The Best Obituary Quotes

I've been pronounced dead and I've read my own obituaries. And they were the best reviews I ever read.

Still, he loved her. She knew that. He loved her the best way he could. But she wasn't sure that was enough anymore.

The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said. This is what the editors chose to lead with, about a woman whose inventions made satellites possible.

I've tried to deserve the privilege the best I can,' John McCain] said. 'And I've been repaid one thousand times over with adventures and good company, with the satisfaction of serving something more important than myself, of being a bit player in the extraordinary story of America. And I am so grateful.

[Obituary of atheist philosopher Richard Robinson] An Atheist's Values is one of the best short accounts of liberalism (a term Robinson accepted) and humanism (a term he ignored) produced during the present century, all the more powerful for its lucidity and moderation, its wit and wisdom. It may now seem old-fashioned, but during those confused alarms of struggle and fight between the ignorant armies of left and right, thousands of readers must have taken inspiration from Richard Robinson's rational defence of rationalism. It is a pity that it is now out of print, when there is still so much nonsense and so little sense in the world.

I don’t know Mr. Wilson to any degree—I am one of those who knew him best for creating the source material for Life Force, which was a terrible movie—but my wish for him was that he lived the sort of life where he didn’t actually care what his obits said, and instead enjoyed his life and left work that had the possibility of speaking for itself, over time. If you’re a creative (or indeed any other) person, let me suggest you don’t worry about your obits either. As well as you can, live the life you want to live and make the work you want to make. After you’re gone, it’ll all be sorted out or not. You won’t be around to worry about it. Focus on the parts you’re around for.

I became interested in librarians while researching my first book, about obituaries. With the exception of a few showy eccentrics, like the former soldier in Hitler's army who had a sex change and took up professional whistling, the most engaging obit subjects were librarians. An obituary of a librarian could be about anything under the sun, a woman with a phenomenal memory, who recalled the books her aging patrons read as children—and was also, incidentally, the best sailor on her stretch of the Maine coast—or a man obsessed with maps, who helped automate the Library of Congress's map catalog and paved the way for wonders like Google Maps.

An obituary of a librarian could be about anything under the sun, a woman with a phenomenal memory, who recalled the books her again patrons read as children - and was also, incidentally, the best sailor on her stretch of the Maine coast - or a man obsessed with maps, who helped automate the Library of Congress’s map catalog and paved the way for wonders like Google Maps… Whether the subject was a community librarian or a prophet, almost every librarian obituary contained some version of this sentence: “Under [their] watch, the library changed from a collection of books into an automated research center.” I began to get the idea that libraries were where it was happening - wide open territory for innovators, activists, and pioneers.

EVEN THOUGH I KNEW it was going to be what she would ask me, Graciela McCaleb’s request gave me pause. Terry McCaleb had died on his boat a month earlier. I had read about it in the Las Vegas Sun. It had made the papers because of the movie. FBI agent gets heart transplant and then tracks down his donor’s killer. It was a story that had Hollywood written all over it and Clint Eastwood played the part, even though he had a couple decades on Terry. The film was a modest success at best, but it still gave Terry the kind of notoriety that guaranteed an obituary notice in papers across the country. I had just gotten back to my apartment near the strip one morning and picked up the Sun. Terry’s death was a short story in the back of the A section.

True love is above all reliable. So we do the best we can to follow through, and that sometimes, maybe often, especially with our elderly mothers or mothers-in-law (if we are lucky enough to have family elders), we get a little frazzled and cross and want to scream; but we still wait in a doctor's office, or drive to a hair appointment, or play cards all afternoon, or drink sweetened tea when we prefer it plain, and we may think bad thoughts once in a while. And that is _okay_. Better than okay. The wisest women both here and gone have known--and demonstrated-- that our actions speak loudest when it comes to love. They also know we will never regret spending this time, regardless of how we feel about it sometimes, because mothers were once daughters and that's the way life is meant to roll. (p. 140-141)

If you’re still struggling to recognize your Something Larger, research has found a few strategies that can help: Try writing your own obituary or a “life summary” through the eyes of a grandchild or a student. Ask your closest friends to describe the “real you,” the characteristics of your personality and your life that are at the core of your best self. Imagine that someone you care about is going through a dark moment in their life—they’ve experienced significant loss and feel helpless and isolated (the two things that drain us of meaning fastest). As your best self, write that person a letter to support them through this difficult time. Then reread it. It’s for you.18 Finally, think of a time when you experienced an intense sense of meaning or purpose or “alignment” or whatever it feels like for you. What were you doing? What was it that created that sense of meaning?

Nowadays, enormous importance is given to individual deaths, people make such a drama out of each person who dies, especially if they die a violent death or are murdered; although the subsequent grief or curse doesn't last very long: no one wears mourning any more and there's a reason for that, we're quick to weep but quicker still to forget. I'm talking about our countries, of course, it's not like that in other parts of the world, but what else can they do in a place where death is an everyday occurrence. Here, though, it's a big deal, at least at the moment it happens. So-and-so has died, how dreadful; such-and-such a number of people have been killed in a crash or blown to pieces, how terrible, how vile. The politicians have to rush around attending funerals and burials, taking care not to miss any-intense grief, or is it pride, requires them as ornaments, because they give no consolation nor can they, it's all to do with show, fuss, vanity and rank. The rank of the self-important, super-sensitive living. And yet, when you think about it, what right do we have, what is the point of complaining and making a tragedy out of something that happens to every living creature in order for it to become a dead creature? What is so terrible about something so supremely natural and ordinary? It happens in the best families, as you know, and has for centuries, and in the worst too, of course, at far more frequent intervals. What's more, it happens all the time and we know that perfectly well, even though we pretend to be surprised and frightened: count the dead who are mentioned on any TV news report, read the birth and death announcements in any newspaper, in a single city, Madrid, London, each list is a long one every day of the year; look at the obituaries, and although you'll find far fewer of them, because an infinitesimal minority are deemed to merit one, they're nevertheless there every morning. How many people die every weekend on the roads and how many have died in the innumerable battles that have been waged? The losses haven't always been published throughout history, in fact, almost never. People were more familiar with and more accepting of death, they accepted chance and luck, be it good or bad, they knew they were vulnerable to it at every moment; people came into the world and sometimes disappeared at once, that was normal, the infant mortality rate was extraordinarily high until eighty or even seventy years ago, as was death in childbirth, a woman might bid farewell to her child as soon as she saw its face, always assuming she had the will or the time to do so. Plagues were common and almost any illness could kill, illnesses we know nothing about now and whose names are unfamiliar; there were famines, endless wars, real wars that involved daily fighting, not sporadic engagements like now, and the generals didn't care about the losses, soldiers fell and that was that, they were only individuals to themselves, not even to their families, no family was spared the premature death of at least some of its members, that was the norm; those in power would look grim-faced, then carry out another levy, recruit more troops and send them to the front to continue dying in battle, and almost no one complained. People expected death, Jack, there wasn't so much panic about it, it was neither an insuperable calamity nor a terrible injustice; it was something that could happen and often did. We've become very soft, very thin-skinned, we think we should last forever. We ought to be accustomed to the temporary nature of things, but we're not. We insist on not being temporary, which is why it's so easy to frighten us, as you've seen, all one has to do is unsheathe a sword. And we're bound to be cowed when confronted by those who still see death, their own or other people's, as part and parcel of their job, as all in a day's work. When confronted by terrorists, for example, or by drug barons or multinational mafia men.

I’m the kind of patriot whom people on the Acela corridor laugh at. I choke up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy anthem “Proud to Be an American.” When I was sixteen, I vowed that every time I met a veteran, I would go out of my way to shake his or her hand, even if I had to awkwardly interject to do so. To this day, I refuse to watch Saving Private Ryan around anyone but my closest friends, because I can’t stop from crying during the final scene. Mamaw and Papaw taught me that we live in the best and greatest country on earth. This fact gave meaning to my childhood. Whenever times were tough—when I felt overwhelmed by the drama and the tumult of my youth—I knew that better days were ahead because I lived in a country that allowed me to make the good choices that others hadn’t. When I think today about my life and how genuinely incredible it is—a gorgeous, kind, brilliant life partner; the financial security that I dreamed about as a child; great friends and exciting new experiences—I feel overwhelming appreciation for these United States. I know it’s corny, but it’s the way I feel. If Mamaw’s second God was the United States of America, then many people in my community were losing something akin to a religion. The tie that bound them to their neighbors, that inspired them in the way my patriotism had always inspired me, had seemingly vanished. The symptoms are all around us. Significant percentages of white conservative voters—about one-third—believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. In one poll, 32 percent of conservatives said that they believed Obama was foreign-born and another 19 percent said they were unsure—which means that a majority of white conservatives aren’t certain that Obama is even an American. I regularly hear from acquaintances or distant family members that Obama has ties to Islamic extremists, or is a traitor, or was born in some far-flung corner of the world. Many of my new friends blame racism for this perception of the president. But the president feels like an alien to many Middletonians for reasons that have nothing to do with skin color. Recall that not a single one of my high school classmates attended an Ivy League school. Barack Obama attended two of them and excelled at both. He is brilliant, wealthy, and speaks like a constitutional law professor—which, of course, he is. Nothing about him bears any resemblance to the people I admired growing up: His accent—clean, perfect, neutral—is foreign; his credentials are so impressive that they’re frightening; he made his life in Chicago, a dense metropolis; and he conducts himself with a confidence that comes from knowing that the modern American meritocracy was built for him. Of course, Obama overcame adversity in his own right—adversity familiar to many of us—but that was long before any of us knew him. President Obama came on the scene right as so many people in my community began to believe that the modern American meritocracy was not built for them. We know we’re not doing well. We see it every day: in the obituaries for teenage kids that conspicuously omit the cause of death (reading between the lines: overdose), in the deadbeats we watch our daughters waste their time with. Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it—not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.

Stigma often removes the cause of death from obituaries when suicide, overdose, or alcoholism is involved. Addiction is seen as a moral weakness, not a disease, and it is believed that its effects are best covered up.

Back in the nineteenth century, chemists used to joke that you could tell who had just discovered elemental fluorine by reading the obituary columns.

The obituary seemed like a washing of the body. It cleaned Steen up. The existence of the photographs, all the sordid aspects of the man's life were rinsed away by the formalised prose. The Western ritual of death was observed — the obligation to remember the most dignified image of the deceased. Like those ghastly American mausoleums where the embalmed corpse is presented at its best, dressed and smiling, prior to burial.

True love is above all reliable. So we do the best we can to follow through,

Chronology of any event worked best in obituaries. It had no place in the world of sentiment, where memories, ideas and assumptions co-existed side by side.

Perhaps ministers at our best were more like community organizers—providing space and questions that helped people discover themselves and their capacity to effect change?

I wish you all the best in life. Hell, I will even write your obituary for free.

Andrei rested on a bench directly in front of a grave that belonged to: 'A father, hard worker, and beloved friend.' He leaned back, resting in the cemetery, and with each second, his desire to know more about this man 'Yeah, he’s a father, hard worker, and beloved friend. Weren’t we all at some point? What’s his kink? The worst thing he’s done to a person? The greatest thing he’s good at?' he thought. That’s what Andrei wanted to know. Not titles the man himself would disapprove of. What good was a proper impression in a cemetery filled with thousands of proper impressions? One must be indecent. So Andrei closed his eyes and imagined the father who worked hard and was a beloved friend. Maybe his kink was that he needed to do it in public—in the restroom after a date or at church during mass. Maybe the worst thing he had ever done was work so hard for his family that he never once saw them. Maybe the best thing he was good at was giving gifts to his friends. Yes, that’s it. He never gave money or handed them gift cards, but instead gave his brothers exactly what filled them the most. One year, he gave a notebook to his buddy John with the same line written over and over in painful cursive. The line said: 'Happy Birthday, you get thirteen hours of my life' and repeated until you could see the traces of hand cramps squiggling for life on the forty-second page. 'What a good man,' imagined Andrei. 'Hell of a mate.

An Ode to The Occupants of The Titan Sub In the depths where everything is dark, Nothing exists and one tends to lose every mark, Of the reality that lies above, And the memories of the ones you love, Appear to float by like voluptuous sirens, And you think of the benevolent Titans, Then as the pressure mounts you hear a creaking sound, Slowly building up inside the hollow chamber where now only fear does abound, Then as your heart races and it does frantically pound, You feel you are to an unknown and impending doom bound, And you summon all your Gods in the form of your fears, And you gauge the ferocity of all the snares, Building from above, bottom, left and right, It is then you hold your equally fearful companion’s hand tight, And you remember all that you loved and those you still love, But they are far up and above, and you are here in the abyss now, Where darkness spreads endlessly and the creaking sound becomes louder, And all of a sudden you feel you are hit by a titanic sized aqueous boulder, Everything implodes, but only your heart and your memories explode, As they surface on the horizon of perception and your loved ones rush to the abode, Of the Gods where castles of prayers are erected, Prayers rising from the heart that gods have not defected, There they rush, and implore, But the Titans become quieter and they think Gods too ignore, The cries of the lamenting and remorseful heart, But little do they know praying is not an art, It is a feeling sublime and serene that arises from within, And when expressed with sincerity in the universe its resonance does deepen, And then Gods respond with care, And they always say, “darling, there is nothing to fear.” This sounds assuaging for many reasons, known and unknown, And your kin and kith experience the familiarity in these consolations offered by the unknown, And to the five departed adventurers of the deep sea, I hope in their Heavenward journey, now they shall new wonders see, And be the part of a greater adventure, That I call the God’s enterprising venture, As for the wonder of the abyss, There shall always be someone who for its thrill would miss, Anything and everything else, Because if he/she doesn't, then he/she will be someone else, That is why they dare to take on the Gods of the dark and deep, Because human passion is something that into the soul does seep, And unless tasted and confronted, this adventurer residing within the soul does not let him/her to sleep, So let me wish the 5 adventurers all the best on their new journey, Where there is no need for submersibles for in that world one attains natural buoyancy, and this too is one hell of a journey! As for those woe struck loved ones still residing in the realm of gravity, I hope they find assuaging moments in their thoughtful proclivity, Where they notice the universe flowing through their departed and loved one, Because every adventure is an expression of belief in love for someone, That someone who does not fear the abyss, That someone who dares to be the one, and never miss, The adventures that await him/her in those unknown realms, Where even the Titans sometimes bear signs of qualms, There let us go and seek the knowledge that awaits to reveal itself, Only if the adventurer believes in himself/herself, And I think that is where all 5 adventurers can always be found, In the realm of the Titans where knowledge does abound, where knowledge does abound!

Every news organization keeps a long list of people who could die at any moment. Movie stars, politicians, musicians, athletes, and other towering figures from earlier generations are all on the list. Often, obituaries are written long before the celebrity takes that last breath. But beat reporters covering arts or politics generally don’t want to spend their time reporting stories that could sit on a shelf gathering dust for years.

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Maybe we’re all obituary writers. And our job is to write the best story we can now.

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