Informed consent Quote by Seanan McGuire

“Left to their own devices, human bodies rot, decompose, come apart, and sink gloriously back into the earth from whence they came. Using embalming…

— Caitlin Doughty

“To market the effectiveness of their services, the embalmers would display real preserved bodies they had plucked from the unknown dead, propping the corpses…

— Caitlin Doughty

“Deceased's request as stated in last will and testament: 'I want to be made up to look undead, like the fucking sexiest vampire chick…

— Jen Violi

“I like the term "decedent." It's as though the man weren't dead, but merely involved in some sort of protracted legal dispute. For evident…

— Mary Roach

“Myth: Vampires sleep in coffins. Truth: That's totally gross. It would take a total freak to want to sleep in a coffin.”

— Kimberly Pauley

“In some warped way, having an embalmed body with us made perfect sense.”

— Tahir Shah

The mortician interviewing the corpses

— Eugene McCarthy

It's so easy to fetishise the dead. We rose-tint or villainise them, and so often in the retelling they are saints or sinners, rather…

— Sophie Dahl

There is a certain seductiveness about dead things. You can ill treat, alter and recolour what's dead. It won’t complain.

— Jeanette Winterson

The dead are notoriously hard to satisfy,

— Jack Spicer

“I love a corpse. I love a bit of gruesome.”

— Jennifer Saunders

Nature is honest, we aren't; we embalm our dead.

— Ugo Betti