Final Farewells Quotes

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.

The obituaries shot up to the top of my list when I discovered Robert McG. Thomas, the 'Times' obit writer who redesigned its traditional form and added a measure of stylistic elegance.

Stations and airports are rehearsals for separations by death.

I had a friend who worked at a hospice, and he said people in their final moments don't discuss their successes, awards or what books they wrote or what they accomplished. They only talk about their loves and their regrets, and I think that's very telling.

I ought not to speak about the dead because the dead are all over the place.

For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.

I don't want to spend my last few whatever it is, months or years on this earth, giving speeches.

The home funeral - caring for the dead ourselves - changes our relationship to grieving. If you have been married to someone for 50 years, why would you let someone take them away the moment they die?

If you don't go to other men's funerals, they won't go to yours.

Old age: I fall asleep during the funerals of my friends.

It amazes me that the most Christian funerals are the most barbaric funeral rites of passage that are celebrated anywhere in the world.

Before I write, I like to read obits in 'The Times' because they're well written, and I like the little details. It gets the energy going in the morning. I really like the obits of old Hollywood actors and actresses.

In the final analysis, I believe that an atheist chaplain would be the last person in the world that we would want a dying soldier who needs that last moment counselling in their life.

The universal practice of closing the eyes of the dead may be thought to have originated in the desire that he might be prevented from seeing his way.

My grandpa and I loved Emeril. It was all he wanted to watch when he was in the hospital dying. When I met Emeril later, it was so emotional.

I never go to weddings. Waste of time. Person can get married a dozen times. Lots of folks do. Family like ours, know everybody in the state of Texas and around outside, why, you could spend your life going to weddings. But a funeral, that's different. You only die once.

I was aware now, as ever, that between all people there were First Times You See Them and Last Times you See Them.