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Fiction

The Last Word: 9 Famous Authors’ Epitaphs

Wallace Yovetich

Staff Writer

Wallace Yovetich grew up in a home where reading was preferred to TV, playing outside was actually fun, and she was thrilled when her older brothers weren’t home so she could have a turn on the Atari. Now-a-days she watches a bit more TV, and considers sitting on the porch swing (with her laptop) “playing outside”. She still thinks reading is preferable to most things, though she’d really like to find out where her mom put that old Atari (Frogger addicts die hard). She runs a series of Read-a-Longs throughout the year (as well as posting fun bookish tidbits throughout the week) on her blog, Unputdownables. After teaching for seven years, Wallace is now an aspiring writer. Blog: Unputdownables Twitter: @WallaceYovetich

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It takes a special type of person to be thinking about gravestones and ghosts on a bright, sunny summer day. But after hearing what HG Wells wanted his epitaph to be (which he never got), it made me think about what I would want mine to be. Would it be something literary since I’m such a book nut? Which then got me to think about what famous writers have chosen for their epitaphs. Below are some of the more intriguing ones I found – either because they were particularly poignant or funny… mostly because I think they say something about the writer (all, with the exception of Sylvia Plath, were either chosen by or written by the writer, so go figure).

If you can venture to be morbid with me – which is your favorite? Do you have any literary quotes that you think would make a good epitaph?

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Robert Frost

I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

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Virginia Woolf

Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death! – The Waves

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John Keats

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. – The Great Gatsby

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Dorothy Parker

Excuse my dust.

(Dorothy Parker was cremated, so the epitaph she chose was included on her memorial plaque.)

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Sylvia Plath

Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.

(Poet, Ted Hughes – Sylvia Plath’s husband – chose this quote for her grave from Monkey by Wu Ch’Eng-En. The quote is incorrect from the original text, which reads: “even in the midst of fierce flames the Golden Lotus may be planted”.)

*****

Oscar Wilde

And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

(from Wilde’s poem,  The Battle of Reading Goal)

*****

William Shakespeare

Good Friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

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HG Wells

Goddamn you all: I told you so.

(HG Wells was cremated, and though he wanted the above as his epitaph – it was not included on any of his memorial plaques. This one happens to be my favorite.)