suffering patient?

You can cite me for contempt, Your Honor. I don't care.

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

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.

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.

I'm for absolute autonomy of the individual, and an adult, competent woman has absolute autonomy. It's her choice.

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

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'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.

I'd find it demeaning to be cleaning toilets.

What looks like enjoyment is the sneer of contempt. That's not a smile.

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.

Dying is not a crime.

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.

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

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.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

If a man is terrified, it's up to me to dispel that terror.

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.

What I think a doctor should do is prevent disease, by any means necessary.

I'm not a romantic.

I have no regrets, none whatsoever.

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Everyone is going to die.

Many support what I am doing.

The law doesn't create a right.

I don't persuade to suicide.

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

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

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.

[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.

Liberty means more to me than life itself.

The public can tolerate a Nazi America.

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

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

I am not a sentimental person.

The patient decides when it's best to go.

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

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

I don't crave publicity, you know.

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

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.