"Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death"
About this Quote
The line works because it uses bravado to confess vulnerability. “Easy” isn’t meant literally; it’s the fantasy that there’s an exit ramp, that oblivion would at least be quiet. Then she undercuts that fantasy with a darkly comic self-own: living “scares me to death,” a phrase usually tossed off casually, repurposed here to show how anxiety colonizes even our metaphors. The paradox makes the emotion sharper. You can hear someone trying to talk themselves out of panic and failing in real time.
In Lennox’s cultural context - post-punk hangover, AIDS-era gravity, and the 80s/90s pop machine that demanded constant reinvention - “living” also means performance: staying visible, staying relevant, staying intact while your public image becomes a second skin. The quote isn’t romanticizing despair; it’s naming the courage it takes to keep showing up when the world hands you reasons to disappear. Death is the clean ending. Life is the nerve.
Quote Details
| Topic | Fear |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Lennox, Annie. (2026, January 15). Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/dying-is-easy-its-living-that-scares-me-to-death-125819/
Chicago Style
Lennox, Annie. "Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/dying-is-easy-its-living-that-scares-me-to-death-125819/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/dying-is-easy-its-living-that-scares-me-to-death-125819/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.





