the meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead
I turned and faced the Olympians. "We need a shroud," I announced, my voice cracking. "A shroud for the son of Hermes.
Elaborate burial customs are a sure sign of decadence.
A society that doesn't know any longer how to observe every death with proper rituals, that does not know that death is not the end, but only part of the journey, has lost its way, has had the very heart of its humanity torn out.
In order to know a community, one must observe the styles of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with most ceremony.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
In Arab culture, music is for celebration. You don't play music at funerals.
I don't think I'd want my pet in formaldehyde, but I guess in America they would.
Funerals are a pagan rite. There's not any doubt about it.
It amazes me that the most Christian funerals are the most barbaric funeral rites of passage that are celebrated anywhere in the world.
The most important part of the process of mourning is regularly reciting kaddish in a synagogue. Kaddish is a doxology, which Jewish tradition has mandated children to recite daily in a synagogue during the year of mourning for a deceased parent and then on the anniversary of his or her death thereafter.
The universal practice of closing the eyes of the dead may be thought to have originated in the desire that he might be prevented from seeing his way.
Especially in the Western world, so much of our cultural ideas about grieving is about us, and I think it's important to get beyond that sometimes.
I'm thinking of being a professional mourner. How hard can it be? Tear at your hair, sing a dirge or two, take the rest of the week off.
Virtually every civilized society today holds sacred the right to peaceably bury their dead.
As traditions of mourning wane, women's role as designated mourners has also vanished. In consequence, the woman elegist must summon her own resources as an artist.
