[On suicide:] It's the only cause of death that can be used as a noun to describe the dead person. If you die of cancer you are not called 'a cancer.' If someone else shoots you, you are not referred to as 'a murder.' But if you shoot yourself, you are labeled as a suicide. Your death becomes your definition.
Joan Wickersham (2009). “The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order”, p.204, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
![[On suicide:] It's the only cause of death that can be used as a noun to describe the dead person. If you die of cancer you are not called 'a cancer.' If someone else shoots you, you are not referred to as 'a murder.'](http://cdn.quoteddaily.com/images/joan-wickersham/on-suicide-its-the-only-cause-of-death-that-can-be-used-as-a-noun-to-describe-the-dead-person.jpg)