Thornton Wilder Quotes

Mourn for me rather as living than as dead.

I'm always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I'm listening to it.

Eulogy is nice, but one does not learn anything from it.

The elegy does the work of mourning; it allows us to experience mortality. It turns loss into remembrance, and it delivers an inheritance.

I know you aren't supposed to speak ill of the dead.

When someone important to you, someone that's played a big role in your life, when they're gone... When you write about them or pay tribute to them, you want to do it in a way that's thoughtful.

Isn't a memorial service meant to comfort the living?

I love eulogies. They are the most moving kind of speech because they attempt to pluck meaning from the fog, and on short order, when the emotions are still ragged and raw and susceptible to leaps.

I'll never forget the first time I saw someone who had died. It was my grandfather. And I knelt next to his coffin. And all I could do was eye level was look at his hands. They were enormous hands. And all I could think was, 'Those hands dug freedom for me.'

Our dad was a great guy and we will never forget him.

I've seen the video played over and over, and it replays in my head constantly. To be able to walk in his exact footsteps is an extremely huge honor, and I did this for him as much as I did it for my family to get some closure too.

Now you may write the eulogy for my funeral.

Dignified and respectful quietude speaks much louder than pomp and circumstance when it comes to remembering those who died.

We knew that Father was loved in Orissa. But the ocean of emotion that greeted us on his death was an eye-opener.

Remembering people is the most fundamental gesture of love and respect. For me, there are people in my life who are no longer with me, who have died, who are with me as much as any living person because I remember everything about them. My great-uncle, who I got a lot of guidance in life from, meant so much to me.

The loss of my father will always sting. But now, everything that I do is in honor of him and celebrates his life.

The grave is a crucible where memory is purified; we only remember a dead friend by those qualities which make him regretted.

With the tears a Land hath shed. Their graves should ever be green.

There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living.

We honor the dead best by treating the living well.

Funerals...are for the living.

I think the saddest moment in my life just happened two months ago. My old nightclub partner passed away, Phil Erickson down in Atlanta. He - I owe him everything. He put me in the business and taught me about everything I know.

On the fortieth day after his death, we held the ceremony, and I performed for the very first time.

Memorial Service: Farewell party for someone who already left.

I know a lot of people who are not here anymore, and I wonder why I'm still here... Not a day goes by that I don't think about Sam Cooke. His presence is so strong and so convincing to me, a true artist, a true talent, who never talked down to people.