He was an ardent atheist who underwent a deathbed conversion. The person who administered the last sacraments to him - Father Anselm Strittmatter - said that he was so terrified of dying that he did his best to distract himself from that prospect. Even spending time reciting Goethe's Faust to his brother.

He was a brilliant man and he was understandably terrified of the very mortal fate that awaits all of us.

I like this quote: "I'm not afraid of dying; I just don't want to be there when it happens."

It always sounds easy until you try it.