Roger Ebert Didn't Fear Death

Life, Love, Wonder and Laughter

Roger Ebert recently passed away. With the loss of one of the great advocate of cinema I am reminded of a relevant and poignant quote of his which I filed into my impermanence notes several years ago.

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.
–Roger Ebert, 2010 

"In addition to being sharp, funny, insightful, interesting, opinionated, informed and complex in his writings, he was also fair." –Pete Hammond. Roger Joseph Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013 was an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. The Chicago Sun-Times said he "was without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic," and Forbes described him as "the most powerful pundit in America". He was both the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, and the first to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.