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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory QUOTES

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory QUOTES

1 " A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

2 " As a general rule, if anyone ever asks you to put stockings on a ninety-year old deceased Romanian woman with oedema, your answer should be no. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

3 " The fear of death is why we build cathedrals, have children, declare war, and watch cat videos online at three a.m. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

4 " A culture that denies death is a barrier to achieving a good death. Overcoming our fears and wild misconceptions about death will be no small task, but we shouldn't forget how quickly other cultural prejudices--racism, sexism, homophobia--have begun to topple in the recent past. It is high time death had its own moment of truth. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

5 " By not talking about death with our loved ones, not being clear through advanced directives, DNR (do not resuscitate) orders, and funeral plans, we are directly contributing to this future ... and a rather bleak present, at that. Rather than engage in larger societal discussions about dignified ways for the terminally ill to end their lives, we accept intolerable cases like that of Angelita, a widow in Oakland who covered her head with a plastic bag because the arthritic pain of her gnarled joints was too much to bear. Or that of Victor in Los Angeles, who hung himself from the rafters of his apartment after his third unsuccessful round of chemotherapy, leaving his son to discover his body. Or the countless bodies with decubitus ulcers, more painful for me to care for them even babies or suicides. When these bodies come into the funeral home, I can only offer my sympathy to their living relatives, and promise to work to ensure that more people are not robbed of a dignified death by a culture of silence. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

6 " The earth is expertly designed to take back what it has created. Bodies left for carrion in enclosed, regulated spaces could be the answer to the environmental problems of burial and cremation. There is no limit to where our engagement with death can take us. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

7 " In many ways, women are death's natural companions. Every time a woman gives birth, she is creating not only a life, but a death. Samuel Beckett wrote that women "give birth astride of a grave." Mother Nature is indeed a real mother, creating and destroying in a constant loop. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

8 " In many ways, women are death's natural companions. Every time a woman gives birth, she is creating not only a life, but also a death. Samuel Beckett wrote that women "give birth astride of a grave." Mother Nature is indeed a real mother, creating and destroying in a constant loop. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

9 " Accepting death doesn't mean you won't be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like, "Why do people die?" and "Why is this happening to me?" Death isn't happening to you. Death is happening to us all. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

10 " The way to break the cycle and avoid embalming, the casket, the heavy vault, is something called green, or natural, burial. It is only available in certain cemeteries, but its popularity is growing as society continues to demand it. natural burial is what transpired with Edward Abbey's remains, minus the whole stealing-the-corpse and hightailing-it-into-the-desert-thing. The body goes straight into the ground, in a simple biodegradable shroud, with a rock to mark the location. It zips merrily through decomposition, shooting its atoms back into the universe to create new life. Not only is natural burial by far the most ecologically sound way to perish, it doubles down on the fear to fragmentation and loss of control. Making the choice to be naturally buried says, "Not only am I aware that I'm a helpless, fragmented mass of organic matter, I celebrate it. Vive la decay! "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

11 " Our biases in this matter are inescapable. As much as we fancy ourselves open-minded, we are still imprisoned by our cultural beliefs. It is like trying to walk through a forest after the spiders have been up all night spinning webs between the trees. You may be able to see your destination in the distance, but if you attempt to walk toward that destination, the spiderwebs will catch you, sticking to your face and lodging themselves awkwardly in your mouth. These are the webs of significance that make it so hard for Westerners to understand the cannibalism of the Wari'. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

12 " …Ten minutes later I pulled the van into the loading dock behind the hospital and removed my gurney. It was a bit of a farce to use a full-sized adult gurney for a few babies, but I didn’t think walking through the corridors with my arms filled with them was a particularly good plan either. I had an image of fumbling and dropping them, like a stressed out mom carrying too many grocery bags to avoid the extra trip in from the car. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

13 " Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As Kafka said, “The meaning of life is that it ends.” Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

14 " Sifting through an urn of cremated remains you cannot tell if a person had successes, failures, grandchildren, felonies. “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

15 " Exposing a young child to the realities of love and death is far less dangerous than exposing them to the lie of the happy ending. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

16 " If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture—that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves, "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

17 " The silence of death, of the cemetery, was no punishment, but a reward for a life well lived. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

18 " It is no surprise that the people trying so frantically to extend our lifespans are almost entirely rich, white men. Men who have lived lives of systematic privilege, and believe that privilege should extend indefinitely. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

19 " A corpse doesn't need you to remember it. In fact, it doesn't need anything anymore-it's more than happy to lie there and rot away. It is you who needs the corpse. Looking at the body you understand the person is gone, no longer an active player in the game of life. Looking at the body you see yourself, and you know that you, too, will die. The visual is a call to self-awareness. It is the beginning of wisdom. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

20 " As Kafka said, “The meaning of life is that it ends. "

― Caitlin Doughty , Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory