Famous last words
My new favorite famous last words.
Last week, Esquire magazine had a moving piece about Roger Ebert’s battle with cancer that has taken away his ability to speak, eat or drink (Ebert has more at his blog). The refrain throughout the piece is that Ebert doesn’t remember the last words he spoke.
And early on in the piece there’s this passage:
He looks surprised that he can’t remember. He knows the last words Studs Terkel’s wife, Ida, muttered when she was wheeled into the operating room (“Louis, what have you gotten me into now?”), but Ebert doesn’t know what his own last words were.
Ida passed away ten years ago. Studs followed in October 2008. In his last interview, a week before his death, Studs had a few memorable last words as well:
The idiots! They label Saul Alinksy – the great neighborhood organizer – as a subversive! He’s been dead for 35 years and he was honored by the Catholic Church! He’s no subversive. Neither is Bill Ayers! That Sarah Palin – you know, she’s Joe McCarthy in drag!
And
Obama can’t be a moderate! He’s got to remember where he comes from! Obama, he has got to be pushed!
