Decomposition Quotes

“Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything. The chair I’m sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I’m gonna fall apart, probably before this chair. And you’re gonna fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you you—they came together, grew together, and so must fall apart. The Buddha knew one thing science didn’t prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases. Things fall apart.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“What actually happens when you die is that your brain stops working and your body rots, like Rabbit did when he died and we buried him in the earth at the bottom of the garden. And all his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into the plants and if we go dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing except his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be gone. But that is all right because he is part of the flowers and the apple tree and the hawthorn bush now.
When people die they are sometimes put into coffins which means that they don't mix with the earth for a very long time until the wood of the coffin rots.
But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burnt and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the crematorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antartic, or coming down as rain in rainforests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“I don't necessarily love rotting bodies, but there's a texture to a rotting body that is unbelievable. Have you ever seen a little rotted animal? I love looking at those things, just as much as I like to look at a close-up of some tree bark, or a small bug, or a cup of coffee, or a piece of pie. You get in close and the textures are wonderful.”
― David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity

“If someone drowned at sea 300 years ago, or they died elsewhere but their remains were disposed of in the ocean, they’d either start to decompose immediately or they’d get eaten by fish or other scavengers. Their bones would eventually sink down to the seabed and be slowly buried by marine silt or broken down further over the years, but the flesh would one way or another eventually become water, which would evaporate into clouds and then rain down upon the earth once again to become plants and flowers.
The flowers in your garden could once have been Anne Bonny and Mary Read.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbour's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime, the violet and rose are languishing for a nibble at his gluteus maximus.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“What would it be like when I was fifty, sixty, older? I’d be no more than a jumble of organs in slow decomposition.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Soumission

“The unchained workers of decay were waiting in a dormant state for the necessary conditions to be established, as soon enough they would be, when they might recommence their interrupted struggle, that predetermined, merciless assault in the course of which they would dismantle whatever had been alive once and once only, reducing it into tiny insignificant pieces under the eternally silent cover of death.”
― László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“The way to break the cycle and avoid embalming, the casket, the heavy vault, is something called green, or natural, burial. It is only available in certain cemeteries, but its popularity is growing as society continues to demand it. natural burial is what transpired with Edward Abbey's remains, minus the whole stealing-the-corpse and hightailing-it-into-the-desert-thing. The body goes straight into the ground, in a simple biodegradable shroud, with a rock to mark the location. It zips merrily through decomposition, shooting its atoms back into the universe to create new life. Not only is natural burial by far the most ecologically sound way to perish, it doubles down on the fear to fragmentation and loss of control. Making the choice to be naturally buried says, "Not only am I aware that I'm a helpless, fragmented mass of organic matter, I celebrate it. Vive la decay!”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

“I remember calling the council's cemetery department to ask about body decomposition in different soil types. Once they had verified that I was a novelist and not a sicko, they were extremely helpful.”
― Sara Sheridan

“Nature is strictly moral. There is no attempt to cheat the Earth my means of steel vault of bronze coffin. I hope that when I die I too may be permitted to pay at once my oldest outstanding debt, to restore promptly the minerals and salts that have been lent to me for the little while that I have use for blood and bone and flesh.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich

“Food goes bad because of life: the life that lingers in its cells after the organism dies and the life takes over the body of the dead. Preventing that life prevents decomposition.”
― George Zaidan, Ingredients The Strange Chemistry of Plants, Poisons and Processed Foods

“A twisted countenance overcame her in death. Her cheeks and mouth were deeply sunken. Liver mortis dotted her face and hands. Moreover, the process of decomposition was so advanced, it was impossible to expect that the funeral guests remain seated, praying their rosary before her open coffin.”
― Josef Winkler, When the Time Comes

“And, of course, Dr. Bloem is one of the leading authorities on humus, internationally."
"The spread?" The eagle-looking guy was lost.
"I think of it more as a dip," interjected Rachel.
"Humus is a term for one of the major components of soil." The tight-haired young woman spoke clearly, shutting us all up. "Basically, it's decomposed matter. Leaves, animal remains, broken-down bark, that kind of thing."
Frances chimed in, "It's what everything becomes, eventually."
Rachel couldn't be stopped. "And it's yummy on a pita chip.”
― Abbi Waxman, The Garden of Small Beginnings

“Bodies at the bottom of the ocean tend to float as the decomposition progresses.”
― Steven Magee

“Bodies that drown in deep water may never surface.”
― Steven Magee

“Death is recycling. Proteins and nutrients, ’round and ’round. And you can’t stop that. Take a living person off Earth, put them in a sealed metal canister out in a vacuum, take them so far away from their planet of origin that they might not understand what a forest or an ocean is when you tell them about one – and they are still linked to that cycle. When we decompose under the right conditions, we turn into soil – something awfully like it, anyway. You see? We’re not detached from Earth. We turn into earth.”
― Becky Chambers, Record of a Spaceborn Few

“The soil beneath our feet is absolutely brimming with life. We often spend too much time looking up to the sky that we fail to notice the life beneath our feet. I love making soil. Layering plants, food and waste in just the right amounts. Feeding, watering and turning it as needed. Holding it in my hand as I feel the heat from the trillions of unseen bacteria. Watching as it transforms it right before my eyes. Nurturing it so it can sustain life. Life! The same life that me and you possess. It’s an entire universe in itself. When I eat food that has been grown with my compost I get the satisfaction that I have created a circle of life. I put some of that energy right back into the soil and then use it. It doesn’t matter if we are plants, animals or people. Decomposition is just a part of the circle of life.”
― Rebecca Ryder, The Dream To End All Dreams