Top 70 Jack Kevorkian Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Jack Kevorkian

2. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

3. “Let’s hope you feel better now.”

— Jack Kevorkian

4. “Freedom has a price. Most people aren’t willing to pay it.”

— Jack Kevorkian

5. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

6. “Dying is not a crime.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

8. “I have no regrets, none whatsoever.”

— Jack Kevorkian

9. “Everyone is going to die.”

— Jack Kevorkian

10. “My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It’s got to be decriminalized.”

— Jack Kevorkian

11. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

12. “I am not a sentimental person.”

— Jack Kevorkian

13. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

14. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

15. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

16. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

17. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

18. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

19. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

20. “This is not a trial. This is a lynching. There is no law.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

22. “The public can tolerate a Nazi America.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

24. “I’m not lying to myself like most people.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

26. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

29. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

34. “My ultimate aim is to make euthanasia a positive experience.”

— Jack Kevorkian

35. “I didn’t do this for other people; I did this for me. I fought for this right for me – does that sound selfish?”

— Jack Kevorkian

36. “I suppose, if helping a patient die is killing, I suppose I’m a killer.”

— Jack Kevorkian

37. “The patient decides when it’s best to go.”

— Jack Kevorkian

38. “If a man is terrified, it’s up to me to dispel that terror.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

40. “There’s no doubt I expect to die in prison.”

— Jack Kevorkian

41. “When your conscience says law is immoral, don’t follow it.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

44. “What looks like enjoyment is the sneer of contempt. That’s not a smile.”

— Jack Kevorkian

45. “I’d find it demeaning to be cleaning toilets.”

— Jack Kevorkian

46. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

47. “You’ve gotta know what death is to know life!”

— Jack Kevorkian

48. “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.”

— Jack Kevorkian

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

— Jack Kevorkian

50. “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?”

— Jack Kevorkian