Coenen Obituary Quotes

#1. 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

#2. What a writer's obituary should read - he wrote the books, then he died. #Quote by William Faulkner

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

#4. 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

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

#6. 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

#7. Metaphysics keeps surviving its obituaries. #Quote by Mason Cooley

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

#9. 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. #Quote by George Ade

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

#11. In my book, 'The Big Three in Economics,' I found that the press has frequently and prematurely written the obituary of Adam Smith and his free-market philosophy, only to see a new and more vibrant global marketplace reemerge after being savagely attacked by Keynesians, Marxists, and assorted socialists. #Quote by Mark Skousen

#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 clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on - only henceforth in my absence. (It's the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is the more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall. #Quote by Christopher Hitchens

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

#15. 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.' #Quote by Christopher Buckley

#16. 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. #Quote by Deborah Copaken

#17. [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. #Quote by Anna Quindlen

#18. 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. #Quote by Robert Kennedy

#19. Aside from her marriage, her obituary is the only time a lady's name should appear in the newspaper. And God help her if the funeral is savaged in the press, for she won't get a second chance the following season. #Quote by Kate Morton

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

#21. It's not the loss of life that makes the death bitter
it's the obituaries. #Quote by Evan Esar

#22. 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. #Quote by Rick Riordan

#23. 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. #Quote by Alan A. Lew

#24. 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

#25. 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

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

#27. 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

#28. 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

#29. 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 #Quote by P.G. Wodehouse

#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. Eight Bells: Robert J. Kane '55D died June 3, 2017, in Palm Harbor, Florida. He came to MMA by way of Boston College. Bob or "Killer," as he was affectionately known, was an independent and eccentric soul, enjoying the freedom of life. After a career at sea as an Officer in the U.S. Navy and in the Merchant Marine he retired to an adventurous single life living with his two dogs in a mobile home, which had originally been a "Yellow School Bus." He loved watching the races at Daytona, Florida, telling stories about his interesting deeds about flying groceries to exotic Caribbean Islands, and misdeeds with mysterious ladies he had known. For years he spent his summers touring Canada and his winters appreciating the more temperate weather at Fort De Soto in St. Petersburg, Florida…. Enjoying life in the shadow of the Sunshine Bridge, Bob had an artistic flare, a positive attitude and a quick sense of humor. Not having a family, few people were aware that he became crippled by a hip replacement operation gone bad at the Bay Pines VA Hospital. His condition became so bad that he could hardly get around, but he remained in good spirits until he suffered a totally debilitating stroke. For the past 6 years Bob spent his time at various Florida Assisted Living Facilities, Nursing Homes and Palliative Care Hospitals. His end came when he finally wound up as a terminal patient at the Hospice Facility in Palm Harbor, Florida. Bob was 86 years old when he passed. He will be missed…. #Quote by Hank Bracker

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

#33. 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. #Quote by Janet Evanovich

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

#35. 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

#36. Her Mother's obituary... her last physical link to the woman who helped for the soul of who she was to become, who she remains, who she will always be. She has read the obituary so many times that it looks as if the piece of paper has been through the wash a dozen times. She wonders if she will ever stop reading it. She holds it, as she held her Mother, finally held her Mother once she crossed over the threshold of adulthood herself, & realized the power of a Mother's love for a child. The sacrifices her Mother made that she never appreciated, & that great gift of patience that can only be learned by becoming a mother. #Quote by Kris Radish

#37. 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

#38. 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

#39. Oh definitely. It'll be in a hot tub, with my entire head squeezed into a jet. The photos are going to be hilarious. Man, I really hope the internet sticks around so people can reference this article in my obituaries and see that what sounds like a joke was actually amazingly prescient. #Quote by Jason Sudeikis

#40. 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. #Quote by Lesley Manville