Tombstone Quotes

“Then on your tombstone, where you only get a little bit of space to sum up your life, some wax-faced creep chisels a set of meaningless numbers instead of poetry or a secret love or the name of your favorite candy.

In the end, all you get is a few words.”
― Scott Nicholson

“My life will end someday, but it will end at my convenience.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Elizabeth Anne Taylor
April 25, 1974 - April 25, 2004
Our Sweetheart, Only resting”
― MaryJanice Davidson, Undead and Unreturnable

“That there’s Henrietta’s mother,” he said, pointing to a lone tombstone near the cemetery’s edge, surrounded by trees and wild roses. It was several feet tall, its front worn rough and browned from age and weather.”
― Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“It is upon such stones that men attempt to permanently etch history so they will not exist in a vacuum; it is the final statement after a lifetime of scratching out divisions upon the ground, over ephemeral time itself, merely to give their short journeys meaning, to tell others “I was here – do not forget me, do not let my brief blast dissolve into nothingness.”
― Rob Bignell

“Death would not surprise us as often as it does, if we let go of the misbelief that newborns are less mortal than the elderly.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Orgasme mortel! Päs mal sur la pierre tombale.”
― Julie Maroh, Le bleu est une couleur chaude

“Wyatt Earp had been born, and born again, and now there would be a third life, for the iron fist that had seized his soul in childhood had lost its grip at last. The long struggle for control was over, and in its place, he found a wordless acceptance of a truth he'd always known. He was bred to this anger. It had been in him since the cradle. He'd never bullied neighbors or beaten a horse. He'd never punched the front teeth out of a six-year-old's mouth or hit a woman until she begged. But he was no better than his father, and never had been. He was far, far worse.”
― Mary Doria Russell, Epitaph

“He blamed television, movies, and books for his love of ghosts. It was a fascination that’s been with him since his youth. He always loved watching or reading anything that had to do with ghosts and haunted locations, especially historic sites like New Orleans, Salem, Tombstone, Gettysburg, and Old San Juan.”
― Jason Medina, A Ghost In New Orleans

“You are a cool cemetery.
You have the sinner’s grave
You have the saint’s earth
colliding
You have all the beds
narrow as a knife;
as if a rally of tombstones to defend death.
But you can’t really postpone
the inauguration of my burial,
can you?

From the poem - Few Words to Cemetery”
― Munia Khan, Beyond The Vernal Mind

“I play the trombone like it’s a tombstone. I perform at funerals or parties, and both have the exact same playlist and vibe. I also rent duck costumes, but they do not come with swimming instructions.”
― Jarod Kintz, BearPaw Duck And Meme Farm presents: Two Ducks Brawling Is A Pre-Pillow Fight

“What is there flattering, amusing, or edifying in their carving your name on a tombstone, then time rubbing off the inscription together with the gilding?”
― Anton Chekhov

“Jev was certain the words “should’ve known better” would go somewhere on her tombstone, but at the moment her focus shifted to the dozens of angry pixies honed in on her.”
― Katherine McIntyre, Scrying for Summer

“When Harper was in among the stones she could see brass plaques screwed into the towering pillars of granite. One listed the names of seventeen boys who had died in the mud of eastern France during the First World War. Another listed the names of thirty-four boys who had died on the beaches of western France during the Second. Harper thought all tombstones should be this size, that the small blocks to be found in most graveyards did not even begin to express the sickening enormity of losing a virgin son, thousands of miles away, in the muck and cold. You needed something so big you felt it might topple over and crush you.”
― Joe Hill, The Fireman

“LEGACIES BECOME STAIRS OR
TOMBSTONES DEPENDING ON
WHICH WAY THE STONE LIES.”
― Vineet Raj Kapoor

“gli era divenuto chiaro che la religione infusagli sin dal principio dalla sua coscienza altro non era che la religione dei Morti. Quella sì assecondava le sue inclinazioni, appagava il suo animo, dava sbocco alla sua pietà. Quella sì esaudiva il suo anelito a grandiose liturgie, a rituali solenni e magnifici: e quale santuario poteva mai essere più adorno, quale cerimoniale più maestoso di quelli che servivano a officiare il suo culto?”
― Henry James, The Altar of the Dead

“Mary Antrim non era l’unico fantasma della sua vita. Forse, rispetto alla maggioranza degli uomini, non erano molte le persone che gli erano mancate, ma per lui queste perdite avevano contato di più. Anche se non l’aveva toccato così da vicino, in un certo modo la morte aveva lasciato nel suo animo un’impronta più profonda. A poco a poco egli aveva preso l’abitudine di soffermarsi sui suoi morti ad uno ad uno, e piuttosto presto nella vita aveva cominciato a pensare che andasse fatto qualcosa per loro. E loro erano lì, accanto a lui, forti di quell’essenza semplificata, più intensa, di quell’assenza consapevole, di quella pazienza eloquente, così corporei e presenti che pareva avessero soltanto perduto l’uso della parola. Quando non li si percepiva più, quando ogni suono cessava, era come fosse ancora lì, in terra, il loro purgatorio; chiedevano così poco, poveretti, che ricevevano ancor meno, e morivano di nuovo, morivano ogni giorno del duro trattamento che riservava loro la vita. Per loro nulla era stato predisposto: non avevano prerogative né onori, nessun rifugio, nessuna salvaguardia. A provvedere ai vivi c’erano pur sempre anche i più egoisti tra gli uomini; ma nessuno, nemmeno chi era ritenuto più generoso, faceva nulla per quegli altri. E così, col passare degli anni, andò maturando in George Stransom una risoluzione: lui sì, almeno, avrebbe fatto qualcosa, l’avrebbe fatto cioè per i suoi morti; e nell’adempiere a quel sommo atto di misericordia”
― Henry James, The Altar of the Dead

“Friends and relatives encouraged me to erect a gravestone for my father. I thought that even though I was not a high official, I would erect for my father a tombstone grander than any of those others. Then I recalled that in 1958, many of the village's tombstones had been dismantled for use in irrigation projects or as bases for smelting ovens in the steelmaking campaign during the Great Leap Forward; some had been laid out on roadways. The more impressive the monument, the greater the likelihood of it being demolished. My father's tombstone had to be erected not on the ground, but in my heart. A tombstone in the heart could never be demolished or trampled underfoot.”
― Yang Jisheng, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962

“Before the end of the day there will take place what became known as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral … All Ike Clanton needed, and had really been seeking all morning, was an audience. He launched into a soliloquy: “You fellows haven’t given me any show at all. You’ve treated me like a dog. Fight is my racket, and all I want is four feet of ground. If you fellows had been a second later, I would have furnished a coroner’s inquest for the town. I will get even with all of you for this. If I had a six-shooter now, I would make a fight with all of you.”
― Tom Clavin, Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell