Mortality Quotes in Life After Life

The first chapter ends with a death—the death of our main character in fact. She dies quite a few times over the course of the book, and this line, or some variation thereof, describes each one of her deaths as a fading into darkness before being reborn. There's no white light, like some people say they see.

The death of Ursula at birth is tragic, but the irony here is that she has had the chance to live. At this point, we're not sure just how many times, but her life is ever-repeating, which takes some of the edge off her death.

In any other book, this line wouldn't really mean anything. But in Life After Life, we've already seen Ursula die twice. She narrowly avoids death by sugar cube here.