James dean quotes live fast and die

The saying “Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse!” is often associated with actor James Dean.

Dean didn’t say it as a line in any of his own movies.

Nor did he coin it.

Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse meaning

But he was a fan of the classic , noir film that made it a famous movie quote, Knock on Any Door.

Biographies of Dean indicate that he embraced the words as his own fatalistic motto and lived his brief life accordingly.

Indeed, two books about Dean use part of the saying in their title: John Gilmore’s biography Live Fast–Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean and Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause () by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel.

Gilmore was an actor and writer who met Dean in , became Dean’s close friend and (according to Gilmore) his lover.

Gilmore noted Dean’s fondness for the “live fast, die young…” line in his own book and in interviews he did for others.

For example, in an interview Gilmore did for the