Famous last words: thoughts from the big names we lost in 2024, from Maggie Smith to Brian Mulroney

— Manmohan Singh, widely credited as the architect of India’s economic reform program, notably during his decade as prime minister, 92, Dec. 26

“Rickey’s gotta go!”

— Recurrent on-field exclamation of Rickey Henderson, base-stealing legend (and former Blue Jay) who played Major League Baseball for 25 years, 65, Dec. 20

“I was brought home (after being born), handed over to my dad in his arms (and) he takes me in his arms, puts his lips to my ear and recites the tabla rhythms into my ears.”

— Zakir Hussain, one of India’s most accomplished classical musicians who introduced tabla to global audiences and worked with George Harrison and Yo-Yo Ma among many others, 73, Dec. 15

“We lost a lot of good people, you know. They didn’t do nothing. But we never know what’s going to happen in a war.”

— Bob Fernandez, survivor of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor who later worked as a forklift driver in California, 100, Dec. 11

“I am not a prophet. I really base all that on intuitiveness, the fact that I spend such an incredible amount of time with audiences and how they think.”

“I have been considered a writer who writes from rage and it confuses me. What else do writers write from?”

— Nikki Giovanni, the poet, author, educator and public speaker who spent decades as a literary celebrity, 81, Dec. 9

“I’m actually sick and tired of hearing the government talk about trafficked women and underaged children as if we don’t care about those issues. We care about those issues and I actually think we’re helping.”

— Alan Young, a lawyer and York University legal scholar known for leading the challenge of Canada’s prostitution laws, 69, Dec. 7

“And even though I’m alone now, the phone still rings. I have some wonderful friends who have helped me through so much. It still doesn’t fill the empty gap in my heart, but it helps.”

— Debbie Nelson, estranged mother and frequent lyrical target of rapper Eminem, 69, Dec. 2

“I don’t believe in jogging. It extends your life — but by exactly the amount of time you spend jogging.’’

— Academy Award winner Marshall Brickman, longtime Woody Allen collaborator who co-wrote the books for “Jersey Boys” and “The Addams Family,” 85, Nov. 29

“There was nothing more fun when ‘Airplane!’ came out and because no one knew us (screenwriters), we could go to the movie and sit with a full house and bathe ourselves in that laughter.”

— Jim Abrahams, co-writer of beloved spoof as well as “The Naked Gun” and more, 80, Nov. 26

“People say, ‘You’re still here?’ I said, ‘I never left.’ ”

— Joe Zuger, American former player and general manager who won Grey Cups for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and stayed in Steeltown thereafter, 84, Nov. 25

“And if you want to meet the real Emma, meet me … Emma had to be tough and ruthless at times: but then so am I. I have to be, as a businesswoman.”

— Barbara Taylor Bradford, a British journalist who became a publishing sensation in her 40s with the saga “A Woman of Substance” featuring retail baroness Emma Harte, and wrote more than a dozen other novels that sold tens of millions of copies, 91, Nov. 24

“I thought (disdainfully), ‘Great, a guy with a bad jacket and an equally bad moustache who doesn’t care what you have to say — that’s the guy I want to be.’”

— Chuck Woolery, on pausing his singing and acting ambitions to become the affable host of game shows like “Wheel of Fortune” and “Love Connection,” 83, Nov. 23

“My biggest contribution was giving the kids the faith that they can be the best among the best.”

— Bela Karolyi, the larger-than-life coach who led Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton to Olympic gold while revolutionizing the sport of gymnastics, only to see his legacy hurt by allegations of abusive coaching, 82, Nov. 15

“The cohort from 20 to 39 are … quite frankly, putting the rest of us in a challenging position … Don’t blow this for the rest of us.”

— John Horgan, justifying a COVID lockdown during his tenure as former B.C. premier, 65, Nov. 12

“(Charles) Mingus use to say the damnedest thing about me years ago. He’d say, ‘Well, Roy Haynes. You don’t always play the beat, you suggest the beat!’ … If I leave out a beat, it’s still there … You’ve got to use a little imagination in there.”

— Roy Haynes, pioneering jazz drummer who performed with legends like Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Sarah Vaughan, 99, Nov. 12

“Coaching has that image of obsessed men driven to a point where they’ll destroy their lives. I’ll be damned if I’ll destroy my life.”

— John Robinson, easygoing veteran football coach who enjoyed many years of success at the University of Southern California and with the Los Angeles Rams, 89, Nov. 11

“Dance is bigger than the physical body. When you extend your arm, it doesn’t stop at the end of your fingers, because you’re dancing bigger than that; you’re dancing spirit.”

— Judith Jamison, regal and passionate performer who had a decades-long career atop modern dance starting with Alvin Ailey’s famed dance company which she later led, 81, Nov. 9

“Racing has been good to me in a lot of way. It’s been very unfortunate in other ways. The way I look at it, life, not racing, has presented me with some difficult times … Life is a gift and death can come at anytime. You can’t do anything about it.”

“I’m an African American man who wasn’t supposed to make it. And somehow I beat the system. I want to be an inspiration.”

— Tony Todd, actor known for his haunting portrayal of a killer in the horror film “Candyman” and roles in many other films and television shows, 69, Nov. 6

“Education got us into this mess and education will get us out of it.”

— Murray Sinclair, the Anishinaabe senator and renowned Manitoba lawyer who led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 73, Nov. 4

“Since I was a little kid, I’ve always heard the people that don’t wanna do the work. It takes work, man. The only place you find success before work is the dictionary, and that’s alphabetical.”

— Quincy Jones, the multi-talented music titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson’s historic “Thriller” album to writing prize-winning film and TV scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists, 91, Nov. 3

“You have to find your centre and roll with the punches because that’s a hard thing to do: to have people pity you … Just trying to explain to people that I’m OK is tiresome.”

— Teri Garr, the quirky comic actress who co-starred in “Young Frankenstein” and won an Oscar nomination for “Tootsie” and then battled multiple sclerosis for decades, 79, Oct. 29

“What you can do is prepare yourself to be open; open for the pipeline to open and the magic to flow down through us. It means leaving yourself behind. It’s not a question of, Oh God, don’t let me f—k up, or anything like that. It’s a question of, ‘Here I am. Work me, Lord.’”

“I don’t know (how I should be remembered). Maybe as a person who liked to give 100 per cent in anything I do.”

— Fernando Valenzuela, the Mexican-born phenom for the Los Angeles Dodgers who inspired “Fernandomania” while winning the National League Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year in 1981, 63, Oct. 22

“It’s a very sad memory because I watched young American Rangers get shot, slaughtered — and they were young. I was 19 at the time. These kids were younger than me … I will never forget the sight of seeing those brave young men fighting and dying as they struggled to get off the beach.”

— George Chandler, British D-Day veteran who sought to counter sometimes glamorous depictions of the landings by recalling the horrors he witnessed escorting U.S. troops to the beaches of northern France as a young Royal Navy gunner, 99, Oct. 20

“I never worked with a stinker. How great is that!”

— Mitzi Gaynor, the effervescent dancer and actor who starred in the 1958 film “South Pacific” and appeared in other musicals with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, 93, Oct. 17

“We make the headlines only with blood. No blood, no news.”

“For me, learning to relax has always been quite a hard thing to do because I feel like if I’m not moving forward, then I must be going backwards.”

— Liam Payne, former One Direction singer found dead after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, 31, Oct. 16

“If we ignore the technology for a moment and consider the stories and themes, mass culture appears to circle endlessly around the same trail, meeting on its path again and again the same characters in roughly the same stories. It is a good general rule that the more successful a work of mass culture, the more it will conform to a pattern with which our grandparents were on intimate terms.”

“You and I have to continue fighting for equal pay for equal work. I get up each day with that on my mind, because I need to make a difference.”

— Lilly Ledbetter, a U.S. women’s equality activist whose fight for pay equity led to passage of the monumental Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, 86, Oct. 12

“I had a blazing row with a (Labour-supporting) girlfriend from Hackney and she said ‘If you feel like that — go and join the bloody SNP,’ so I did.”

— Alex Salmond, who turned his Scottish National Party’s dream of power into reality even though he didn’t see his vision of an independent country come true, 69, Oct. 12

“I used to run a department with 350 people and I have never seen anything in my life as dysfunctional as what I (saw in) network television — sales people who don’t sell, producers who don’t produce, bookers who don’t book.”

— Mike Bullard, Canadian standup comedian and former Bell Canada executive who hosted his own late-night TV show for years but marred his career with criminal convictions, 67, Oct. 11

“All this introspection. I hate it!”

— Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who raised their 11 children after he was assassinated and remained dedicated to social causes for decades thereafter, 96, Oct. 9

“Be tolerant to each other and remember nobody is better or worse than you, we are only different. Appreciate that.”

— Lily Ebert, one of the last remaining survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, 100, Oct. 9

“I am so grateful to God for giving me the gift of 48 years with my daughter. And I accept that He knew when it was time to take her.”

— Cissy Houston, a two-time Grammy-winning soul and gospel artist who knew triumph and heartbreak as the mother of Whitney Houston, 91, Oct. 7

“Every summer, three things are going to happen, the grass is going to get green, the weather is going to get hot, and Pete Rose is going to get 200 hits and bat .300.”

— Pete Rose, baseball’s career hits leader and fallen idol who undermined his historic achievements and Hall of Fame dreams by gambling on the game he loved and once embodied, 83, Sept. 30

“When you take the elevator to the top, please don’t forget to send it down, so that someone else can take it to the top (as well).”

— Dikembe Mutombo, basketball Hall of Famer and longtime global ambassador for the game, 58, Sept. 30

“From my background and the generation I came up in, honour and serving your country were just taken for granted. So, later, when you come to question some of the things being done in your name, it was particularly painful.”

— Kris Kristofferson, soldier turned legendary singer-songwriter behind “Me and Bobby McGee” and many more, 88, Sept. 28

— Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and gained new fans in the 21st century via “Downton Abbey” and the Harry Potter films, 89, Sept. 27

“I would not recommend three days in jail to anyone, much less three years. But I must be honest: I needed to go through what I did to develop the character I had when I became a free man.”

— Eugene “Mercury” Morris, two-time Super Bowl champion with the Miami Dolphins and linchpin of the team’s perfect 1972 season before a jail stint in the 1980s, 77, Sept. 21

“You can’t talk about peace nor agreement while terror is used as the main argument.”

— Alberto Fujimori, whose decade-long presidency began with triumphs righting Peru’s economy and defeating a brutal insurgency only to end in autocratic excess that later sent him to prison, 86, Sept. 11

— Frankie Beverly, who with his band Maze inspired generations of fans with his smooth, soulful voice and lasting anthems including “Before I Let Go,” 77, Sept. 10

“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.”

— James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen, 93, Sept. 9

“We always tried to not be a rock ‘n’ roll store, not be a jazz store, not be a symphonic store. The whole music world is not that big. You can be all things to all people in the music world, and still be small.”

— Jack Long, Canadian jazz musician and the founder of the musical instrument retail giant Long & McQuade, 95, Sept. 4

“I think melody will make a comeback. Everything is a cycle. When you walk out of a movie today, you’re not whistling a song. Where’s Henry Mancini?”

— Sérgio Mendes, the Brazilian bossa nova impresario and pianist who helped popularize the genre in the ’60s, 83, Sept. 5

“(Brian Mulroney’s) strategy ever since I have been covering him as a reporter has been to blame the media for his troubles and find out who their sources are.”

— Stevie Cameron, Canadian investigative journalist who authored books on topics ranging from allegations against Mulroney to the murders of women on a B.C. pig farm, 80, Aug. 31

“When my time does end here, you know, I hope people remember me as a good person off the ice, a good teammate and just a good person.”

— NHL star Johnny Gaudreau, killed with younger brother Matthew when they were hit by a car while riding bicycles in their home state of New Jersey, 31, Aug. 29

“It’s as old as Shakespeare and as old as Socrates. It’s an extremely powerful theatre that tells us about ourselves and about the people on trial. And I think it’s ever fascinating.”

— Linda Deutsch, writer for The Associated Press who for nearly 50 years covered the biggest U.S. trials from Charles Manson to O.J. Simpson to Phil Spector, 80, Sept. 1

“Fashion is what is given to you through the media, magazines. Style is what you slip into (to) face the mirror and smile.”

— Betty Halbreich, considered fashion’s leading personal shopper, who made the search for the right clothing a kind of quest for dignity and self-knowledge, 96, Aug. 24

“It was the culmination of all of the misconceptions and stereotypical roles that I had lived and seen being offered to me. It was like a reward for having suffered those indignities.”

— John Amos, who earned an Emmy nomination for his role in the seminal 1977 miniseries “Roots” after starring as the family patriarch on the hit 1970s sitcom “Good Times,” 84, Aug. 21

“Death will find me worn down from having lived so much, but I want to meet it with a smile, feeling free and satisfied.”

“Screaming helps. At least then you know if whether the person you’re screaming at is listening. Then go in the other room and count to 10.”

— Phil Donahue, pioneering daytime talk show host, on the secret to his 44-year marriage, 88, Aug. 18

“A taxi driver in Tokyo told me, ‘So you are a Frenchman? Like Alain Delon?’ They only knew two French names in Japan: de Gaulle and Delon.”

— Alain Delon, famously handsome French actor, on fame after starring in the movie “Purple Noon,” 88, Aug. 18

“Cancer survivors need to hear words like that, and they need to know in their heart that they are true.”

— Former Conservative MP and cabinet minister Chuck Strahl, on then-PM Stephen Harper urging him to keep contributing amid a cancer fight, 67, Aug. 13

“It’s the people who aren’t artists who sacrifice. Artists somehow stumble onto the best life in the world, and I have no complaints.”

— Gena Rowlands, hailed as one of the greatest actors to ever and a guiding light in independent film, 94, Aug. 14

“Her infirmities were so dreadful that she did not want to go on living … (we) both shared the belief that we have a right to determine our own destinies so I could not stop her.”

“I realized the impact Google was going to have when I started using it in 1998 when it was just getting started. One day I couldn’t access the service and realized I couldn’t get my work done.”

— Susan Wojcicki, a pioneering tech executive who played a key role in Google’s creation and served nine years as YouTube’s CEO, 56, Aug. 9

“In my mind if there’s another gay baseball player or two — or 10 or 25 or 100 — they’re just people you walk by every day. Like I did, they just want to play the game. And it’s a difficult enough game already without something else on your mind.”

— Billy Bean, who in 1999 became the second former Major League Baseball player to come out as gay, 60, Aug. 6

“The Al-Aqsa flood (the Oct.7 attack) was an earthquake that struck the heart of the Zionist entity and has made major changes at the world … We will continue the resistance against this enemy until we liberate our land, all our land.”

— Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, killed by bomb in Tehran, July 30

“There was nothing like this at the time. There were romance books, but this was different…these books were girl-driven. I felt that I was putting life in the hands of girls…these girls ran the ship. They ran the action.”

— Francine Pascal, a onetime soap opera writer whose “Sweet Valley High” novels and the ongoing adventures of twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and other teens captivated millions of young readers, 92, July 28

“My body routinely produces fresh and insistent signs of its mortality, and within the surrounding biosphere of the news and entertainment media it is the fear of death — 24/7 in every shade of hospital white and doomsday black — that sells the pharmaceutical, political, financial, film, and food products promising to make good the wish to live forever.”

— Lewis H. Lapham, the scholarly patrician who edited Harper’s Magazine for nearly three decades, 89, July 23

“There’s nothing else I can play.”

“As the gap between the haves and the have-nots increases, the likelihood of violence will increase; it’s not rocket science. When people are excluded, neglected, ignored, deprived of opportunity, violence becomes a viable option for them. How do we change those conditions?”

— Louis March, longtime Toronto anti-violence activist, 68, July 20

“My audience has always expected me to tell them where I’m coming from, and I don’t see any reason to disappoint them.”

— Lou Dobbs, conservative veteran cable TV host who was a founding anchor for CNN and later was a nightly presence on Fox Business Network for more than a decade, 78, July 18

“When I started, I thought I might have five years, and that was fine. I pictured myself like an elevator operator, and people in the corner would say, ‘That guy used to be Bob Newhart.’ ”

— Bob Newhart, the genial funnyman whose career lasted from a smash hit album in 1960 through TV in the 2010s, 94, July 18

“Be very careful. Have lots of fun. And stay brave.”

— Bella Thomson, known on TikTok as Bella Brave, known for her courageous struggle at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto with several rare health conditions, 10, July 14

“Pain is manageable, you know living without a breast is manageable, it’s the worry of your future and how your future is going to affect the people that you love.”

— Shannen Doherty, the “Beverly Hills, 90210” star whose life and career were roiled by breast cancer and tabloid stories, 53, July 13

“There’ll always be some weird thing about eating four grapes before you go to bed, or drinking a special tea, or buying this little bean from El Salvador … If you watch your portions and you have a good attitude and you work out every day you’ll live longer, feel better and look terrific.”

— Richard Simmons, television’s hyperactive court jester of physical fitness who built a mini-empire in his trademark tank tops and short shorts, died Saturday, 76, July 13

“I still hold old-fashioned values and I’m a bit of a square. Sex is a private art and a private matter. But still, it is a subject we must talk about.”

— Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the diminutive sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, 96, July 12

“What I love about art is that it is what I am. It makes my spirit and my spiritual life complete. There isn’t any other reason.”

— Alex Janvier, Albertan considered one of Canada’s greatest painters and member of the so-called Indian Group of Seven, 89, July 10

“Until the screenwriter does his job, nobody else has a job. In other words, he is the a—hole who keeps everyone else from going to work.”

— Robert Towne, the screenwriting legend who won an Academy Award for his original script for “Chinatown,” 89, July 1

“Amazing. When you think everything’s finished, it’s only the beginning.”

— Orlando Cepeda, the slugging Boston Red Sox first baseman who became a Hall of Famer and honoured at Fenway Park, 86, June 28

“I’ve been painting all along … All of this has been a way to try to put paint on my table. You know, every painter I know has a day job … I just happened to luck into a day job that’s extraordinary and a lot of fun and buys a lot of paint.”

— Martin Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and acting made him a hip sensation in the 1970s and later a beloved guest star on sitcoms, 80, June 27

— Singer, songwriter, satirist and novelist Kinky Friedman, who led the alt-country band Texas Jewboys, toured with Bob Dylan and dabbled in politics, 79, June 27

“I remember saying, ‘If you guys don’t get sober with me, I’m going to go start a sober band.’ And I was smoking crack while I’m saying that. I was just a big fireball of chaos … running from my emotions, just submerging myself in psychoticness. And loving it.”

— Seth Binzer, alias Shifty Shellshock, lead singer of alt-rock’s Crazy Town, 49, June 24

— Canadian billionaire businessman James K. Irving, owner of New Brunswick newspapers and much more, 96, June 21

“Well, it’s not that complicated. I’m an actor. I can play a Russian oligarch, or a pauper. I can play whomever I like as long as I like them.”

— Donald Sutherland, the towering Canadian actor whose acclaimed career spanned more than six decades, 88, June 20

“I remember the last season I played. I went home after a ballgame one day … tears came to my eyes. How can you explain that? It’s like crying for your mother after she’s gone … I loved baseball and I knew I had to leave it.”

“You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older.”

— Anouk Aimée, the radiant French star and dark-eyed beauty of classic films including Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and Claude Lelouch’s “A Man and a Woman,” 92, June 18

“At 95, time is not on my side, and neither is silence. I simply want to add my name and say, ‘Me too.’ ”

— Janis Paige, a popular actor in Hollywood and on Broadway musicals who later revealed a sexual assault by department-store heir Alfred Bloomingdale, 101, June 2

— Infamous Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton, convicted of six murders and suspected of many more, 74, May 31

“I was on air for 18 hours that day (John Lennon was killed), which was a historic one for radio. Everyone of our generation turned off their TVs and listened. It was the only appropriate way of grieving.”

— Broadcaster Bob Mackowycz Sr., whose visionary radio programming injected a certain artistic flair into Toronto’s cultural scene, 75, May 29

“My bike is my gym, my wheelchair and my church all in one. I’d like to ride my bike all day long but I’ve got this thing called a job that keeps getting in the way.”

— Bill Walton, NBA Hall of Famer, longtime broadcaster and notorious free spirit, 71, May 27

“I always looked at myself as a failure. I thought I had a lot of talent that was just a waste of talent … Just persevere, and when you get tired of fighting let someone else fight for you.”

— Grayson Murray, PGA golfer, 30, May 25

— Deathbed utterance of Albert S. Ruddy, a colourful, Canadian-born producer and writer who won Oscars for “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby,” 94, May 25

“All the animals we had really did teach us enough about love that we understood it outside of any human definition.”

— Caleb Carr, survivor of an abusive childhood who became a bestselling author and lifelong cat lover, 68, May 23

“As one family member told me, it’s simply a really good bad idea.”

— Morgan Spurlock, a documentary filmmaker who ate at McDonald’s every day for a month the Oscar-nominated 2004 feature “Super Size Me,” 53, May 23

“Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”

— Ivan F. Boesky, the flamboyant stock trader whose cooperation with the government cracked open one of the largest insider trading scandals in the history of Wall Street, 87, May 20

“I am proud of being a defender of human rights and of people’s security and comfort as a prosecutor wherever I was.”

— Ebrahim Raisi, so-called “Butcher of Tehran,” hardline prosecutor turned uncompromising president of Iran only to die in a helicopter crash, 63, May 19

“I’ve been shy all my life … Maybe it’s because my father died when I was 4 … I was extremely small, just a little guy who was there, the kid who created no trouble. I was attracted to fantasy, and I created games for myself.”

— Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in “9 to 5” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie,” 92, May 16

“There’s no sugar-coating cancer (but) I will never forget the outpouring of support I received from you (constituents) throughout my treatment. Your incredibly kind words and generous deeds helped my family and I through very dark days.”

— Toronto Coun. Jaye Robinson, 61, May 16

— Longtime TSN broadcaster Darren “Dutchy” Dutchyshen, joking about hockey’s Sedin twins, 57, May 15

“A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time.”

— Nobel laureate Alice Munro, the Canadian literary giant among the world’s most esteemed contemporary authors and short story writers, whose legacy is now being recast by personal scandal, 92, May 13

— Arthur L. Irving, son of New Brunswick industrialist K.C. Irving who spent a lifetime growing the oil business his father founded and died as one of the 10 richest Canadians with a net worth of $6.4 billion, 93, May 13

“I was in high school in Toronto in Grade 13 when I was called up for my first game (against Montreal). Punch Imlach came in the dressing room to announce the starting lineup; Tim Horton, Allan Stanley, Red Kelly, Frank Mahovlich … and me.”

— Ron Ellis, who played over 1,000 games with the Toronto Maple Leafs and was a member of Canada’s team at the 1972 Summit Series, 79, May 11

“The first thing (Steven Spielberg) said to me was, ‘When your scene is done, I want everyone under the seats with the popcorn and bubblegum.’ So, I think we did that.”

— Susan Backlinie, actress who played the first person killed by the titular shark in “Jaws,” 77, May 11

— Cinema maestro Roger Corman, who cranked out hundreds of low-budget films over six decades and helped launch the careers of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron and Ron Howard, 98, May 9

“Hollywood is a narcotic, not a stimulant. It wants to sell you something. Literature wants to tell you something.”

— Rex Murphy, Newfoundland-born pundit and wordsmith whose often-blistering commentaries sustained a decades-long career in Canadian media, 77, May 9

“All the people that work in music … want you to think that they are in it for art and art alone. Then when you present them with something (that) might not reach all of the chain stores — when you present them with something that is a manifestation of their pretence — they blanch.”

— Steve Albini, outspoken music producer/engineer who worked with Nirvana and many more, 61, May 7

“A lot of guys are more skillful than I am with the guitar. A lot of it is over my head. But some of it is not what I want to hear out of the guitar.”

— Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero for his reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as “Rebel Rouser” and “Peter Gunn,” 86, April 30

“I left this profession, I stopped, I did a farewell show … I was ashamed, but I came back, and as quickly as possible. It’s the most beautiful job in the world.”

— Jean-Pierre Ferland, the singer-songwriter who became a fixture of Quebec’s cultural landscape over a career that spanned more than six decades, 89, April 27

“Make sure you enjoy the game. If you don’t, you’re in the wrong business … Hockey fans are abreast of times. They know what’s going on. You don’t have to teach them anything.”

— Bob Cole, the voice of hockey in Canada (and “Hockey Night in Canada”) for decades, 90, April 24

— Terry Anderson, a U.S. journalist held hostage for nearly seven years during Lebanon’s civil war, 76, April 20

— Roman Gabriel, the first Filipino-American quarterback in the NFL and the league MVP in 1969, 83, April 20

“Harnessing all that energy (in youth orchestras) and that enthusiasm and that passion, and galvanizing it into a totally, totally unified conception and not just conception but — what’s the word? — realization … I berate them more than I would, but I hope always with a twinkle in my eye.”

— Andrew Davis, the acclaimed British conductor who led the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for 13 years, 80, April 20

“I’d go to one school for a year and then the other the next. I had two sets of friends and spent a lot of time in the back seat of a Greyhound bus. Ramblin’ was in my blood.”

— Guitar legend Dickey Betts, who co-founded the Allman Brothers Band and wrote their biggest hit, “Ramblin’ Man,” 80, April 18

— Whitey Herzog, World Series champion and former manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals, 92, April 15

“We don’t need to SELL the news. The networks hype the news to make it seem vital, important. What’s missing (in 22 minutes) is context, sometimes balance, and a consideration of questions that are raised by certain events.”

— Robert MacNeil, Canadian-born journalist who created the even-handed PBS newscast “The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour” in the 1970s and co-anchored it for two decades, 93, April 12

“I’m absolutely, 100 per cent, not guilty.”

— O.J. Simpson, the football star, actor and pitchman whose shocking arrest for double murder and subsequent acquittal shone a light on American race relations, 76, April 10

“I’m not a ‘me’ person. I’m into sharing and communication, into telling stories. I’m not your typical underground artist … I want to bring comics back to the ’30s, instead of reliving the ’60s.”

“That name (the god particle) was a kind of joke, and not a very good one. An author, Leon Lederman, wanted to call it ‘that goddamn particle’ because it was clear it was going to be a tough job finding it experimentally. His editor wouldn’t have that, and he said OK, call it the God particle,’ and the editor accepted it. I don’t think he should’ve have done, because it’s so misleading.”

— Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, on conceiving of the so-called “God particle” that helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang, 94, April 8

“I’m the pioneer. I was the first one in Michigan who said marijuana should be legal, and they said I was totally nuts.”

— John Sinclair, a marijuana activist whose 1969 imprisonment was immortalized in a John Lennon song, 82, April 2

“A historian is somebody who studies the facts, the historical facts — somebody who is tied to what actually happens … I am just a dreamer — my dreams rest upon a historical basis.”

— Maryse Condé, historical novelist and prolific “grande dame” of Caribbean literature, 90, April 2

— Joe Flaherty, comic actor of “SCTV” fame, 82, April 1

“The Marines changed it. They said that an enlisted man would never beat up a drill sergeant … ‘If you don’t do this well, Mr. Gossett, we’re going to have to kill you.’”

— Actor Louis Gossett Jr., on the script for “An Officer and a Gentleman,” for which he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, 87, March 29

— Joe Lieberman, former U.S. Democrat-turned-independent senator, 82, March 27

“Babar was my friend and I invented stories with him, but not with kids in a corner of my mind. I write it for myself.”

— Laurent de Brunhoff, who revived his father’s popular picture-book series about an elephant-king and presided over its rise to a global, multimedia franchise, 98, March 22

— Richard C. “Dick” Higgins, one of the last remaining survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on following his wife of 60 years into death, 102, March 19

“Whether it’s Mr. Redford or Pacino or Hackman, once they see that I’m there, they aren’t going to let me win that tennis match. We hit the ball very hard. That’s why I’m brought in.”

— M. Emmet Walsh, character actor seen everywhere from “Blood Simple” to “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” 88, March 19

“I knew the sky would not fall. I knew that people would, within a very short time, generally accept it as just an evolution of our society. And some, particularly my own age group are still a little mad at me, but the vast majority of people, I think, are quite indifferent to it.”

— Roy McMurtry, politician who as Chief Justice of Ontario paved the way for same-sex marriage, 81, March 19

— Rose Dugdale, rejecting her father’s wealth and privilege in England to become an IRA militant and bomb maker, 82, March 18

“Climbing Everest says that you have done something extraordinary, that you have stepped outside the routines of ordinary life, endured hardship and accepted a great challenge … There is only one highest place on Earth.”

— David Breashears, a mountaineer, author and filmmaker who co-directed and co-produced a 1998 IMAX documentary about climbing Mount Everest, 68, March 14

“The only way you get ahead is if you see something that no one else sees and it’s a little crazy.”

— Gerald Levin, businessman and architect of famously disastrous AOL-Time Warner merger, 84, March 13

— Malachy McCourt, thespian, barkeep and best-selling memoirist, 92, March 11

“I don’t sit around and worry about it. I’m dying a lot. It doesn’t make any difference.”

— Paul Alexander, Dallas man who spent most of his life in an iron lung, 78, March 11

“Our audience knows we’re not going to load up on heavy metal or set fire to the drummer — although on some nights we’ve talked about it.”

— Steve Lawrence, a singer who kept Tin Pan Alley alive during the rock era, 88, March 7

— Eleanor Collins, Canadian jazz legend who worked with other greats like Dizzy Gillespie and fellow Canadian Oscar Peterson, 104, March 3

“I’m often asked what my favourite, my most important building is. I’m going on the record right now. This is it.”

— Architect Antoine Predock, on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, 87, March 2

“In ’24, the power of showing up as your whole self authentically (and) intentionally is the resistance — ain’t no half steppin’. ”

— Jay Williams, beloved Scarborough educator who served as a role model to thousands of teenagers as a progressive Black man in the field of education, 40, Feb. 29

“You had an option, sir. You could have said, ‘I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.’”

— Debate knockout blow from Brian Mulroney, Canada’s 18th prime minister whose legacy is dominated by the free-trade agreement with the U.S., 84, Feb. 29

“I’m paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home. On my stationary bike, I have a rear-view mirror.”

— Richard Lewis, indelibly neurotic U.S. comedian, 76, Feb. 27

“If they’re told to feed you caviar tomorrow, they’ll feed you caviar. If they’re told to strangle you in your cell, they’ll strangle you.”

— Incarcerated Russian opposition leader Alexander Navalny, on his jailers, 47, Feb. 16

“The Spinners are still here and still singing for our people who want to hear us. And that’s not going to change. We’ll still be there for them.”

— Henry Fambrough, as the last living original member of the hitmaking ’70s band, 85, Feb. 7

“If you can’t handle ‘Tie My Pecker to My Leg,’ you’re not gonna like the rest of the show. But if I don’t run a few people off, I haven’t done my job.”

— Mojo Nixon, raw and rootsy musician, actor, and radio DJ, 66, Feb. 7

“Probably 75 per cent of the people in this town (Nashville) think I’ll fail, and the other 25 per cent hope I fail.”

— Toby Keith, crafter of hit pro-American country-music anthems such as the controversial “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue,” 62, Feb. 5

“There are so many people that came before me who I admired and whose success I wanted to emulate … And hopefully I can inspire someone else to do good work as well.”

— Carl Weathers, former NFL and CFL linebacker who became a film star in the “Rocky” movies, “Happy Gilmore,” and more, 76, Feb. 1

“I wouldn’t know what to do if I wasn’t moving or telling a story to you or singing a song.”

— Chita Rivera, dancer, singer and actress who garnered 10 Tony nominations, winning twice, and was in the original production of “West Side Story” in a long Broadway career, 91, Jan. 30

“I can remember my first big-league hit, but when you only get three you can remember them all.”

— Jimy Williams, former Blue Jays manager, on his brief major-league playing career, 80, Jan. 26

“It wasn’t the age of smiling women. It had to be much more broody and I was way too cherubic.”

— Melanie (Safka), singer-songwriter of “Brand New Key” fame, on her era, 76, Jan. 23

“Everybody is trying to tell you something different, and they’re always putting obstacles in your way. You have to fight for what you believe in, and you have to defend yourself constantly. It’s a matter of confidence.”

— Norman Jewison, Canadian director nominated for seven Oscars, on directing, 97, Jan. 20

“When we started, it was all about music. By the time it ended, it was all about litigation.”

— Mary Weiss, the lead singer of the 1960s pop group the Shangri-Las, whose hits included “Leader of the Pack,” 75, Jan. 19

“You miss three times in a row and that’s all you get. Moving forward, lessons to be learned.”

— Shawn Barber, Canadian pole-vault record holder and 2015 world champion, 29, Jan. 17

“It took me to a special place … I saw that it brought joy and happiness to other people when I played, so I wanted to take it to a higher place by bringing in some Cajun, country, blues, rock and jazz.”

“Probably the worst decision of my political life. David won and he deserved to.”

“Football for me was a deliverance. Looking back, I can say: Everything went according to how I’d imagined my life. I had a perfect life.”

— Franz Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup both as player and coach and became one of Germany’s most beloved personalities with his easygoing charm, 78, Jan. 7

— Joseph Lelyveld, a former executive editor and foreign correspondent for The New York Times, who won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction for his book “Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White,” 86, Jan. 5

“We had long hair and beards and were looking very bedraggled. Our feet were in tatters — I don’t think we looked very much like soldiers.”

— Maj. Mike Sadler, a legendary Second World War navigator who guided Britain’s SAS in daring behind-the-lines night raids, describing crossing 180 kilometres of North African desert on foot, 103, Jan. 4

“These days anybody is a celebrity and, frankly, there’s nothing to celebrate. Reality TV? I live my life in reality. I want (to watch) something special, not pretty people with little talent trying to get famous.”

— Actor David Soul, blond half of crime-fighting duo “Starsky & Hutch” in the popular 1970s TV series, 80, Jan. 4