It is bribing the Pulpit to give a good character to persons who may not deserve it

They have in this county a funeral Sermon to every Corpse which I do not approve of much for it is bribing the Pulpit to give a good character to persons who may not deserve it. It is paying the Clergyman for supressing the notice of the bad qualities of the deceased and speaking only of the good. This is not properly holding him forth as an example to be followed, for his neighbours will  recall what he really was and imagine they may go as they please and still get a good name at their death.

W. Holland, Paupers and pig killers: the diary of William Holland 1799-1818, ed. J. Ayres (1984), 90-91 [Monday October 3 1803]

Zeal was once left to our socialist opponents; today it is hard to find a Tory who is not a zealot

In fact, the Tory party has, under Margaret, stopped being a party and become a movement, as dedicated to change as Labour itself once was. Manifestos have been written on tablets of stone. This sea change has put older Tories in some difficulty. We joined a party, not a movement, zeal was once left to our socialist opponents; today it is hard to find a Tory who is not a zealot.

J. Critchley, The Palace of Varieties (1989), 142

Do you think you would ever have heard of Christianity if the Apostles had gone out and said "I believe in consensus"?

Mrs Thatcher is a self-acknowledged 'conviction politician'. Indeed, when challenged she has drawn the parallel of the Apostles themselves; 'Do you think you would ever have heard of Christianity if the Apostles had gone out and said "I believe in consensus"?' she asked an American journalist. It is this sense of conviction which explains much of her success, and tells one more about the sort of public figure she is. Conviction politics is all very well, but it does tend to mean a lac of respect for the convictions of others, and its practice can lead one swiftly into the paths of self-righteousness. 

J. Critchley, The Palace of Varieties (1989), 121-2

The very fact that we made files labeled “Planning” suggests how little of it we did

When I was clearing out a file drawer recently I came across a thick file labeled “Planning.” The very fact that we made files labeled “Planning” suggests how little of it we did. We also had “planning meetings,” which consisted of sitting down with legal pads, stating the day’s problem out loud, and then, with no further attempt to solve it, going out to lunch. Such lunches were festive, as if to celebrate a job well done.

J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005), 209

Marriage is memory, marriage is time

This will not be a story in which the death of the husband or wife becomes what amounts to the credit sequence for a new life, a catalyst for the discovery that (a point typically introduced in such accounts by the precocious child of the bereaved) “you can love more than one person.” Of course you can, but marriage is something different. Marriage is memory, marriage is time. “She didn’t know the songs,” I recall being told that a friend of a friend had said after an attempt to repeat the experience. Marriage is not only time: it is also, paradoxically, the denial of time. For forty years I saw myself through John’s eyes. I did not age. This year for the first time since I was twenty-nine I saw myself through the eyes of others. This year for the first time since I was twenty-nine I realized that my image of myself was of someone significantly younger. 

J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005), 197

There is no one to hear this news, nowhere to go with the unmade plan, the uncompleted thought

Christmas, the end of the year. I am dropping my keys on the table inside the door before I fully remember. There is no one to hear this news, nowhere to go with the unmade plan, the uncompleted thought. There is no one to agree, disagree, talk back. “I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense,” C. S. Lewis wrote after the death of his wife. “It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the string, then I remember and have to lay the bow down. So many roads lead thought to H. I set out on one of them. But now there’s an impassable frontier post across it. So many roads once; now so many cul de sacs.”

J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005), 194

One way in which grief gets hidden is that death now occurs largely offstage

One way in which grief gets hidden is that death now occurs largely offstage. In the earlier tradition from which Mrs. Post wrote, the act of dying had not yet been professionalized. It did not typically involve hospitals. Women died in childbirth. Children died of fevers. Cancer was untreatable. At the time she undertook her book of etiquette, there would have been few American households untouched by the influenza pandemic of 1918. Death was up close, at home. The average adult was expected to deal competently, and also sensitively, with its aftermath. When someone dies, I was taught growing up in California, you bake a ham. You drop it by the house. You go to the funeral. If the family is Catholic you also go to the rosary but you do not wail or keen or in any other way demand the attention of the family.

J. Didion, The year of magical thinking (2005), 60