Quotes about funeral (190 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“We live in a world where the funeral matters more than the dead, the wedding more than love and the physical rather than the intellect. We live in the container culture, which despises the content.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

Love , World , Wedding , Dead

“Yesterday I fell in love,
today feels like my funeral,
I just got hit by a bus,
shouldn't have been so beautiful,
dont know why I gave my heart,
gave my trust,
gave everything.”

Chris Brown (1989) American singer, songwriter, dancer, actor , and painter

Love , Beauty , Feeling , Heart

“Science advances one funeral at a time.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Science , Time

“I mean some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain , People , Music , Feeling

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain , People , Music , Feeling

“Friends: not one. Just a few acquaintances who imagine they feel something for me and who might be sorry if a train ran over me and the funeral was on a rainy day.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Feeling , Imagination , Training

“Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

"Pensées Tirées des Premières Éditions," Réflexions: Ou, Sentences Et Maximes Morales de La Rochefoucauld (1822)
Later Additions to the Maxims

Dead

“Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Birth , Personality

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Women , Age , World , Religion

“Lessee… he'd gone off after the funeral and gotten drunk. No, not drunk, another word, ended with "er." Drunker. that was it.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

“If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy - if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Sleep

“… an everlasting funeral marches round your heart.”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

Source: The Crucible

Heart

“That afternoon my mother had brought me the roses.
"Save them for my funeral," I'd said.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

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

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.

Funny

“And funerals are pretty compared to deaths.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Death

“I take my only exercise acting as pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercised regularly.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source Undetermined in Everyone's Mark Twain (1972) compiled by Caroline Thomas Harnsberger, p. 161
Disputed

Exercises

“The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry 'Who am I?'. The thought 'Who am I?', destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Nan Yar = Who am I?

“Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung! —
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young —
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.”

Edgar Allan Poe Lenore

"Lenore", st. 1 (1831).

Reading , Dead

“Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor celebrate my funeral rites with weeping. Why? I fly, living, through the mouths of men.”
Nemo me lacrumis decoret neque funera fletu faxit. Cur? volito vivos per ora virum.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

As quoted by Cicero in Tusculanae Disputationes, Book I, chapter XV, section 34

Men , Tear , Flying

“…the Englishman, George Best, who was an amazing footballer in his day but at the same time he was a bum and a drunk – a bohemian. Because of his soccer art though, he had a royal funeral.”

George Best (1946–2005) British footballer

Dragoslav Šekularac,
quoted in interview with ['Get Out of Here, I am Sekularac', Prvoslav Vujcic, http://www.urbanbookcircle.com/get-out-of-here-i-am-sekularac-by-prvoslav-vujcic.html, Urban Book Circle, 2006-05-01, 2016-05-15]
About

Art , Time , Football

“I warned you then and I'm warning you now
If you mess with me you're playing with fire
Winds of change that are fanning the flames
Will carry you to your funeral pyre”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Ultimate Sin, written by Robert John Daisley, Ozzy Osbourne, John Osbourne, Jake Williams, Robert Daisley
Song lyrics, The Ultimate Sin (1986)

Change

“What an incitation to hilarity, hearing the word goal while following a funeral procession!”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

“Ben, that funeral will be massive! They'll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire! All the old-timers with the strange license plates — that boy will be thunderstruck, Ben, because he never realized — I am known! Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey — I am known, Ben, and he'll see it with his eyes once and for all.”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Willy
Death of a Salesman (1949)

Boy

“Remember that finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows.”

Yukteswar Giri (1855–1936) Indian yogi and guru

Autobiography of a Yogi (1946)

God

“Painting the sensual with thy hues divine,—
Thou turn'st away thy face, while scattering
Perchance upon his brow some fading flowers,
Of which he strives to twine a funeral crown,
Spending his life to weave a wreath of death!”

Zygmunt Krasiński (1812–1859) One of Poland's three national bards

The Undivine Comedy

Life , Death , Flowers , Painting

“Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung!”

Edgar Allan Poe Lenore

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young —
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Lenore", st. 1 (1831).

Reading

“If you're dressed for my funeral, it's too casual. If it's just street clothes, then you must be scaring the tourists.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Obsidian Butterfly

Source: Obsidian Butterfly

Clothes

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

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Life

“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book Voices of the Night

St. 4.
Cf. Andrew Marvell, Upon the Death of Lord Hastings (1649): "Art indeed is long, but life is short".
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Voices of the Night

Art , Time , Heart

“Come now, don't make such a funeral face. It isn't dying that's sad; it's living when you're not happy.”

Octave Mirbeau book The Torture Garden

Variant: “It isn’t dying that’s sad. It’s living when you’re not happy.”
Source: Le Jardin des supplices

Sadness , Happiness

“The only use she has for the word fun is to make the word funeral.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“Eerily, the coronation was kind of a reverse of Tatianaʹs funeral. What was the old saying? The queen is dead. Long live the queen”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Dead

“You are thirty minutes late."
"Yes."
"Would you be thirty minutes late to a wedding or a funeral?"
"No."
"Why not, pray tell?"
"Well, if the funeral was mine I'd have to be on time. If the wedding was mine it would be my funeral.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Wedding , Time

“Let's put the fun back in funeral!”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

“If 180 million people want to be undead, that’s their funeral, but I happen to like being alive.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

People

“I put the fun in funeral.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Queen of Zombie Hearts

“Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Yogiisms
Source: When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes, Hyperion, 2002, ISBN 0786867752, p. 163.

People , Funny

“And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“Two days after my dad's funeral, my mom went on a mission. I never understood it until then--that sometimes a spy doesn't need a cover so much as she needs a shield.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Moms

“Some men go a lifetime and never have their kid blow up a car, but I have a daughter who's knocked off three cars and burned down a funeral home. Maybe that's some kind of record.”

Janet Evanovich Four to Score

Source: Four to Score

Men , Cars , Home , Daughters

“A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.”

E.M. Forster book Howards End

Source: Howards End

Death , Marriage , Birth

“Everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat

Law

“I’m the god of funerals. I know every death custom in the world—how to die properly, how to prepare the body and soul for the afterlife. I live for death.”
“You must be fun at parties,” I said.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Death , God , World , Soul

“Nice day for a funeral.”

Anthony Horowitz book The Falcon's Malteser

Source: The Falcon's Malteser

“Walking out in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one's own was beyond the pale.”

Steve Hockensmith (1968) American writer

Source: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

“On the day of his mother’s funeral, to the boy I loved more than I had ever loved
anything or anyone, I said, “Go to hell.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Love , Boy , Hell

“I read that speaking in front of a crowd is the number-one fear in America. I found that amazing. Number two was death. Number two! That means that, if you're ever at a funeral, you'd rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

I'm Telling You for the Last Time (1998)

Death , Fear , Reading

“There are ways of dying that don't end in funerals. Types of death you can't smell.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Death , Way

“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Good Poems for Hard Times

People , Sadness

“Glorious Destinies get you Glorious Funerals.”

Mercedes Lackey book Winds of Fury

Winds of Fury

“Oh, hey, Claire,” she said, and blinked. “Where are you going?”
“Funeral,” Shane said. On-screen, a zombie shrieked and died gruesomely.
“Yeah? Cool! Whose?”
“Hers.” Shane said.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

“It is these black clothes," said Strange. "I am like a leftover piece of funeral, condemned to walk about the Town, frightening people into thinking of their own mortality.”

Susanna Clarke book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange y el señor Norrell

People , Thinking , Clothes

“How can so much beauty hide such a bruised and steely heart, and why must I love him, why must I lean in my weariness upon his irresistible yet indomitable strength? Is he not the wizend funeral spirit of a dead man in a child's clothes?”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Armand

Source: The Vampire Armand

Love , Beauty , Heart , Clothes

“WE MUST DESTROY ALL PASSÉIST CLOTHES, and everything about them which is tight-fitting, colourless, funereal, decadent, boring and unhygienic. As far as materials are concerned, we must abolish: wishywashy, pretty-pretty, gloomy, and neutral colours, along with patterns composed of lines, checks and spots.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

(Manuscript, 1913); as quoted at dekorera.tumblr: Futurist manifesto of men's clothing http://dekorera.tumblr.com/post/3212646425/futurist-manifesto-of-mens-clothing-by-giacomo
Futurist Manifesto of Men's clothing,' 1913/1914

Clothes

“The right, uplifted foreleg of the horse
Suggested that, at the final funeral,
The music halted and the horse stood still.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change

Music , Horse

“Some of these my brethren know what my feelings were at the time Joseph revealed the doctrine; I was not desirous of shrinking from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse its situation, and to regret that I was not in the coffin…”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 3:266 (Jul. 14, 1855)
1850s

Life , Feeling , Time , Envy

“What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Resignation

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Resignation

Sadness , Distant

“This bubbling and whirling of forms and lights, composed of sounds, noises, and smells has been partly achieved by me in my 'Anarchical funeral' [the painting Carra painted ca 1910-1911, ed. ].... by Umberto Boccioni in his 'States of Minds' and 'Forces of a Street' [both paintings Boccioni painted in 1911], by Russolo in 'Rebellion' (1911) and Severini in 'Pan-Pan [the first version, Severini painted in 1909-1911], paintings which were violently discussed at our first Paris exhibition in 1912.”

Carlo Carrà (1881–1966) Italian painter

Quote in La Pittura dei suoni, rumori, odori Carrà, 11 Aug 1913, as quoted in Futurism, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 142
1910's

Light , Painting

Tony Banks (1942–2006) British politician

"The wit and wisdom of Tony Banks" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4593562.stm, BBC News, 8 January 2006.
on former Prime Minister John Major

People

“George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.
He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.
Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

World , Photo , Housing , Dead

“The vice president has two duties. One is to inquire daily as to the health of the president, and the other is to attend the funerals of third world dictators. And neither of those do I find an enjoyable exercise.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

In response to question by Tim Russert on how he would respond if George W. Bush asked him to be his vice presidential running mate in 2000. Interview on Meet the Press. Originally aired 3 March 2000. Aired again as a clip 15 June 2008 ( transcript http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25171251/page/3/).
2000s

Health , World , Exercises

“It has been remarked by foreigners that the English are particularly fond of bell-ringing; and indeed most of our churches have a ring of bells in the steeple, partly appropriated to that purpose. These bells are rung upon most occasions of joy and festivity, and sometimes at funerals, when they are muffled, and especially at the funerals of ringers, with a piece of woolen cloth bound about the clapper, and the sounds then emitted by them are exceedingly unmelodious, and well fitted to inspire the mind with melancholy… Ringing the bells backwards is sometimes mentioned, and probably consisted in beginning with the largest bell and ending with the least; it appears to have been practiced by the ringers as a mark of contempt or disgust.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 291
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Bell ringing

Appearance , Joy , Clothes

“Vlaminck and Utrillo were very good friends, drinking buddies. One day they attend a funeral. They're walking behind the hearse in a procession, and they're having a great time conversing with one another. They are completely engrossed when suddenly one asks the other, 'Say, don't you smell something funny?' They look up and they're walking behind a garbage truck! They'd lost the hearse in the middle of their enthusiastic conversation.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Reflections (1981)

Drink , Time

“When a nation’s young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)

Men

“I want to give [my records] all away before some fool plays disco at my funeral, and then the record gets stuck, and nobody can tell, and the service goes on forever!”

Robert Patrick (playwright) (1937) Playwright, poet, lyricist, short story writer, novelist

"Pouf Positive"
Untold Decades: Seven Comedies of Gay Romance (1988)

Fools

“Catherine announced that he died of hemorrhoidal colic, and people who went to the funeral wondered why, in that case, the large bandage was tied around his neck. And that, gentle reader, is what comes from playing with dolls at the wrong time.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Catherine the Great

People , Time

“It can not be overstressed that draft resisters will probably never be able to return to the U. S. without risking arrest. This applies even to family emergencies. When a draft resister's father died last summer, two FBI agents showed up at the funeral.”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Page 6.
Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada (1968)

Family , Summer

“It's shameful to spot a lie and not to name it,
shameful to name it and then to shut your eyes,
shameful to call a funeral a wedding
and play the fool at funerals besides.”

Andrey Voznesensky (1933–2010) Soviet poet

Stanley Kunitz (trans.) Story Under Full Sail (New York: Doubleday, 1974) p. 20.

Lie , Fools , Wedding

“.. everything has conspired to keep from me the leisure and quiet which I could wish in order to answer you. I have also made two journeys to Paris, the last one to attend the funeral of poor Emile Diaz [son of the Barbizon-painter Narcisse Virgilio Díaz, ] of whom you ask news. His poor father was almost mad with grief, which, however, we managed to calm. You were as if present, and our thoughts associated you with the sad scene. During the return my wife was taken ill, and day by day a neuralgic attack came on which has left her very feeble. I do not know what to do, my dear friend. At the commencement I had thought of leaving her at Martigues, but now her mental condition would not permit of my leaving her. She would be afraid of being ill without me there beside her. I think I had better wait until the result of this last attack shall have left her.”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote from Rousseau's letter to Ziem, 1856; as cited in The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, etc., by D. C. Thomson; Scribner and Welford, New York 1890 – (copy nr. 78), pp. 135-136
The quiet life at Barbizon was at this time broken by the death of the only son of Díaz, and by the mental distortion of Rousseau's own wife
1851 - 1867

Sadness , Thinking , Waiting , Madness

“Later that evening, with exhaustion setting in and nothing left to do but wait for clearance to fly, Cathy and I took the aircrew to dinner; the members of our traveling staff stayed behind, chained to their phones and computers. We walked through the quiet waterfront to the lamp-lit, sandstone-block courtyard of the Mylos Taverna. As we filed to our corner table, the normally-effusive chatter of the Greek patrons dropped to a whisper. I scanned the nearby tables; faces everywhere were drawn with sadness. Yiannis, our usually-smiling waiter, approached silently and shook my hand as if at a funeral. "Everyone is so sorry, General," the man said.”

Tommy Franks (1945) United States Army general

Source: American Soldier (2004), p. 246

Sadness , Smile , Travel , Waiting

“I am too sick to work and haven't money enough to last 2 months and pay income tax. I want to keep going but do not see quite how, and there is no alternative - rather than justify my mother's 25-year dread of my "coming back on her, sick", I must kill myself. If she has to pay funeral costs, at least she will cut them to the bone and I will not be here to endure her martyrdom and prolong it by living.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Diary (sick and depressed) (December 9, 1933).

Money

“I hope that famous critics will not class me with certain devotees of death and doom if I say here that I think that funerals in our churchyard gave me more entertainment than most other things when I was a little boy.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Death , Hope , Boy , Thinking

“That reminds me of how much I hate babies. Why does everyone want to save them? There are too many babies. I'm not saying we should kill them, but if you happen to be giving your baby a bath and the phone rings.. well, nobody will judge you. Besides, you might get free brownies out of it at the funeral, and brownies rule.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

Hate , Baby

“Gothic script seemed to warp every letter that passed through the door of the funeral parlour, as if death were a German village.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

At Last, Chapter 3

Death

“3 Million for the funeral of Margaret Thatcher? 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.”

Frankie Boyle (1972) Scottish comedian

Mock the Week

Personality

“Funerals in México are also about drowning sorrow with liquor. The coffee is spiked with tequila”

Rigoberto González (1970) American writer

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006)

Coffee

“Hebrew שלום, חבר ("Goodbye, friend"). Eulogy at the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, Jerusalem (February 16, 1996)”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

1990s

“A lot of the reason I am here is because of my strength, my determination and character. I would just like to talk about a girl called Lucy.I went to her funeral today, she was 10 years old. She came to the game against Charlton where we lifted the Premiership trophy. She had a tumor on the brain - really she should have died the week before that game. But she was so desperate to come and see that game, to watch us play. The character and strength she showed made me put everything in perspective.I would like to dedicate this whole award to her, her family, especially her mother, and I would like to say thanks to everyone tonight.”

Frank Lampard (1978) English association football player

Sincerely yours, Frank (May 22, 2005)

Family , Girl , Game

“I don't get this fashion for happy funerals. He said he wanted all his mates to be in a good mood and smile, and this is a very fashionable idea, that when you die, it's supposed to be a celebration and joyous and everyone laughing, but I want people's lives torn apart when I go. I want to be embalmed and brought out when we have guests.”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

The News Quiz, BBC Radio 4, October 1998 (rebroadcast on BBC 7, 13 June 2006)

People , Smile , Idea , Fashion

“In the city a funeral is just an interruption of traffic; in the country it is a form of entertainment.”

George Ade (1866–1944) American writer, newspaper columnist and playwright

Cosmopolitan Magazine, February 1928

Country

“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried.”

Charles Wolfe (1791–1823) Irish poet

The Burial of Sir John Moore.

“Sound, jocund strains; on pipe and viol sound,
Young voices sing;
Wreathe every door with snow-white voices round,
For lo! 't is Spring!
Winter has passed with its sad funeral train,
And Love revives again.”

Lewis Morris (poet) (1833–1907) Welsh poet in the English language

Life-Music, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love , Sadness , Spring , Winter

“Every Nationalist MP should go to at least one funeral for unrest victims heavily disguised as human beings, instead of sitting on their green benches in parliament, insulated like fish in an aquarium.”

Helen Suzman (1917–2009) South African politician

As quoted in "A lone voice has been silenced" https://web.archive.org/web/20160913173321/http://hsf.org.za/siteworkspace/the-star-pg-11.pdf (2 January 2009), by Peter Sullivan, The Star
1970s

Fish

“His pear-shaped head, I could now see, was situated on top of a pear-shaped body, which his black gown caused to resemble a piece of fruit going to a funeral.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Source: Memoirs, May Week Was in June (1990), p. 19

“My mother, as much as I can remember from my early boyhood, and from what I heard of her after her death, was of a most lively temper, and possessed of a good and noble heart, but a little inclined to sensibility; her greatest pleasure was to see everyone happy about her. She loved me dearly and spoilt me. I adored her. Alas, I lost her when only a little boy, and never shall I efface from my memory the day of her death and funeral.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Love , Death , Pleasure , Boy

“The news is all rapes and murders we didn't commit, funerals we don't attend, AIDS we don't want to catch. All crammed into a quarter of a minute! But at least we still have a hand with which to switch channels or turn off altogether. I tell my lecture audiences to never, ever watch local TV news.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Playboy interview (1996)

“There grew her father's cypress tree,
No other monument had he.
He bade that never funeral stone
Should tell of glory overthrown,—
What could it say, but foreign sky
Had seen the exile pine and die?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - The Wreath
The Golden Violet (1827)

Tree

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Tony Banks, "The wit and wisdom of Tony Banks" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4593562.stm, BBC News, 8 January 2006

People

“Thank God for the violent shooter, one of your soldier heroes in Tucson. God appointed the Afghanistan veteran to avenge himself on this evil nation. However many are dead, Westboro Baptist Church will picket their funerals. We will remind the living that you can still repent and obey. This is ultimatum time with God. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:3. This nation unleashed criminal violent veterans on Westboro Baptist Church for telling you to obey God. We told you at your soldiers' funerals that they are dying for your sins. You hate those words and you will not stop sinning. So you sent violent veterans, so-called patriot guard riders, to attack and try to silence Westboro Baptist Church. Then you sent violent crippled veteran Ryan Newell with 90 rounds of ammunition, planning to shoot five Westboro Baptist Church members while picketing. God restrained the hand of them all, then he turned the violent veteran on you. 22-year-old Jared Loughner opened fire outside a Tucson, Arizona grocery store, shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John M. Roll, and sixteen others. At least six are dead and counting. Congress passed three laws against Westboro Baptist Church. Congresswoman Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby-killing, was shot for that mischief. A federal judge in Baltimore, part of the massive military community in Maryland and in the District of Columbia, put Westboro Baptist Church on trial for faithful words from God. Federal Judge Roll paid for those sins with his life. Today, mouthy witch Sarah Palin had Representative Giffords in her crosshairs on her website. She quick took it down, however, because she is a cowardly brute like the rest of you. The crosshairs to worry about are God's and he's put you in his and your destruction is upon you. You should have obeyed. This nation of violent murderers is in full rebellion against God. God avenged himself on you today by a marvelous work in Tucson. He sits in the heavens and laughs at you in your affliction. Westboro Baptist Church prays for more shooters, more violent veterans, and more dead. Praise God for his righteous judgments in this Earth. Amen.”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

Fred Phelps, on the 2011 Tucson shooting. As quoted in Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Christina Green’s Funeral http://www.anorak.co.uk/270124/media/westboro-baptist-church-to-picket-christina-greens-funeral.html. Anorak News. January 10, 2011.
2010s, Thank God for the Violent Shooter (2011)

Life , God , Hate , Faith

“Whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

" The Last Leaf http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lastleaf.html"
The Trimmed Lamp (1907)

“Worldly faces, never look so worldly as at a funeral.”

George Eliot book Scenes of Clerical Life

"Janet's Repentance" Ch. 25
Scenes of Clerical Life (1858)

“Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave money to defray the expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our Friends have no place in the graveyard.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Wednesday

Death , Men , Money , Memory

“Let us be honest. Suppose a man came into this city and should meet a funeral procession, and say, “Who is dead?” and they should reply, “The son of a widow; her only support.” Suppose he should say to the procession, “Halt!” and to the undertaker, “Take out that coffin, unscrew that lid. Young man, I say unto thee, arise!” and the dead should step from the coffin and in a moment afterward hold his mother in his arms. Suppose this stranger should go to your cemetery and find some woman holding a little child in each hand, while the tears fell upon a new-made grave, and he should say to her, “Who lies buried here?” and she should reply, “My husband;” and he should cry, “I say unto thee, oh grave, give up thy dead!” and the husband should rise, and in a moment after have his lips upon his wife’s, and the little children with their arms around his neck; do you think that the people of this city would kill him? Do you think any one would wish to crucify him? Do you not rather believe that every one who had a loved one out in that cemetery would go to him, even upon their knees, and beg him to give back their dead? Do you believe that any man was ever crucified who was the master of death?”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)

Love , Death , Children , People

“(Talking about what he wants at his funeral)”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

15° Off Cool (2007)

“THERE rests a shade above yon town,
A dark funereal shroud:
'Tis not the tempest hurrying down,
'Tis not a summer cloud.
The smoke that rises on the air
Is as a type and sign;
A shadow flung by the despair
Within those streets of thine.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Summer , Despair

“Long ago, some 12 or 13 years before Partition, I had a chance to pass by a meeting of Muslims in Delhi. The chaste Urdu and the weighty voice of the man making the speech at the moment, made me stand and stare. It was a bearded mullah wearing a fez. He was narrating some history which was new for me. The mullah mentioned several dates on which some decisive battles had been fought and won by the armies of Islam. …There were repeated references to swords and spears and horses and hoofs and countless clashes in which human blood had flowed copiously. In between, some one from the audience stood up and shouted ‘nãra-i-takbîr’. And the whole assembly roared back Allãh-o-Akbar with full-throated frenzy. Then the speaker moved to Sind and Hind. …And then, all of a sudden, the mullah’s voice sank and became almost a whimper. His face too must have fallen, though I could not see it from the distance at which I was standing. He was now telling, in very mournful tones, how Islam had failed to fulfil its mission in this ‘kambakht (unfortunate) mulk (country)’ which was still crawling with kufr (infidelism) in spite of all those arduous endeavours undertaken by the heroes of Islam. A funeral silence fell on the audience, and no one now stood up any more to invite another nãra-i-takbîr.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

History , Decision , Silence , Chance

“Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself sober for the purpose - tolerably sober; not going to bed mad at six o'clock, and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently he rose, in suicidal low spirits; as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Isabella Linton (Ch. XVII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Suicide , Dance , Madness

“Anno 1659 / On Wednesday, May 14 / You are requested to attend the funeral of / Aegtje Nachtglas / daughter of the late Jacob Pietersz / Nachtglas / at the Cleveniers-Doele [Amsterdam] at one o'clock. Come as friend of the house / Nieuwe-Kerck. [Verso] So eager to catch Christ out in his answer that they could not wait for written reply.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Inscription on Rembrandt's drawing 'Christ and the Woman taken into Adultary' https://tomcat.tiler01.huygens.knaw.nl/adore-djatoka/viewer.html?rft_id=http://localhost:8080/jp2/13288755182981.jp2, on the back of a funeral ticket, after May 1659; (Benesch 1047)
Gary Schwartz states in his 'Core list of Rembrandt drawings' - section 2: with inscriptions in Rembrandt's handwriting other than a signature: 'The authenticity of the drawing was called into question by Giltaij 2003, whose opinion is not shared by others, including myself' at the bottom http://remdoc.huygens.knaw.nl/#/document/remdoc/e12838
1640 - 1670

Waiting , Christ , Housing , Daughters

“And if I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take but please don't cry, just know that I have made these songs for you, and if I die before I wake I pray the lord my soul to take cause I'm ready for a funeral”

Kid Cudi (1984) American rapper, singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor from Ohio

-The Prayer
Music

Soul , Cry