Ashenfelter Obituary Quotes

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

#2. 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. #Quote by George Jean Nathan

#3. 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. #Quote by Tony Kushner

#4. The following obituary appeared in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph of Sept. 16, 1958:

A GREAT POET died last week in Lancieux, France, at the age of 84.

He was not a poet's poet. Fancy-Dan dilletantes will dispute the description "great."

He was a people's poet. To the people he was great. They understood him, and knew that any verse carrying the by-line of Robert W. Service would be a lilting thing, clear, clean and power-packed, beating out a story with a dramatic intensity that made the nerves tingle.

And he was no poor, garret-type poet, either. His stuff made money hand over fist. One piece alone, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, rolled up half a million dollars for him. He lived it up well and also gave a great deal to help others.

"The only society I like," he once said, "is that which is rough and tough - and the tougher the better. That's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people."

He found that kind of society in the Yukon gold rush, and he immortalized it. #Quote by Robert W. Service

#5. [José] Saramago for the last 25 years stood his own with any novelist of the Western world [..] He was the equal of Philip Roth, Gunther Grass, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo. His genius was remarkably versatile - he was at once a great comic and a writer of shocking earnestness and grim poignancy. It is hard to believe he will not survive. #Quote by Harold Bloom

#6. All publicity is good, except an obituary notice. #Quote by Brendan Behan

#7. 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. #Quote by Tessy Rawlins

#8. 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. #Quote by Kenneth Oppel

#9. 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. #Quote by Charles Wheelan

#10. 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. #Quote by Harlan Coben

#11. 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. #Quote by Tom Rachman

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

#13. 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. #Quote by Mark Helprin

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

#15. An obituary should be an exercise in contemporary history, not a funeral oration. #Quote by Peter Utley

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

#17. 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. #Quote by Abigail Roux

#18. 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!" ~ #Quote by Kurt Cobain

#19. 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. #Quote by Laura Trentham

#20. 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} #Quote by Josiah Willard Gibbs

#21. 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.) #Quote by Charles Dickens

#22. 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. #Quote by Marcel Proust

#23. There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary. #Quote by Brendan Behan

#24. It's like obituaries, when you die they finally give you good reviews. #Quote by Roger Maris

#25. 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. #Quote by Michael Connelly

#26. 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! #Quote by Glenn Greenwald

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

#28. 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? #Quote by Padgett Powell

#29. Women are quoted as sources and appear on interview shows much less frequently than men ... But the by-product of such anonymity may be immortality, for women are also less likely to find themselves written up on the obituary page. #Quote by Kathleen Hall Jamieson

#30. 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. #Quote by Billy Sunday

#31. 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. #Quote by Roz Savage

#32. 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. #Quote by Spencer Abraham

#33. 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. #Quote by Alistair MacLean

#34. 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. #Quote by Benjamin Franklin

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

#36. 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.) #Quote by Carrie Fisher

#37. 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. #Quote by George Jackson

#38. I'd been making desicions for days.
I picked out the dress Bailey would wear forever-
a black slinky one- innapropriate- that she loved.
I chose a sweater to go over it, earrings, bracelet, necklace,
her most beloved strappy sandals.
I collected her makeup to give to the funeral director with a recent photo-
I thought it would be me that would dress her;
I didn't think a strange man should see her naked
touch her body
shave her legs
apply her lipstick
but that's what happened all the same.
I helped Gram pick out the casket,
the plot at the cemetery.
I changed a few lines
in the obituary that Big composed.
I wrote on a piece of paper what I thought
should go on the headstone.
I did all this without uttering a word.
Not one word, for days,
until I saw Bailey before the funeral
and lost my mind.
I hadn't realized that when people say so-and-so
snapped
that's what actually happens-
I started shaking her-
I thought I could wake her up
and get her the hell out of that box.
When she didn't wake,
I screamed: Talk to me.
Big swooped me up in his arms,
carried me out of the room, the church,
into the slamming rain,
and down to the creek
where we sobbed together
under the black coat he held over our heads
to protect us from the weather. #Quote by Jandy Nelson

#39. My school was so tough the school newspaper had an obituary section. #Quote by Norm Crosby

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

#41. Zoe is survived by her husband, Charles, and her daughter, Juliet.

Survived. This guy is right. The words we use to surround death are bizarre. Like we're hiding something.

I guess the obituary wouldn't read right if it said something like, Zoe died on the way home from the airport, after nine months on assignment in a war zone, leaving her husband, Charles, and her daughter, Juliet, with a Welcome Home cake that would sit in the refrigerator for a month before either of them could bear to throw it away.

So maybe we are hiding something. #Quote by Brigid Kemmerer

#42. We're all killers at heart ... I have never taken anybody's life, but I have often read obituary notices with considerable satisfaction. #Quote by Clarence Darrow