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How to Choose Quotations for a Eulogy
Guide To Choosing Quotes For a Eulogy
There are few things most people will do in life harder than giving a eulogy. When eulogizing a loved one, you might fear that your own words won’t suffice in summing up this person’s long life.
If so, finding appropriate quotations for a eulogy might enhance the proper eulogy you intend on giving. Choosing quotations for a eulogy can be difficult in and of itself, because you don’t want to misrepresent what this person was about or what they cared for.
So here’s a how-to for choosing proper quotations for a eulogy.
1. Choose a Theme For Your Eulogy
Eulogies can take many forms. Some celebrate the life of the deceased, describing what made this person a unique individual. Others celebrate a quality or character trait of this person, from their religious devotion to sense of humor to their exuberance for life. Some eulogies discuss the devotion the person had to their family or their community. Whatever the case, choose a defining quality for your loved one and focus on that quality. This will be the theme of your eulogy.
Almost always, the person eulogizing a person is a friend with lots of memories of this person. Go over your memories of this person when considering their defining qualities. List their positive qualities and then select one that stands out. This should be relatively simple, if you know the person well.
2. Learn About the Deceased
If you don’t immediately know, learn about what the deceased liked the most of anything in life. Maybe the person was devout religiously, so a Biblical quote would work best. Maybe the person had a favorite band and a quote from their favorite song would work best. If the person loved to read, then learn their favorite books and find appropriate quotations from those books. If the person loved movies above everything else, then find out what their favorite movie was and make an appropriate citation from that film.
3. Match a Quotation to the Theme of Your Eulogy
Once you have a theme for your eulogy, start to consider quotes that fit that theme. If you choose a quote simply because you like it, but it doesn’t fit the theme of your eulogy, the quotation is going to seem out of place and won’t be effective. Don’t choose a quotation you want read at your eulogy. Think about the person you have in mind and select a quote for them.
4. Make the Quotations Fit the Deceased
Don’t quote words that would have no meaning to the deceased or that weren’t special to your loved one. Don’t quote pop song lyrics for an elderly deceased who was devout. Don’t quote the Bible if the person you are eulogizing wasn’t devout and was deeply immersed on a pop culture niche. Choose your quotations to fit your loved one. Make the quotes appropriate.
5. Write the Eulogy
Write out the words you mean to speak in the eulogy. Organize your thoughts and try to have a beginning, middle and end. Try to stick with the theme of the eulogy, while devoting enough time to properly sum up this person’s life and persona.
6. Build a List of Possible Quotations
Go through any number of sources and collect quotes that might work. Use books, record jackets, quote books or (probably best) the Internet to find these quotations. Once you have these quotations, start to read them along with the speech you have written. Once you read through them, figure out which one works best within your eulogy.
7. Choose Quotations For the Eulogy
Once you have your eulogy written and a list of possible quotes, choose one or two appropriate quotations for your friend’s eulogy. Any more than two and the quotations are likely to be a distraction. Normally, I would suggest one quotation to set up the theme of your eulogy, then perhaps one near the end of the eulogy. One quotation per eulogy works just as well, usually found towards the beginning of the eulogy.
See also:
- How to Use Quotations in Your Writing
- How to Write an Inspirational Greeting Card
- How to Use Quotes in Speeches and Presentations
- Love Quotes from Poems
- Love Quotes from the Bible
- Tips, Tools, and Resources for Writers
- Writing Paper
This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 6:32 pm and is filed under How To Guides, Quotes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Quotes are well-suited to eulogies, just be sure to choose a quote that captures the mood of the day. If your eulogy is a celebration of the deceased’s life then avoid sombre quotes similarly if you are delivering a touching, emotional eulogy then humorous quotes will be unsuitable.