Funerals Quotes

“Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.”

“Funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the living.”

“I never saw a dollar bill cry at anyone's funeral.”

“So, my sweet, did it put the fun into funeral?”

“Sensei says funerals are not really for the dead. They are for those left behind. "The dead are long gone by the time a funeral is held," he told us. "Who would wait when the doors of Heaven are open? Only the living would be foolish enough to still hang around on earth.”

“Funerals aren't scheduled.”

“Funerals, I had decided, are for the living.”

“Funerals are for the living, Jace, not for the dead.”

“Attending a funeral would leave the average person insane, if they truly believed that sooner or later they are also going to die.”