Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Literary Tombstones


For those of you who like to amuse yourselves by wondering what you'd like as the epitaphs on your gravestones, here are some literary ideas:

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both. – E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.—George Eliot, Middlemarch

Somewhere under his hat the tune began to move, one part expectation, and two parts spring sadness, and for the rest just a colossal delight at being alone.—Tove Jansson, Tales From Moominvalley

That is the end of that tale.—Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories


After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.—Kenneth Graham, The Wind in the Willows


“Well, I would like to make another trip… but I really don’t know when I’ll have the time. There’s just so much to do right here.”—
Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth


6 comments:

limpy99 said...

I may have to revise my will to demand that the Kipling quote be included!

Saints and Spinners said...

Limpy99: When I was working with the gravestone generator, it was a bit wiggy even to write my pen name on the gravestone. I think I'm definitely touching upon the beginning of my mid-life crisis. It's a good thing I've now got a guitar that will outlast me.:)

Yorkshire Pudding said...

Regarding tombstones... the English novelist Thomas Hardy is buried in two places. Most of his body is in Westminster Abbey but in the little churchyard between his home and Dorchester, there is a grave which reads "Here lies the heart of Thomas Hardy". And yes, they did by all accounts rip it out and bury it there. I believe that in the novels the village is known as Mellstock.

Perhaps on my gravestone I'd just have something my grandfather often said, which is this - "In the midst of life we are in debt"

Lone Star Ma said...

Very cool post.

Lady K said...

"Show Me the Way," she said.

Lady K said...

P.S...that WAS Styx I just quoted, right?