Great Obituaries Quotes & Sayings

I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure. — Mark Twain

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. — Clarence Darrow

A popular Harvard business professor urged his students to read the obituaries in the New York Times before they read anything else, in order to learn from the lives of great men. — Georges F. Doriot

guess the point I'm trying to make is that as a species we're just no good at writing obituaries. We don't know how a man or his achievements will be perceived three generations from now, any more than we know what his great-great-grandchildren will be having for breakfast on a Tuesday in March. Because when Fate hands something down to posterity, it does so behind its back." They — Amor Towles

As in most obituaries, the author said little about the man; they rarely do. But the reticence here was greater than usual. It mentioned that Ravenscliff left a wife, but did not say when they married. It said nothing at all about his life, nor where he lived. There were not even any of the usual phrases to give a slight hint: 'a natural raconteur' (loved the sound of his own voice); 'Noted for his generosity to friends' (profligate); 'a formidable enemy . . .' (a brute); 'a severe but fair employer . . .' (a slave-driver); 'devoted to the turf' (never read a book in his life); 'a life-long bachelor' (vice); 'a collector of flowers' (this meant a great womaniser. Why it came to mean such a thing I do not know.) More browsing — Iain Pears

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that as a species we're just no good at writing obituaries. We don't know how a man or his achievements will be perceived three generations from now, any more than we know what his great-great-grandchildren will be having for breakfast on a Tuesday in March. Because when Fate hands something down to posterity, it does so behind its back. — Amor Towles

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

I've done a lot of death cartoons - tombstones, Grim Reaper, illness, obituaries ... I'm not great at analyzing things, but my guess is that maybe the only relief from the terror of being alive is jokes. — Roz Chast

You, who thought that violence for the purpose of advancing the ummah was Allah's way, allowed this to happen. You became a matchless theologian, to defend torture and rape. You became a master architect who built prisons, a brilliant doctor who administered lethal injections, a great writer who penned obituaries. You used your mind as a monument to a great evil." "Yes, all that I have done," Aliuf responded. — Joel D. Hirst