Anon - Rita Rudner - A E Housman - William Wordsworth - Rebecca West - Edgar Allan Poe - Catullus - Doctors TV - Confucius - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Edna St Vincent Millay - George Bernard Shaw - Mary Elizabeth Frye - Kami Garcia - Samuel Beckett - Lord Byron - Quentin Crisp - James Beattie - Edmund Burke - Thomas Gray - Bram Stoker - Percy Bysshe Shelley - Fred Dibnah - Frankie Boyle - Rosamund Lupton - Emily Dickinson - The Young Ones TV - John Webster - Anthony Thwaite - Robert Louis Stevenson - Benjamin Franklin - William Shakespeare - Edvard Munch - Oliver Goldsmith - Confucius - Alice Roberts & Neil Oliver TV - Rab C Nesbitt TV - Old Colour Film TV - Thomas Hardy - Shakespeare’s Grave TV - Les Dawson - I Corinthians 15:55 - Bob Dylan - The Real Saddam Hussein TV -
124,634. Scientists have just exhumed Beethoven from his grave. When the opened the coffin there were shocked to see him playing the piano backwards. When asked what this meant, a spokesman said he was de-composing. Anon
50,883. My mother buried three husbands – and two of them were only napping. (Bury & Husband) Rita Rudner
8. We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.
It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool’s-errand to the grave.
(God & Grave & Alcohol & Pub & Tavern) A E Housman, Poem IX stanzas III & IV
2,017. I recoil and droop, and seek repose
In listlessness from vain perplexity;
Unprofitably travelling toward the grave. (Life’s Like That & Grave) William Wordsworth, The Prelude 1850
4,231. If the whole human race lay in one grave, the epitaph on the headstone might well be: It seemed a good idea at the time. (Humanity & Grave & Epitaph) Rebecca West
9,416. Even in the grave, all is not lost. (Death & Grave) Edgar Allan Poe
50,804. By many lands and over many a wave
I come, my brother, to your piteous grave,
To bring you the last offering in death
And o'er dumb dust expend an idol breath ...
To take these gifts, brought as our fathers bade
For sorrow's tribute to the passing shade;
A brother's tears have wet them o’er and o’er;
And so, my brother, hail, and fairwell everymore! Catullus
50,805. Do you know how black the grave is? Doctors, BBC 24th February 2011, blind man to doctor
50,806. Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. (Grave & Revenge) Confucius
50,807. The bitterest tear shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. (Grave & Tears) Harriet Beecher Stowe
50,811. Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. Edna St Vincent Millay, Dirge Without Music 1928
50,812. While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal living conditions on this earth? George Bernard Shaw
50,813. Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left. (Grave & Death) Mary Elizabeth Frye
50,814. Why would you stick someone you love down in a lonely hole in the dirt? Where it's cold, and dirty, and full of bugs? Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures
50,815. Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his carrier, and that he spoke to us? Probably. But in all that what truth will there be? He’ll know nothing. He’ll tell me about the blows he received and I’ll give him a carrot. (pause) Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener. At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (pause) I can’t go on! (pause) What have I said? Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
50,816. I have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived that whatever was gone, the teeth and hair remained of those who had died with them. Is not this odd? They go the very first things in youth and yet last the longest in the dust. Lord Byron
50,821. Of all
The fools who flock’d to swell or see the show
Who car’d about the corpse? The funeral
Made the attraction, and the black the woe;
There throbb’d not there a thought which pierc’d the pall. (Grave & Funeral) Lord Byron, Vision of Judgment, st10
74,772. And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,
It seemed the mockery of hell to fold
The rottenness of eighty years in gold. (George III & Grave & Epigram) Lord Byron, on burial of George III
50,817. Life was a funny thing that occurred on the way to the grave. Quentin Crisp
50,819. Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down;
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrewn,
Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave;
And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave! James Beattie, The Minstrel II 1771
50,820. I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tombs of the Capulets. Edmund Burke, letter to Matthew Smith
50,823. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Await alike th’ inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. (Grave & Churchyard) Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
50,822. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. (Grave & Churchyard) ibid.
50,848. Never did tombs look so ghastly white. Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funeral gloom. Never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously. Never did bough creak so mysteriously, and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night. (Funeral & Grave & Dracula) Bram Stoker, Dracula
50,824. The lone couch of his everlasting sleep. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alastor l57