Obituary Quotes - Page 3

• We're all killers at heart . . . . I have never taken anybody's life, but I have often read obituary notices with considerable satisfaction.

  Clarence Darrow

  Taken, Heart, Killers

  Testimony before congressional committee, 1 Feb. 1926

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• The decision to rely heavily on high-altitude air power, target urban infrastructure and repeatedly attack heavily populated towns and villages has reflected a deliberate trade-off of the lives of American pilots and soldiers, not with those of their declared Taliban enemies, but with Afghan civilians... There will be no official two-minute silence for the Afghan dead, no newspaper obituaries or memorial services attended by the prime minister, as there were for the victims of the twin towers.

  Seumas Milne

  Air, Two, Silence

  " The innocent dead in a coward's war" by Seumas Milne, www.theguardian.com. December 19, 2001.

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• Live so that when the final summons comes you will leave something more behind you than an epitaph on a tombstone or an obituary in a newspaper.

  Billy Sunday

  Tombstone, Finals, Behind You

  Billy Sunday, William Thomas Ellis (1917). “Billy Sunday, the Man and His Message: With His Own Words which Have Won Thousands for Christ”

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• I contemplated suicide. My main concern was that I would not make the New York Times obituary page.

  Art Buchwald

  Suicide, New York, Bipolar

  Art Buchwald (1994). “Leaving home: a memoir”, Thorndike Pr

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• Everybody is a potential murderer. I've never killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction reading the obituary notices.

  Clarence Darrow

  Funny, Clever, Smart

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• I get up every morning and read the obituary column. If my name's not there, I eat breakfast.

  George Burns

  Morning, Names, Breakfast

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• There's no bad publicity except an obituary.

  Brendan Behan

  Publicity

  "The World of Brendan Behan". Book by Sean McCann, 1965.

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• Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries - but it is a force stronger than crime.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Success, Stronger, News

  "This I Believe". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, 1952.

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• Bast crouched down and began making weird chittering noises. Uh-oh. She was imitating birds. I'd seen enough cats do this when they were stalking. Suddenly my own obituary flashed in my head: Carter Kane, 14, tragically died in Paris wen he was eaten by his sister's cat, Muffin.

  Rick Riordan

  Cat, Paris, Bird

  Rick Riordan (2010). “The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles Book 1): The Red Pyramid”, p.183, Penguin UK

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• If you could have a famous writer, dead or alive, write an obituary for you and really puff you up to have been something you weren’t, perhaps, or otherwise take liberties with your memory, what writer would you choose?

  Padgett Powell

  Memories, Writing, Liberty

  Padgett Powell (2010). “The Interrogative Mood”, p.22, Profile Books

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• I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order.

  Erma Bombeck

  Mother, Order, Literature

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• Until today, you may not have realized that your life provides the content of your obituary. Just for today, examine your life. Think about all of the things you want to leave behind. Remember, the good thing about doing this today is that you still have time to rewrite your life's content if necessary.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Thinking, May, Want

  Iyanla Vanzant (2000). “Until Today!: Daily Devotions for Spiritual Growth and Peace of Mind”, Simon and Schuster

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• Obituaries are like near-death experiences for cowards.

  Austin Kleon

  Coward, Near Death, Near Death Experience

  Austin Kleon (2014). “Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered”, p.27, Workman Publishing

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• Never was it [Capitalism] imposed on life as a system, or at all. It grew out of life, not all at once but gradually, and is therefore one of the great natural designs. When it was found and identified by such men as Adam Smith, who wrote its bible, and Karl Marx, who wrote its obituary too soon, it was already working.

  Garet Garrett

  Men, Design, Natural

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• One phrase you don't want kicking off your obituary is, Never, in the long history of bungee jumping.

  Dana Gould

  Jumping, Long, Kicking

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• One of the things I can do is to try to put myself in different kinds of movies and that kind of subtly changes my work. By the time my obituary is written, I want there to be a great western and a great comedy.

  Ethan Hawke

  Trying, Different, Want

  "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. October 12, 2012.

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• It's 2013 ... The Time's obituary for Yvonne Brill, renowned rocket scientist, winner of the National Medal of Technology and Innovations, leads with, 'She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. "The world's best mom," her son Matthew said.

  Deborah Copaken

  Mom, Jobs, Children

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• Nothing is dead: men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out ofthe window, sound and well, in some new and strange disguise.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Death, Men, Funeral

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.272, Harvard University Press

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• I don't wonder about anything. I'm too old to wonder. I think the most important thing is to wake-up with a pulse. I look in the obituary columns. If I'm not in it, I get out of bed.

  Hector Elizondo

  Thinking, Important, Bed

  "Julie Andrews and Hector Elizondo talk The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement". Interview with B. Alan Orange, movieweb.com. August 12, 2004.

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• When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Moving, Circles, Mind

  Sylvia Townsend Warner (1988). “Selected stories of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Vintage

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• People have been writing premature obituaries on the women's movement since its beginning.

  Ellen Goodman

  Writing, People, Movement

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• All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike someone they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.

  Clarence Darrow

  Men, Dislike Someone, Wish

  "The Story of My Life". Book by Clarence Darrow, 1932.

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• David [Halberstam] kept on doing what he did because he loved it. One of the obituaries I read quoted him as saying that he did journalism for the same reason the great Julius Irving did basketball: He loved doing it even when he was having a bad day.

  Jonathan Yardley

  Basketball, Bad Day, Journalism

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• [I]n contrast to the common belief that they are the world's greatest cynics, the best journalists are the world's great idealists. They have experienced firsthand the great soothing balance of human existence. For every disgrace there is triumph, for every wrong there is a moment of justice, for every funeral a wedding, for every obituary a birth announcement.

  Anna Quindlen

  Justice, Funeral, Balance

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• The first thing you should do when you get up is read the obituaries. You never know when you'll see a name that will just make your day.

  Edward James Salisbury

  Death, Suicide, Names

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