quotations about funerals
To me, funerals are like bad movies. They last too long, they're overacted, and the ending is predictable.
GEORGE BURNS
How to Live to Be 100--or More
Everything is drive-through. In California they even have a burial service called Jump-in-the-Box.
WIL SHRINER
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes
Nowadays, the only occassions that seem to bring families together are weddings and funerals.
JULIA MCNAMARA
The Irish Face in America
You never remember who came to the funeral, but you never forget who didn't.
CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY
Losing Mum and Pup
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
Sister
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 Maker of Heavenly Trousers
In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.
JOHN STEINBECK
Tortilla Flat
Dress sexy at my funeral my good wife
And when it comes your turn to speak before the crowd
Tell them about the time we did it
On the beach with fireworks above us
SMOG
"Dress Sexy at My Funeral"
Funerals are the rituals we create to help us face the reality of death, to give us a way of expressing our response to that reality with other persons, and to protect us from the full impact of the meaning of death for ourselves. Some funerals fulfill these functions beautifully. Others fail.
ALLA BOZARTH CAMPBELL
Life Is Goodbye
No matter how famous a man is, the size of his funeral depends partly on the weather.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
It's a shame you have to be dead to have a funeral. The best funerals are like big parties, and who likes missing the party?
JOHN KELLY
"Putting the 'fun' in 'funeral'", The Washington Post, March 20, 2013
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
Fall on Your Knees
The way is short, O friend,
That reaches out before us;
God's tender heavens above us bend,
His love is smiling o'er us;
A little while is ours
For sorrow or for laughter;
I'll lay the hand you love in yours
On the shore of the Hereafter.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
"Words for Parting"
Funerals aren't supposed to be funny.
CHERYL ANNE PORTER
Mad About Maddie
Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of the night.
GEORGE ELIOT
Janet's Repentance
Weddings and funerals. That's what religion is good for.
KATE COHEN
A Walk Down the Aisle
Rather upsets a man's day a funeral does.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
We stand in black to watch this rite performed, the body in the box, the box in the hole, the dirt on the box.
JOHNNY RICH
The Human Script
A funeral is like a little game, really. You have to just play along and say the right thing and behave the right way until it's over. Be pleasant but don't smile too much; be sad but don't overdo it or the family will feel worse than they already do. Be hopeful but don't let your optimism be taken as a lack of empathy or an inability to deal with the reality. Because if anybody was to be truly honest there would be a lot of arguments, finger-pointing, tears, snot, and screaming.
CECELIA AHERN
The Book of Tomorrow
A couch of thorns, or an embroidered bed,
Are matters of indifference to the dead.
THEOGNIS OF MEGARA
"Sumptuous Obsequies"