Caitlin Doughty

Treat your online affairs as part of your affairs that need to be in order - your bank, your Internet bill - you need to have people who know what you want. ”

I was fascinated by mortality. Most people are, even if they don't admit it. ”

Accepting your own mortality is like eating your vegetables: You may not want to do it, but it's good for you. ”

The definition of 'morbid' is an unhealthy preoccupation with death. Unfortunately, there's no word to mean the perfectly healthy preoccupation with death, which is what I have. ”

The death industry markets caskets and embalming under the rubric of helping bodies look 'natural,' but our current death customs are as natural as training majestic creatures like bears and elephants to dance in cute little outfits, or erecting replicas of the Eiffel Tower and Venetian canals in the middle of the harsh American desert. ”

For thousands of years, we did have death surrounding us, and we did have people die in the home. You would take care of your own end. You would do ritual processes, and you would be involved in it, and that's been taken away in the Western world. ”

The biggest problem is the funerals that don't exist. People call the funeral home, they pick up the body, they mail the ashes to you, no grief, no happiness, no remembrance, no nothing. That happens more often than it doesn't in the United States. ”

If we ignore our death, we end up just going around completely oblivious to why we do the things we do! ”

I think about death most of the day, every day. We can't escape death, and choosing to ignore it only makes it more scary. ”

I've worked very hard to become comfortable with how death works and why it happens. I now know that death isn't out to get me. ”