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I always wondered what hearing one's own obituary might sound like, and I sort of feel like I may have just heard part of it at least.

I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure.

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

Sometimes a famous subject may even outlive his own obituary writer.

I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.

Beyond being timely, an obituary has a more subjective duty: to assess its subject's impact.

All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.

When the 'Guardian' is commissioning writers to write obituary pieces about you and your career... it doesn't get much nastier than that. And you've just got to go, 'It doesn't actually matter.'

I don't listen to the news. I don't read the newspaper unless it's eccentric information - and the obituaries, of course.

A common defense among obituary-fanciers such as myself is that the obit is not about death at all. It is about life. This is true since an article about the condition of deadness would make for turgid reading at best.