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Funeral Quotes

On grief, ritual, and the people we bury.

These quotes treat the funeral as both ritual and revelation, one voice recalls growing up in a funeral home run by mortician parents, another admits delaying a father's funeral for a cricket match. Grief here is personal, sometimes even a little uncomfortable.

A man is known by his works. That I have heard at many a funeral.

Quotes by Winslow Homer

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.

Walt Whitman

I delayed my father's funeral because of cricket.

Quotes by Virat Kohli

I grew up in a funeral home. Both my parents were morticians.

Quotes by Tamara Tunie

Advances Quotes

The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral.

Quotes by Simon Hoggart

I want my funeral to be uncomfortably quiet.

Quotes by Sara Pascoe

Success is a public affair. Failure is a private funeral.

Quotes by Rosalind Russell

'Selfie' is the word du jour, and it became cause celebre at Nelson Mandela's funeral when the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt took a selfie with U.S. President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.

Quotes by Richard Quest

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

Quotes by Peter Utley

After Quotes

Funeral by funeral, theory advances.

Quotes by Paul Samuelson

You can't choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral.

Quotes by Marina Abramovic

When I was 14, during Kim Il-sung's funeral, I wondered, 'How could a god die?'

Quotes by Lee Hyeon-seo

A funeral eulogy is a belated plea for the defense delivered after the evidence is all in.

Quotes by Irvin S. Cobb

I've been a fascinated observer of grand public funerals since I was a kid, starting with the life-altering black-and-white images of President John F. Kennedy's funeral.

Quotes by David Horsey

Anything Quotes

I played a funeral convention once. York Casket Company pays well, in case anyone's wondering!

Quotes by Chris Young

Anything awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.

Quotes by Charles Lamb

We experienced a miscarriage at 13 weeks and then a few years later we lost our son Willem at 30 weeks. I held him in my arms and had to organise his funeral.

Quotes by Ben Fogle

I used to sing at funeral homes for families that didn't have a vocalist. I didn't get paid. I needed to sing.

Quotes by Anita Baker

Frequently Asked Questions

What angle do these funeral quotes take?
They're less about eulogies and more about funerals as lived experience, growing up in a funeral home, a delayed funeral because of a cricket match, or an old proverb about being judged by one's works.
Why would someone delay a parent's funeral?
One sample admits doing exactly that because of cricket, offered as an honest, slightly startling glimpse into how competing obligations can collide with grief.
Is there a quote about growing up around death?
Yes, one speaker describes growing up in a funeral home with both parents working as morticians, a childhood shaped by proximity to mourning as an everyday profession.
What's the recurring wisdom in this collection?
A repeated idea is that a person is ultimately known by their works, a line the sample says gets repeated 'at many a funeral' as a closing judgment on a life.
What other quote pages touch on similar themes?
Because quotes and Anything quotes both touch on reasoning through loss and life's harder moments.

One old line insists a person is truly known by their works, a lesson heard often at funerals themselves. For the wider emotional territory around loss, see Because and Anything quotes.