Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother.

Curley's wife lay with a half-covering of yellow hay. And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Now her rouged cheeks and reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly. The curls, tiny little sausages, were spread on the hay behind her head and her lips were parted

A dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half remembered glory

For death begins with life's first breath And life begins at touch of death

The good die young - because they see it's no use living if you've got to be good

That’s part of what I like about the book in some ways. It portrays death truthfully. You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence