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

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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

“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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Buddhist say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a new stream into your consciousness, like water eroding the side of a mountain. Scientist confirm this bit of folk wisdom: our neurons break connections and form new pathways all the time. Even if you've been programmed to fear death, that particular pathway isn't set in stone. Each of us is responsible for seeking out new knowledge and creating mental circuits.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

“As Kafka said, “The meaning of life is that it ends.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Looking mortality straight in the eyeis n easy feat. To avoid the exercise, we choose to stay blindfolded, in the dark as to the realities of death and dying. But ignorance is not bliss, only a deeper kind of terror.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

“No matter how many heavy-metal album covers you’ve seen, how many Hieronymus Bosch prints of the tortures of Hell, or even the scene in Indiana Jones where the Nazi’s face melts off, you cannot be prepared to view a body being cremated. Seeing a flaming human skull is intense beyond your wildest flights of imagination.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create. Philosophers have proclaimed this for thousands of years just as vehemently as we insist upon ignoring it generation after generation.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Twenty-one years is time enough to be a fuck-up, sure, but not time enough to be a lost cause.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

“There are many words a woman in love longs to hear. “I’ll love you forever, darling,” and “Will it be a diamond this year?” are two fine examples. But young lovers take note: above all else, the phrase every girl truly wants to hear is “Hi, this is Amy from Science Support; I’m dropping off some heads.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Human beings are not nature’s favorites. We are merely one of a multitude of species upon which nature indiscriminately exerts its force.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Mythologist Joseph Campbell wisely tells us to scorn the happy ending, “for the world as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Mother Nature, as Tennyson said, is “red in tooth and claw,” demolishing every beautiful thing she has ever created.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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

“The longer you spend doing something you don’t believe in, the more the systems of your body rebel.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Accepting death doesn’t mean that 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: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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.” As an adult human, your dust is the same as my dust, four to seven pounds of greyish ash and bone.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematorium

“French existentialist Albert Camus said it best: “Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“Death should be known. Known as a difficult mental, physical, and emotional process, respected and feared for what it is.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“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

“When the feelings would come, the emotions, the grief, I would push them down deeper, furious at myself for allowing them to peek through. My inner dialogue could be ruthless: You're fine. You're not starving, no one beats you. Your parents are still alive. There is real sadness in the world and yours is pathetic, you whiny, insignificant cow.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory