Obituary Quotes & Sayings

An obituary should be an exercise in contemporary history, not a funeral oration. — Peter Utley

Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death ...
... (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident, and even if he knows it he would sense to it an unjustifiable violation.' Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord Of The Rings — J.R.R. Tolkien

He read his own obituary and an editorial lamenting his demise and praising his fortitude and immediately began to think up witty ways of writing to the paper to announce his continued and uninterrupted existence. The other two joined in the game with enthusiasm, and soon all three of them were howling with laughter and emptying bottles at a rate which would have alarmed even a depressed Scandinavian. — Louis De Bernieres

He loved his job, which allowed time to do it without comparing his performance to others'. He loved the economics of death: hastening a person's passage into the afterlife not only provided him with a good living: it gave work to coroners, beat cops, detectives, crime scene technicians, the people who made fingerprint powder and luminal and other sundry chemicals and devices - not to mention firearm, ammunition, coffin, and tissue manufacturers - obituary writers, crime reporters, novelists. — Robert Liparulo

The seed for my novel 'Half Brother' was planted in my mind over twenty years ago, but didn't germinate until late 2007 when I came across the obituary for Washoe, an extraordinary chimpanzee who had learned over 250 words of American Sign Language. — Kenneth Oppel

You know, one of the only times I ever wrote about art was the obituary of Warhol that I did for the Village Voice. — Barbara Kruger

It's not the loss of life that makes the death bitter
it's the obituaries. — Evan Esar

Obituaries are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives. I defy you to find a single obituary that begins, "Jane Doe won the Nobel Prize in large part because she was admitted to a prestigious, highly selective preschool. After that, everything just kind of fell into place." Instead, you will read about dead ends, lucky coincidences, quirky habits, excessive self-confidence (often interspersed with bursts of excessive self-doubt), and a lot of passion for something. — Charles Wheelan

Have you ever had an experience where, had things turned out just a little bit differently, your entire life would have been transformed?

Like a Supreme Court clerkship, a Rhodes Scholarship gets mentioned in your obituary.

The door was open just a crack, in a way that seemed to say "I have an 'open door' policy, but I really don't want to be bothered."

Success didn't take you off the treadmill, but simply put you on a different treadmill, at a higher speed and with a steeper incline.

When we're young, overachieving, and unstoppable, we all think we're special. But as we grow older, we reach a more realistic understanding of our place in the world. It happens at different times for different people, but eventually we all come to terms with our own ordinariness. — David Lat

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

Men in the uniform of Wall Street retirement: black Chesterfield coat, rimless glasses and the Times folded to the obituary page.. — Jimmy Breslin

A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward. — George Jean Nathan

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

Write your dream obituary and live that life! — Tami Holzman

The hairstyle that was chosen would impact how everyone - every filmgoing human - would envision me for the rest of my life. (And probably even beyond - it's hard to imagine any TV obituary not using a photo of that cute little round-faced girl with goofy buns on either side of her inexperienced head.) — Carrie Fisher

In my mind my obituary is done.It is done and it is right. It tells the truth and as awful as it can be, the truth is what matters. It is what I should be remembered by, if I'm remembered at all. Remember the truth. that is all that matters — James Frey

If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter. — Freeman Dyson

It's always the end for now, and in real life, the only full stop is on the obituary page. — Stephen King

God was long gone before Nietzsche made his death certificate into a slogan, but no one
has yet written the obituary of the Devil. — Thomas Ligotti

Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction. — Clarence Darrow

Some people want to amass a great amount of wealth and make a great looking obituary. I'm going to die with more money than is good to leave my son. — Darrell Issa

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

This won't look so good in my obituary," Schaffer said dolefully. There was a perceptible edge of strain under the lightly-spoken words."Gave his life for his country in a ladies' lavatory in Upper Bavaria. — Alistair MacLean

He once told a reporter he wanted his obituary to be short - "just make it born in Russia, first lesson at 3, debut at 7, debut in America in 1917". — Jascha Heifetz

Grandma Mazur reads the obituary columns like they're part of the paper's entertainment section. Other communities have country clubs and fraternal orders. The Burg has funeral parlors. If people stopped dying, the social life of the Burg would come to a grinding halt. — Janet Evanovich

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

There's no bad publicity except an obituary. — Brendan Behan

A common defense among obituary-fanciers such as myself is that the obit is not about death at all. It is about life. This is true since an article about the condition of deadness would make for turgid reading at best. — Tom Rachman

Some of the plants have obituary names: Iris, Basil, Rue, Rosemary, and Verbena. Some, like meadowsweet and cowslips, sweet flag and spikenard, are like the names of Shakespeare fairies. — Chuck Palahniuk

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up. — Benjamin Franklin

A few years ago I wrote two versions of my obituary, the one I wanted and the one I was heading for. They were very different. I realized I needed to make some big changes if I was going to look back and be proud of my life. I am making those changes, and now I have a life worth living. — Roz Savage

He recalls that the room went 'icy cold' as his patient Catherine strangely began to channel messages from Dr Weiss's own deceased family members; things she could not have possibly known. "She didn't know anything about me," Dr Weiss says. "I didn't even have diplomas in my office. This was before the internet, and she's telling me "You're Father's here and your son." Dr Weiss remembers his shock that a stranger shared so many facts about his life, including that his Father had tragically died from a heart condition. "She tells me my daughter is named after my Father..which she is, and it is an unusual name. She said, "Your Father is here; he died from his heart." And she went into other medical details. "I'm thinking, "What is this? How does she know this?" My Father never had an obituary. — Tessy Rawlins

Kayn began to speak as if she were reading his obituary. "I can see the paper now; it would read something like this; Kevin Smith was a wonderful boy so smart and good looking but a little clumsy. Had he simply tied up his shoes he would have never tripped down the stairs and found himself impaled on a janitor's broom. Remember kids; tie your shoes; safety first." (The Children of Ankh series) — Kim Cormack

When my obituary notice at last appears in The Times, and they say: 'What, I thought he died years ago,' my ghost will gently chuckle. — W. Somerset Maugham

It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't — P.G. Wodehouse

The dreams fresh on her mind, she wrote about the Ada she remembered. The obituary wasn't the sad, plodding list of mother and father, dead children, and surviving family. It honored a strong, funny woman. She proofed it a second time with a smile on her face. Ada would have slapped her knee and crowed along with her. — Laura Trentham

I have to erase my Google search histories, because they always lead to an obituary. — Carrie Brownstein

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. — Michael Connelly

You should never write your own resume, personal ad, or obituary. In all three cases it is better to show your humility by letting someone else lie for you. — David Hayden

So what if someone wrote your obituary ... that doesn't mean you are obligated to die. — Lou Holtz

I'm a survivor, I said. But I didn't think that claim would carry much weight in an obituary. — Tobias Wolff

Everyone wrote our obituary but us and the coaches and the kids who stayed with us. The obit was, 'Vanderbilt will have to leave the Southeastern Conference. All the coaches are leaving, and all the students are transferring.' — Gordon Gee

Scarcely a day goes by without some claim that new technologies are fast writing newsprint's obituary. — Rupert Murdoch

Do something you would be proud to have in your obituary, but not something that will haunt you until that day.
Live for now, hope for later, and remember then.
As you grow older always remember to never fully grow up.
This is real.
Stand up and look at the skin you're in.
Don't let the others turn you green, think about it, and make it how you want.
Now you're done reading this, do something that make to make who you are make you happy. — Audrey Regan

As the victim of those impulses she must be looking in the paper for his obituary. — Saul Bellow

Obituary for Edith Hahn Beer from the Times (UK) This obituary was published in the March 26, 2009, edition of the London Times. Reprinted with permission of the Times, London. EDITH HAHN-BEER escaped probable extermination as a Jew in wartime Germany by assuming a — Edith Hahn Beer

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. — Marilyn Johnson

His true monument lies not on the shelves of libraries, but in the thoughts of men, and in the history of more than one science.

{Gibbs's obituary for scientist Rudolf Clausius} — Josiah Willard Gibbs

So I'm on a little one-man crusade to bring the obituary closer to the front of the paper. Let's sing a bit louder about the unsung. Rather than spending all our time watching stupid people doing stupid things and being filmed by other stupid people on reality TV shows, why don't we spend a few minutes each day reading about good people doing good things? I'm not being a hippy. It's just that we've got to improve ourselves as a species or we are absolutely doomed. — Billy Connolly

Yet for quixotic reasons
namely, that I enjoyed writing obits
I had decided to scale back on articles about city life in order to write exclusively about the city's dead. For even less money. It was a strange and inexplicable career move. — Avi Steinberg

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing. — Quentin Crisp

196. "Look on the bright side, suicide
Lost eyesight I'm on your side
Angel left wing, right wing, broken wing
Lack of iron and/or sleeping
Protector of the kennel
Ecto-plasma, Ecto-skeletal
Obituary birthday
Your scent is still here in my place of recovery!" ~ — Kurt Cobain

Too many people are overly respectful, braying, 'You're so brave' and Irv fell smack into that trap. After all what's so courageous about having cancer? Once we have it, what choice do we have? But the worst thing of all - and thank God Irv doesn't do this, at least not yet - is all this nonsensical talk about a patient's courageous struggle with cancer that all too often ends in defeat. How many obituaries do you see stating that so-and-so lost their courageous battle with cancer? I hate that! I absolutely hate it! If someone put that in my obituary, I'd come back and kill him! — Irvin D. Yalom

It would be too much for me to deal with to be sitting up there next to God, Bon Scott, Sid Vicious, and Jimi Hendrix, and hear somebody read my obituary from below:
NIKKI SIXX DIED TODAY ... FUCKING GOLFING — Nikki Sixx

Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium. — Philip Guedalla

I always wondered what hearing one's own obituary might sound like, and I sort of feel like I may have just heard part of it at least. — Spencer Abraham

Metaphysics keeps surviving its obituaries. — Mason Cooley

Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.
(Last words, according to Dickens's obituary in The Times.) — Charles Dickens

The savage repression of blacks, which can be estimated by reading the obituary columns of the nation's dailies, Fred Hampton, etc., has not failed to register on the black inmates. — George Jackson

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

Producing obituaries is a way of creating a legacy to remember important people of our times and their contributions. No matter whose obituary it is, I look for something inspirational about each person. — Laurie Nadel

Live in such a way no one who reads your obituary will be surprised you're a Christian. — Darrell Case

There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary. — Brendan Behan

As the cleansing ocean closes over bin Laden's carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of those he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street. — Christopher Hitchens

I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure. — Clarence Darrow

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

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

Do not give alms promiscuously. Select the unworthy poor and make them happy. To give to the deserving is a duty, but to help the improvident, drinking class is clear generosity, so that the donor has a right to be warmed by a selfish pride and count on a most flattering obituary. — George Ade

Maybe it's a stretch to blame a broader social pathology on hyper-competitive soccer parents. Still, there is not a huge downside to asking every once in a while, Why am I doing this? We will know for certain that my analysis is wrong when we see the following obituary: Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place. — Charles Wheelan

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

When they write my obituary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, Leo Gursky is survived by an apartment full of shit — Nicole Krauss

When I die, if the word 'thong' appears in the first or second sentence of my obituary, I've screwed up. — Albert Brooks

And most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another, being oft associated, until not even obituary notices them do part. — O. Henry

There was a Dana Phelps with a son named Brandon, but they didn't live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The Phelpses resided in a rather tony section of Greenwich, Connecticut. Brandon's father had been a big-time hedge fund manager. Beaucoup bucks. He died when he was forty-one. The obituary gave no cause of death. Kat looked for a charity - people often requested donations made to a heart disease or cancer or whatever cause - but there was nothing listed. — Harlan Coben

Al-Qaeda's obituary has been written countless times over the decade. Each iteration has proved to be ephemeral, as the moment has continually shown itself to have a deeper bench than we imagine. — Bruce Hoffman

HARV, can you help at all here?" I asked, spinning downward.
"I am writing your obituary. Well, not so much writing it as updating it," HARV told me.
If I lived, I was going to kill HARV. — John Zakour

This may read like a mad journey through some of the most dangerous places on earth, but it is much more than that as well. Sheets witnessed most of the wars, disasters, and revolutions that followed the end of communism, and his accounts of them
from Chechnya to Chernobyl, and from Abkhazia to Afghanistan
serve as a passionate but considered obituary for the vanished Soviet empire. — Oliver Bullough

If I were to win the Nobel Prize in Literature - which I think it's fairly safe to say is not going to happen - I would still expect the headline on my obituary to read: 'Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, Jr., is dead at 78.' — Christopher Buckley

Hang onto your sense of humor. I picture my obituary : The sexiest man alive is now dead. — Mark Harmon

Stay fit and live long and prosper, but write your own obituary now, while you can, just in case. — Jill Conner Browne

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

About one month before he was killed, when asked by David Frost how his obituary should read: Something about the fact that I made some contribution to either my country, or those who were less well off. I think back to what Camus wrote about the fact that perhaps this world is a world in which children suffer, but we can lessen the number of suffering children, and if you do not do this, then who will do this? I'd like to feel that I'd done something to lessen that suffering. — Robert Kennedy

I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all. — Tony Kushner

Obituary: He/she is survived by his/her Want-to-Read/Currently-Reading Goodreads shelf — Brian Alan Ellis

We shall see later on that the diversity of the forms of death that circulate invisibly is the cause of the peculiar unexpectedness of obituary notices in the newspapers. — Marcel Proust

There's the obituary to look for the next week, six column inches about nothing that really mattered — Chuck Palahniuk

All publicity is good, except an obituary notice. — Brendan Behan

The obituary writers drew their incomplete sketches, touring through his life like travelers to England who do not ever see swans, sheep, bicycles, and blue eyes. — Mark Helprin

We all die someday," Nick muttered as he moved off into the darkness.
"Yeah, but I'd rather my obituary didn't lead with 'He broke into a jail museum and then died,'" Digger grumbled as he trailed after.
"At least it would read 'with his friends,'" Doc added.
"If I wanted to die with you jokers, I would have done it in Afghanistan!"
Nick and Owen both stopped and wheeled on Doc and Digger. "Will you at least pretend that you care we're doing something illegal here?" Nick hissed.
Doc and Digger muttered apologies, and they carried on. — Abigail Roux

There is a story about Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. One day his older brother died, and a newspaper got the story wrong and printed Alfred's obituary instead. Alfred opened the paper that morning and had the unusual experience of reading his obituary while he was still alive. "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday," the obituary began. Alfred threw down the paper. That's not how I want to be remembered, he said. That's not what's important to me, he said, and right then and there he decided to throw his entire fortune into rewarding people for bettering this world and bringing it closer to peace. — Alan A. Lew

AFTER THEIR FALL INTO TARTARUS, jumping three hundred feet to the Mansion of Night should have felt quick. Instead, Annabeth's heart seemed to slow down. Between the beats she had ample time to write her own obituary. Annabeth Chase, died age 17. BA-BOOM. (Assuming her birthday, July 12, had passed while she was in Tartarus; but honestly, she had no idea.) BA-BOOM. Died of massive injuries while leaping like an idiot into the abyss of Chaos and splattering on the entry hall floor of Nyx's mansion. BA-BOOM. Survived by her father, stepmother, and two stepbrothers who barely knew her. BA-BOOM. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Camp Half-Blood, assuming Gaea hasn't already destroyed it. Her feet hit solid floor. Pain shot up her legs, but she stumbled forward and broke into a run, hauling Percy after her. — Rick Riordan

Anyone who has to write an obituary for me one day will probably say, 'She did absolute depths of agony really well.' I'm not, however, an unhappy person. — Lesley Manville

The least dignified thing that can happen to a man is to be murdered. If he dies in his sleep he gets a respectful obituary and perhaps a smiling portrait; it is how we all want to be remembered. But murder is the great exposer: here is the victim in his torn underwear, face down on the floor, unpaid bills on his dresser, a meager shopping list, some loose change, and worst of all the fact that he is alone. Investigation reveals what he did that day - it all matters - his habits are examined, his behavior scrutinized, his trunks rifled, and a balance sheet is drawn up at the hospital giving the contents of his stomach. Dying, the last private act we perform, is made public: the murder victim has no secrets. — Paul Theroux

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

Read your own obituary notice; they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life. — James Joyce

I've always thought stability was suffocating and deadly. Like, when I read that the kids I went to law school with have stayed at the same firm, I feel like I'm reading an obituary. How much money do you need? Six million, seven million? Put that in the bank and do something else. Get out! — Glenn Greenwald

I don't think most people know what's going to be in their obituary, but I do. — Robert Mankoff

[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

When a writer dies you get a higher standard of obituary. — Arthur Smith

When the 'Guardian' is commissioning writers to write obituary pieces about you and your career ... it doesn't get much nastier than that. And you've just got to go, 'It doesn't actually matter.' — James Corden