Suicide

From the obituary of Edwin Shneidman, founder of the country's first suicide prevention center:

“People were calling us and literally saying, ‘I’m just about to make a suicide attempt. Do I have to take these pills or jump off a building before I can talk to you? Or could I shortcut it and come in directly?’ ”

“Dying is the one thing — perhaps the only thing — in life that you don’t have to do,” he once wrote. “Stick around long enough and it will be done for you.”