quotations about funerals
Funerals open a door normally closed, showing the raw humanity of so many.
CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES
"Michael Jackson: The Black Tribal Funeral", The Moderate Voice, July 7, 2009
FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Death is not extinguishing the light. It is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
attributed, Message of the East
Funerals are pretty compared to death. Funerals are quiet, but deaths not always.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
A Streetcar Named Desire
What could be more universal than death? Yet what an incredible variety of responses it evokes ... Funerals are the occasion for avoiding people or holding parties, for fighting or having sexual orgies, for weeping or laughing, in a thousand different combinations. The diversity of cultural reaction is a measure of the universal impact of death.
PETER METCALF
Celebrations of Death
Those who bequeath unto themselves a pompous funeral, are at just so much expense to inform the world of something that had much better been concealed; namely, that their vanity has survived themselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon