Tracy.3

“I understood that I had been given my atoms, the ones that made up my heart and toenails and kidneys and brain, on a kind of universal loan program. The time would come when I would have to give the atoms back, and I didn’t want to attempt to hold on to them through the chemical preservation of my future corpse. There”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“It’s as if our culture is addicted to fear and the flat screen is our drug dealer.”
― RuPaul, Workin' It! Rupaul's Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style

“pickled in formaldehyde and painted like a whore, / Shrimp-pink incorruptible, not lost or gone before.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“I had lived my entire life up until I began working at Westwind relatively corpse-free. Now I had access to scores of them—stacked in the crematory freezer. They forced me to face my own death and the deaths of those I loved. No matter how much technology may become our master, it takes only a human corpse to toss the anchor off that boat and pull us back down to the firm knowledge that we are glorified animals that eat and shit and are doomed to die. We are all just future corpses.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory