LB

“Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.”
― John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

“He [Jesus] had a terrible temper, you know, undoubtedly inherited from His Father.”
― Robertson Davies, Fifth Business

“Stop!' I cried imploringly to my god-like mind.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“My position was a common one; I wanted to do the right thing but could not help regretting the damnable expense.”
― Robertson Davies, Fifth Business