Don't start writing until you know your ending.
Brautigan: .44 Magnum
Hemingway: 12-gauge Boss shotgun
Thompson: Smith & Wesson 645
Kosiński: head in plastic bag
Plath: head in oven
Wallace: hanged
Woolf: walked into river w/stones in pockets
Boye: sleeping medication overdose
Chamfort: shot off nose/jaw, stabbed w/paper cutter
Ćopić: jumped off bridge
Crane: jumped off steamship
Levi: jumped into stairwell
Mishima: seppuku
Potocki: shot w/silver bullet blessed by priest
Sexton: locked in garage w/car running
Seneca: slit wrists
(Chamfort, despite mutilating himself so horribly in September, didn't die until the following April.)
(Potocki was performing a public service - thought he was becoming a werewolf.)
Jonker: walked into sea
Mayakovsky: played Russian roulette 3 times, won twice
Tacitus records the elegant suicide of Petronius:
"Yet he did not fling away life with precipitate haste, but having made an incision in his veins and then, according to his humor, bound them up, he again opened them, while he conversed with his friends, not in a serious strain or on topics that might win for him the glory of courage. And he listened to them as they repeated, not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the theories of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some of his slaves he gave liberal presents, a flogging to others. He dined, indulged himself in sleep, that death, though forced on him, might have a natural appearance. Even in his will he did not, as did many in their last moments, flatter Nero or Tigellinus or any other of the men in power. On the contrary, he described fully the prince's shameful excesses, with the names of his male and female companions and their novelties in debauchery, and sent the account under seal to Nero. Then he broke his signet-ring, that it might not be subsequently available for imperiling others."
UPDATE: I just realized I'm not famous enough to commit suicide. Dammit. 😉
UPDATE 2: Resumé (by Dorothy Parker)
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
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