“Dead people look very, very dead. It is difficult to grasp what that means, since it’s unlikely that any of us will… — Caitlin Doughty Dead people Copy Share Image
“The most salacious stories—bones ground in a metal blender or torture-spike eye caps—had the power to disrupt people’s polite complacency about death.… — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“We do not (and will not) have the resources to properly care for our increasing elderly population, yet we insist on medical… — Caitlin Doughty Aging Copy Share Image
“He explained that he talks about death "all the time" with his friends. They ask each other, "Hey, what you want when… — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“Many children and grandchildren of immigrants, have, like Sarah, found themselves severed from their family’s cultural rituals. The funeral system in the… — Caitlin Doughty Children Copy Share Image
“I have come to believe that the merits of a death custom are not based on mathematics (e.g., 36.7 percent a "barbarous… — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“It was death that the public was being cheated out of by the funeral industry, not money. The realistic interaction with death… — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“Exposing a young child to the realities of love and death is far less dangerous than exposing them to the lie of… — Caitlin Doughty Children Copy Share Image
“Rather than let author and environmentalist Edward Abbey be buried in a traditional cemetery, his friends stole his body, wrapped it in… — Caitlin Doughty Books Copy Share Image
“The ICU was not the thrill ride I had expected. Turns out, they never called the high school student in from the… — Caitlin Doughty Adventure Copy Share Image
“Death should be known. Known as a difficult mental, physical, and emotional process, respected and feared for what it is.” — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“Untreated, a dead person’s face looks horrific, at least by our very narrow cultural expectations. Their droopy, open eyes cloud over in… — Caitlin Doughty Open eyes Copy Share Image
“It is worth noting that the main players in the recomposition project are women—scientists, anthropologists, lawyers, architects. Educated women, who have the… — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As… — Caitlin Doughty Creativity Copy Share Image
“As a general rule, if anyone ever asks you to put stockings on a ninety-year-old deceased Romanian woman with edema, your answer… — Caitlin Doughty Copy Share Image
“There is not much to enjoy in a layer of inorganic human bone dusted behind one’s ear or gathered underneath a fingernail,” — Caitlin Doughty Copy Share Image
“Death drives every creative and destructive impulse we have as human beings. The closer we come to understanding it, the closer we… — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“Whether my mortality caught me at twenty-eight or ninety-three, I made the choice to die content, slipped into the nothingness, my atoms… — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“Buddhists say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a… — Caitlin Doughty Buddhism Copy Share Image
“Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As… — Caitlin Doughty Creativity Copy Share Image
“Today, not being forced to see corpses is a privilege of the developed world.” — Caitlin Doughty Copy Share Image
“No matter how much technology may become our master, it takes only a human corpse to toss the anchor off that boat… — Caitlin Doughty Copy Share Image
“In that moment, standing at the edge of the pit, I'm sure Brébeuf was moved by the death rituals of the Wendat… — Caitlin Doughty Death Copy Share Image
“To market the effectiveness of their services, the embalmers would display real preserved bodies they had plucked from the unknown dead, propping… — Caitlin Doughty Copy Share Image
“Buddhists say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a… — Caitlin Doughty Buddhism Copy Share Image
