All That Remains: A Life In Death Quotes
"I learned the value of a sharpened blade as I watched them manoeuvre their knives swiftly and skilfully around irregularly shaped bones."
"It is one of those moments nobody forgets because it assaults every single sense."
"You feel very small and insignificant when it dawns on you that here is someone who, in life, made the choice to give themselves in death to allow others to learn."
"Without systematic attention to death, life sciences would not be complete." - Elie Metchnikoff
"If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death." - Samuel Butler
"The dead are not as they are depicted in the movies by actors lying perfectly still as if in a deep sleep. There is a void in them which serves somehow to weaken the certainty of the bonds of recognition."
"Death and grief do strange things to a mind."
"It is the accompaniments of death that are frightful rather than death itself."
"To understand the roots of the fear of death, we may need to unpack it into three stages: dying, death, and being dead."
"Life is pleasant, death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome."
"Fear of death is often a justifiable fear of the unknown; of circumstances beyond our personal control."
"Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory."
"The measure of life is not its duration, but its donation."
"There is something about a closet that makes a skeleton terribly restless."
"We cannot die as long as there are people on earth who remember us."
"Perhaps the most extreme solution – and one neither advocated nor deemed socially acceptable today – would be to eat the deceased."
"A Franciscan apothecary from 1679 even gives us a recipe for human blood jam."
"Interestingly, according to one British academic lawyer, cannibalism is not in itself actually illegal in the UK."
"Grave reuse remains an emotive issue and raises religious, cultural and ethical concerns."
"The cities most affected are those that do not have a tradition of grave recycling."
"The 30 million feet of wood, 1.6 million tons of concrete, 750,000 gallons of embalming fluid and 90,000 tons of steel that are buried underground in the United States alone are a stark illustration of its polluting effects."
"Cremation burns away the organic components of the body leaving only pieces composed of dry and inert minerals, predominantly the calcium phosphates of the bones."
"In much of modern Europe the tradition of removing remains from cemeteries has naturally evolved into grave recycling."
"We had a dream team for the job at Old Monkland Cemetery."
"Without a body, investigating what has happened to the missing can be extremely difficult."
"Assigning biological sex becomes trickier as a body starts to decompose."
"An intact adult skeleton is actually already a reasonably reliable indicator of biological sex."
"Cephalopelvic disproportion was a justified fear for pregnant women in the past."
"The World Health Organisation reports an estimated 340,000 maternal deaths, 2.7 million stillbirths, and 3.1 million neonatal deaths every year."
"Determining the sex of an unidentified body correctly is very important."
"In life, pinpointing age accurately becomes more difficult the older people become."
"As Western culture views tallness as desirable and shortness as a disadvantage, most of us have a tendency to overestimate our own height."
"Our height is made up of the length and thickness of all of the components of our body."
"Defensive dismemberment occurs in about 85 per cent of cases."
"Over a hundred possible identities have been suggested for Jack the Ripper."
"The only predictable thing about a mass fatality is that it cannot be predicted."
"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark."
"In a world where accidents, forces of nature and malign intent can strip away the lives of those we care about in the blink of an eye, we need to be standing by, fully trained, to handle the aftermath swiftly and professionally."
"We must never forget that with disasters it is not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’."
"Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals."
"Differences and egos have to be put to one side and everyone must pull together for the common good."
"Sometimes, especially when it comes to the appalling death of an innocent, someone has to shed tears, and there was no reason why it shouldn’t be one of us."
"We cannot take on the suffering of the dead. That is not our job, and if we don’t do our job, then we help nobody."
"It is the living who terrify me. The dead are much more predictable and cooperative."
"It is important that we are honest and do not take credit for ideas that did not originate with us."
"If forensic experts allowed themselves to dwell on the immensity of human pain or on the gruesome spectacles we encounter, we would be ineffective scientists."
"The dead must have somewhere to reside until they move on to their final resting place."
"The one thing every student learns in a dissecting room is that no two bodies have identical anatomy."
"The trade we ply in this place of death may seem macabre to some but in reality it is anything but."
"We consider it our duty as licensed teachers of anatomy to speak on behalf of those who have chosen to donate their remains for the common good of priceless education."
"No computer, book, model or simulation could ever replace the multisensory impact of learning from the gold standard."