#funerals

Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#funerals #rituals #social-functions #death

I've been at the funerals of a lot of people in my neighborhood. Sometimes when I sit back and relax, I think about that and just blank out. ↗

— Carmelo Anthony

#back #been #blank #funerals #i

Yeah, like, when I look back on my life, I just remember back what happened in '74, or something. It seems like only the real good stuff comes to mind. I don't think of all the tragedies and all the funerals. That just doesn't come to mind at all. I guess I'm really blessed that way. ↗

— Gregg Allman

#blessed #come #comes #funerals #good

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours. ↗

— Yogi Berra

#come #funerals #go #other #otherwise

Old age: I fall asleep during the funerals of my friends. ↗

— Mason Cooley

#asleep #during #fall #friends #funerals

I have always loved the process of making the music, reading the letters from the fans who get married to my music, have children to my music and play my music at their funerals. ↗

— Wynonna Judd

#children #fans #funerals #get #get married

I never go to funerals. To me a person is dead when he breathes for the last time. After that, your memories should be personal. ↗

— Hedy Lamarr

#breathes #dead #funerals #go #i

I'm more interested in the meaning of funerals and the mourning that people do. It's not a retail experience. It's an existential one. ↗

— Thomas Lynch

#experience #funerals #i #interested #meaning

I was one those kids who had books on them. Before weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals and anything else where you're actually meant to not be reading, my family would frisk me and take the book away. If they didn't find it by this point in the procedure, I would be sitting over in that corner completely unnoticed just reading my book. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#anything #away #bar #before #book

And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. ↗

— Tennessee Williams

#funerals #death