Holly

“Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto.”
― David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“Smiley was the guy who made me realise that it was all right to succeed. No one had ever told me that. It was something I’d never considered before. That’s stayed with me ever since. It’s okay to succeed. I knew what it felt like to hurt and fail, those things were familiar to me. But the thought that I was allowed to succeed was something new and scary and something I needed to hear.”
― Nick Frost, Truths, Half Truths and Little White Lies: The heartbreaking and hilarious memoir from the star of Shaun of the Dead and Spaced

“It’s the way of all ancient stories. The young man must go “down” in order to find the right path for going “up.” Call it the “time of ashes.” In some African tribes the young boys must cover their faces with ashes before their initiation into manhood. In certain Nordic cultures the young boys used to sit down in the ashes by the fire in the center of the lodge house until they were ready to take on their adult role. And everybody knows about Cinderella, the girl who had to tend to the cinders and do all the other lowly chores until her true identity became known.”
― Sidney Poitier, The Measure of a Man

“you’re dead set on creating explosions that a crematory operator would hear and would definitely be freaked out by, don’t leave unpopped popcorn in your body. Instead, try leaving a pacemaker in your body. (Note: I one-thousand-percent do not recommend doing this. I’m making a joke. See, I can make jokes too, Tim.) A pacemaker helps living people control their heartbeat, speeding up the heart if needed, slowing the heart down if needed. It’s a cute lil’ thing, the size of a small cookie, that is basically a battery, generator, and some wires implanted (through surgery) into the body. It can save your life if your heart is misfiring. But if a pacemaker is not removed from a dead body before the cremation, it can turn into a tiny bomb.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies