I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way
Not George Carlin — actually Sean MoreySean MoreyBorn 7 June 1953 · American stand-up comedian and comic songwriter
?Attribution status: No Carlin album, book, special or interview has ever been shown to contain this. His own camp disowned it, and the routine has a named author who is not him.?Reuse status: Rights unconfirmed
The life-in-reverse bit is a stand-up routine by comedian Sean Morey, usually called “Reverse Life Cycle.” The wording that travels under George Carlin’s name is an unsigned rewrite of it — Wikiquote files this exact text under “Misattributed,” and the long-running catalogue of fake Carlin material states flatly that Carlin did not write it.
“I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way” Not George Carlin. The "live your next life backwards" bit is comedian Sean Morey's routine "Reverse Life Cycle"; the popular wording is an unsigned rewrite of it. The catalogue of fake Carlin quotations says outright that Carlin didn't write it, and Wikiquote files the text as misattributed — to Carlin, Andy Rooney and Woody Allen alike. — Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to George Carlin. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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In context
Evoking the world of Sean Morey — American stand-up comedian and comic songwriter. Theme: "I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
Where the line really comes from
Circulating as
“My Next Life” / “Life in Reverse” — an unsigned forwarded text
Actual origin
“Reverse Life Cycle,” a stand-up routine by Sean Morey
Carlin's status
Catalogued as bogus Carlin; the catalogue notes he denied it on his official site in 2001
Also pinned on
Andy Rooney, Woody Allen
I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in a nursing home feeling better every day.
the forwarded version runs on for another dozen beats
This is the forwarded-email wording, reproduced in Wikiquote’s “Misattributed” section ↗. Sean Morey’s own routine does not begin this way — the georgecarlin.net entry ↗ gives its opening as “The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends.”
Wikiquote ↗ reproduces this exact wording in its Misattributed section and notes that variations “have been misattributed to Andy Rooney, George Carlin, and Woody Allen,” with the original a variation on a piece by Sean Morey.
The “Reverse Life Cycle” entry ↗ in the Bogus Carlin catalogue is blunt: Carlin did not write it, it is by comedian Sean Morey — and it records that Carlin said so on his official site in 2001.
Wikipedia’s article on Sean Morey ↗ states that “The phrase ‘Reverse Life Cycle,’ which is often attributed to George Carlin or Andy Rooney, actually belongs to Sean Morey.”
The piece is item 8 in the same catalogue’s index of falsely attributed Carlin material ↗, which lists dozens of essays and one-liners circulating under his name — “The Paradox of Our Time” is item 1 and “I Am a Bad American” item 4.
The exact viral wording has no identifiable author — it is an unsigned rewrite of Sean Morey’s routine, and no first publication can be pinned to it, so no rights status is asserted. The underlying routine is Morey’s modern comedy material and would not be public domain; nothing here should be treated as free to reuse.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Three famous names, none of them the author
This is one of the most successfully misattributed comedy pieces on the internet. The same routine has been forwarded under at least three different bylines, and the one it actually belongs to is the only name most readers have never seen attached to it.
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The whole pieceGeorge Carlin Denied
The Bogus Carlin catalogue ↗ states that Carlin did not write it and credits comedian Sean Morey, noting that Carlin addressed the fakes on his official site in 2001. The piece sits in the same index of falsely attributed material ↗ as “The Paradox of Our Time” and “I Am a Bad American.”
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The whole pieceAndy Rooney Misattributed
Wikiquote ↗ carries the text in Rooney’s Misattributed section with the note that it has also been pinned on Carlin and Woody Allen, and that the original is a variation on a piece by Sean Morey.
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A shorter one-line versionWoody Allen Unsourced
Goodreads ↗ still lists “In my next life I want to live backwards…” under Allen’s name with no source book cited — and with the site’s own disclaimer that community-added quotes are not verified.
Orphan comedy travels badly. A funny routine cut loose from its author’s name needs a byline to survive being forwarded, and the internet supplies the most plausible famous one available. A dark, riff-structured bit about death, nursing homes and the pointlessness of the standard life sequence sounds like Carlin, so Carlin is who it got.
The habit long predates his death. Carlin was already denying this particular piece on his own official site in 2001 — seven years before he died — which is why a standing catalogue of bogus Carlin quotations exists at all, describing itself as the internet’s biggest catalog and refutation of fake Carlin lines. His death in 2008 and the tribute forwarding that followed plausibly added to the pile, but they did not start it.
It sounds like Carlin. That is the entire mechanism.
Read the full story
One tell: the viral text and the routine do not open the same way. Sean Morey’s version starts from a premise — that the unfair thing about life is the order it happens in — while the forwarded text jumps straight to the punch structure. That is the signature of a piece rewritten by whoever retyped it, not of an author’s own material.
Quote Investigator does not appear to have published an article on this one; the standing anchors are Wikiquote’s Misattributed listings, Snopes’ Andy Rooney fact-check and the Bogus Carlin catalogue — all three of which point to Sean Morey.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Born 1953 · American stand-up comedian and comic songwriter
Sean Morey is an American stand-up comedian and singer, born 7 June 1953, known on radio for comic songs such as “The Man Song.” He started out as a street entertainer in Boston — he has been called “The Godfather of Boston Comedy” — and after moving to Los Angeles in 1978 he was spotted by Jim McCauley, Johnny Carson’s comedy talent scout, and went on to perform three times on The Tonight Show with Carson. His most-travelled piece of writing is the one almost nobody credits to him: the “Reverse Life Cycle” routine that the internet has spent two decades handing to more famous comedians.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
How to cite this page
Attribution of the underlying routine per Wikiquote, "Andy Rooney — Misattributed," https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andy_Rooney (accessed 3 August 2026), and georgecarlin.net, "'Reverse Life Cycle' (Life should go backwards)," Bogus Carlin catalogue, https://georgecarlin.net/bogus/backwards.html (accessed 3 August 2026). No George Carlin work has been shown to contain this text; the routine is credited to comedian Sean Morey, and the popular wording is an unsigned variation on it.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way’?” Last verified 3 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-want-to-live-my-next-life-backwards-you-start-out-dead/