Funeral Quotes

How could you go about choosing something that would hold the half of your heart you had to bury?

~ Jodi Picoult

I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means you need life in your life.

~ Markus Zusak

I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

~ Mark Twain

The more death, the more birth. People are entering, others are exiting. The cry of a baby, the mourning of others. When others cry, the other are laughing and making merry. The world is mingled with sadness, joy, happiness, anger, wealth, poverty, etc.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

I remembered back to leo's burial and holding your hand. I was eleven and you were six, your hand soft and small in mine. As the vicar said 'in sure and certain hope of the resurrection of eternal life' you turned to me, 'I don't want sure and certain hope I want sure and certain Bee.

~ Rosamund Lupton

Your coffin reached the monstrous hole. And a part of me went down into the muddy earth with you and lay down next to you and died with you.

~ Rosamund Lupton

For 3 million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person. (on Margaret Thatcher)

~ Frankie Boyle

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth;Lie close around her; leave no room for mirthWith its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.She hath no questions, she hath no replies.

~ Jeffrey Eugenides

It's important to attend funerals. It is important to view the body, they say, and to see it committed to earth or fire because unless you do that, the loved one dies for you again and again.

~ Ann-Marie Macdonald

Western funerals: black hearses, and black horses, and fast-fading flowers. Why should black be the colour of death? Why not the colours of a sunset?

~ Daniele Varè

THE BARROW In this high field strewn with stones I walk by a green mound, Its edges sheared by the plough. Crumbs of animal bone Lie smashed and scattered round Under the clover leaves And slivers of flint seem to grow Like white leaves among green. In the wind, the chestnut heaves Where a man's grave has been. Whatever the barrow held Once, has been taken away: A hollow of nettles and dock Lies at the centre, filled With rain from a sky so grey It reflects nothing at all. I poke in the crumbled rock For something they left behind But after that funeral There is nothing at all to find. On the map in front of me The gothic letters pick out Dozens of tombs like this, Breached, plundered, left empty, No fragments littered about Of a dead and buried race In the margins of histories. No fragments: these splintered bones Construct no human face, These stones are simply stones. In museums their urns lie Behind glass, and their shaped flints Are labelled like butterflies. All that they did was die, And all that has happened since Means nothing to this place.Above long clouds, the skiesTurn to a brilliant redAnd show in the water's faceOne living, and not these dead. — Anthony Thwaite, from The Owl In The Tree

~ Anthony Thwaite

A Parting GuestWhat delightful hosts are they—Life and Love!Lingeringly I turn away,This late hour, yet glad enoughThey have not withheld from meTheir high hospitality.So, with face lit with delightAnd all gratitude, I stayYet to press their hands and say,Thanks.—So fine a time! Good night.

~ James Whitcomb Riley

The face of the dead man was concealed, of course, our customs not being those of the south, where corpses are carried to the grave in open coffins, that they might – one last time before slipping into the pit – be warmed by the light of the sun.

~ Jan Neruda

A funeral is no place for secrets.

~ Mitch Albom

Not that there seems to be any appropriate place to bury someone, but these municipal cemeteries, or any cemetery at all for that matter, like the ones by the highway, or the ones in the middle of town, with all these bodies with their corresponding rocks - oh it's just too primitive and vulgar, isn't it? The hole, and the box, and the rock on the grass? And we glamorize this process, feel it fitting and dramatic, austerely beautiful, standing there by the hole as we lower the box. It's incredible. Barbaric and base.

~ Dave Eggers

I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over,' said Amanda in a scandalized voice.'It's her own funeral, you know,' said Sir Lulworth; 'it's a nice point in etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one's own mortal remains.' (Laura)

~ Saki

A premature death does not only rob one of the countless instances where one would have experienced pleasure, it also saves one from the innumerable instances where one would have experienced pain.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Most of us cling to life as if our existence were a result of our deed or choice.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Most human beings would have never been pained by the death of a human being if they had never seen a human being or pretending to be pained by that.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The death of a billionaire is worth more to the media than the lives of a billion poor people.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

An expensive coffin does not decrease the deceased’s chances of going to hell.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

After the funeral, my life changed. I felt as if time were suddenly precious, water going down an open drain, and I could not move quickly enough. No more playing music at half-empty night clubs. No more writing songs in my apartment, songs that no one would hear.

~ Mitch Albom

I'm telling you, Augustus Waters talked so much that he'd interrupt you at his own funeral.

~ John Green

The point is that no matter what you choose to do with your body when you die, it won't, ultimately, be very appealing. If you are inclined to donate yourself to science, you should not let images of dissection or dismemberment put you off. They are no more or less gruesome, in my opinion, than ordinary decay or the sewing shut of your jaws via your nostrils for a funeral viewing.

~ Mary Roach

Nobody really wants to be your friend when they discover that you work with dead people.

~ Rebecca Mcnutt

Not everything happens for a reason, we claim that it does for a reason: to console ourselves.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Yes, you are still grieving for the fact that Olly is not loving you as you love him. But death is no solution. Certainly not this horrible, messy death. Could you at least not consider possible option that is not leaving you looking diabolical at funeral?Oh, for the love of God.

~ Lucy Holliday

Death would not surprise us as often as it does, if we let go of the misbelief that newborns are less mortal than the elderly.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Attending a funeral would leave the average person insane, if they truly believed that sooner or later they are also going to die.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

We the living are to blame for the painfulness of being dead.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The fact that you have just buried your parent or parents and/or sibling or siblings does not make you less likely to die today.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Death would be an extremely bad thing like most of us paint it, if being dead were painful.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Some people will each start investing more of their salary on ‘their’ house and spending less of it on ‘their’ car or cars only when they start being able to take ‘their’ house to work, funerals, weddings, etc.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Every single living thing is food to at least one living thing.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Mist to mist, drops to drops. For water thou art, and unto water shalt thou return.

~ Kamand Kojouri

If I were to believe in God enough to call him a murderer, then I might also believe enough that he, as a spirit, exists beyond death; and therefore only he could do it righteously. For the physical being kills a man and hatefully sends him away, whereas God, the spiritual being, kills a man and lovingly draws him nigh.

~ Criss Jami

Would people be excited about your departure from the earth or they would wish you should come back again and again if possible?

~ Israelmore Ayivor

Life is a lie. We should fear it more than death. We live fearful of dying, terrified of the unknown … when, really, every truth is in our last breath.

~ Piper Payne

You need to keep hurting until you realise you never needed to hurt in the first place.

~ Kamand Kojouri

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,And Mourners to and froKept treading – treading – till it seemedThat Sense was breaking through – And when they all were seated,A Service, like a Drum – Kept beating – beating – till I thoughtMy Mind was going numb – And then I heard them lift a BoxAnd creak across my SoulWith those same Boots of Lead, again,Then Space – began to toll,As all the Heavens were a Bell,And Being, but an Ear,And I, and Silence, some strange RaceWrecked, solitary, here – And then a Plank in Reason, broke,And I dropped down, and down – And hit a World, at every plunge,And Finished knowing – then –

~ Emily Dickinson