Gravestone Quotes - Page 3

• The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one's toes on the gravestones.

  Emile Zola

  Past, Toes, Illusion

  20 Copy quote

• Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster. This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man's life, detail is always welcome.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Men, Space, Wife

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1960). “Laughter in the Dark”, p.7, New Directions Publishing

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• Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.

  Jane Smiley

  Avid, Names, Poetry

  Jane Smiley (2008). “13 Ways of Looking at the Novel”, p.97, Anchor

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• I have been approached now and again about sitcoms, but, with very few exceptions, one simply needs to move to L.A. for at least a year or two these days if one wants to develop a series - which is what writing a pilot means. I've also been approached about writing episodes for sitcoms, but in order to do that one actually has to watch sitcoms. . . . Life's too short for television, and I don't what it on my actual gravestone, HE STARED AT A BOX FOR 10,000 HOURS.

  David Ives

  Moving, Writing, Mean

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• One puts off the biography like you put off death. To write an autobiography is to etch the words on your own gravestone.

  Carlos Fuentes

  Writing, Biographies, Like You

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• Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years.

  Thomas Browne

  Years, Forty, Scarce

  Sir Thomas Browne, James Thomas Fields (1862). “Religio Medici: A Letter to a Friend, Christian Morals, Urn-burial, and Other Papers”, p.343

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• My gravestone will say,'Here Lies Damon Lindelof - Or Does He?

  Damon Lindelof

  Lying, Doe, Damon

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• I don't want to have a gravestone. I want to have all my friends burn me and then snort the ashes. I think that's the only way to go out.

  Marilyn Manson

  Thinking, Ashes, Want

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• The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world.

  Dan Wells

  Fall, World, Lasts

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• There is no such thing as a happy ending. Every culture has a maxim that makes this point, while nowhere in the Universe is there a single gravestone that reads 'He Loved Everything About His Life, Especially the Dying Bit at the End'.

  Eoin Colfer

  Dying, Culture, Happy Endings

  Eoin Colfer (2009). “And Another Thing...”, Hyperion

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• I liked those ladies! They were helpers, and they danced.' These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced.

  Anne Lamott

  Want, Helpers

  Anne Lamott (2008). “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith”, p.39, Penguin

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• What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, Two, Long

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “Stillness Speaks”, p.28, New World Library

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• People are curious. A few people are. ... They will put things together, knowing all along that they may be mistaken. You see them going around with notebooks, scraping the dirt off gravestones, reading microfilm, just in the hope of seeing this trickle in time, making a connection, rescuing one thing from the rubbish.

  Alice Munro

  Notebook, Reading, Knowing

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• It's about stories. If I can tell the story to America, whether it's Riesling or a boxer from Harlem, it will sell. I know on my gravestone it's going to be, 'Storyteller.'

  Gary Vaynerchuk

  America, Stories, Boxers

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• ...if I die suddenly, my gravestone might appropriately offer this insight into my departure: "God got tired." I require lots of work.

  Beth Moore

  Tired, Departure, Might

  Beth Moore (2015). “Believing God”, p.86, B&H Publishing Group

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• I don't want an epitaph on my gravestone that says, 'He would have pursued some big dreams in his life, but other people wouldn't let him.

  Tom Peters

  Inspirational, Dream, People

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• I often thought my gravestone would say, 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out,'

  Ian Mckellen

  Lying

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• When you're gone would you rather have your gravestone say, 'He never missed a meeting.' Or one that said, 'He was a great father.'

  Steve Blank

  Father, Balance, Gone

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• The words It's not my fault! should never again come from your mouth.  The words It's not my fault! have been symbolically written on the gravestones of unsuccessful people ever since Eve took her first bite of the apple.

  Andy Andrews

  Motivational, Success, Responsibility

  Andy Andrews (2004). “The Young Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success”, p.16, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• He who sees his heir in his own child, carries his eye over hopes and possessions lying far beyond his gravestone, viewing his life, even here, as a period but closed with a comma. He who sees his heir in another man's child sees the full stop at the end of the sentence.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Children, Lying, Eye

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• I'm going to put that on my gravestone. "He created such a category of unwanted pop culture - Famous for directing unwanted cultural references".

  Tim Burton

  Culture, Categories, Pops

  "Johnny Depp, Tim Burton Interview - Dark Shadows". MoviesOnline Interview, www.moviesonline.ca. November 10, 2017.

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• I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: 'Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800'.

  John Adams

  Lying, Responsibility, Years

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.113

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• The fist of a revolutionist must be hard like a gravestone; if not, his own gravestone will soon be erected!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Fists, Hard, Ifs

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• I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American?

  Henry Louis Gates

  Lying, Race, African American

  "Colored People: A Memoir". Book by Henry Louis Gates, therumpus.net. 1994.

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• Being Jewish, you didn't get into a sorority. So I really was much more outgoing and gregarious. I really didn't want to spend an Emily Dickinson adolescence reading poetry on gravestones, which I did.

  Betty Friedan

  Reading, Sorority, Want

  Source: www.pbs.org

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