Our thoughts and speech can often fail us when we are trying to express ourselves during a celebration of life ceremony. Here are some quotes that help you convey what you might be feeling at the moment 

Celebration of Life quotes for Parents

For Mothers,

Quote: All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

By: Abraham Lincoln

Quote: If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my own garden forever.

By: Alfred Jennyon 


Quote: Say not in grief that she is no more, but say in thankfulness that she was. A death is not the extinguishing of a light but the putting out of the lamp because the dawn has come.

By: Rabindranath Tagore


Quote: There is something about losing a mother that is permanent and inexpressible—a wound that will never quite heal

By: Susan Wiggs


Quote: Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.

By: Emily Dickinson 


Quote: A mom’s hug lasts long after she lets go.

By: Unknown


Quote: Mothers are like glue. Even when you can’t see them, they are still holding the family together.

By: Susan Gale


Quote: She made broken look beautiful and strong look invincible. She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings.

By: Ariana Dancu


Quote: Life doesn’t come with a manual — it comes with a mother.

By: Unknown 


For Fathers,

Quote: My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.

By: Clarence Budington Kelland


Quote: This is the price you pay for having a great father. You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments—and you get the tears at the end, too.

By: Harlan Coben


Quote: A father is the one friend upon whom we can always rely. In the hour of need, when all else fails, we remember him upon whose knees we sat when children.

By: Émile Gaboriau


Quote: My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.

By: Jim Valvano


Quote: There is no expiration date on the love between a father and his child.

By: Jennifer Williamson


Quote: A father is neither an anchor to hold us back, nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.

By: Unknown 


Quote: When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him lies on the paths of men.

By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 


For Parents,

Quote: No matter how far we’ve come — our parents are always in us.

By: Brad Meltzer,


Quote: Children learn to smile from their parents.

By: Shinichi Suzuki


Quote: A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.

By: Maya Angelou


Quote: The sands of time will never wash away the love that I have for you. Your sweet memory will remain forever in my heart.

By: Louise Hay


Quote: But I think, maybe, there is some validity in accepting that a part of you went with the person who died, and a part of them stayed with you.

By: Jane Wells

Celebration of Life quotes for significant other

Quote: They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.

By: William Penn

Quote: When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.

By: Madeline Miller

Quote: What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us. 

By: Helen Keller

Quote: Every life is noted and is cherished, and nothing loved is ever lost or perished.

By: Madeleine L’Engle

Quote: What was, still is.

By: Unknown

Quote: The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief, but the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love.

By: Hilary Stanton Zunin

Quote: Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

By: Dr Seuss

Quote: To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die

By: Thomas Campbell

Celebration of Life quotes for grandparents

Quote: Grandparents, like heroes, are as necessary to a child’s growth as vitamins.

By: Joyce Allston

Quote: When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing. And so, laughing and crying, we said goodbye to my grandmother. And when we said goodbye to one grandmother, we said goodbye to all of them.

By: Sherman Alexie

Quote: Grandpas bring a little wisdom, happiness, warmth, and love to every life they touch.

By: Kate Summers

Quote: A child needs a grandparent, anybody’s grandparent, to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world.

By: Charles and Ann Morse

Quote: Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.

By: Alex Haley

Quote: My grandpa taught me everything — except how to live without him.

By: Unknown

Quote: Grandmas hold our tiny hands for a little while, but our hearts forever

By: Unknown

Celebration of Life quotes for siblings or friends

Quote: You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

By: Desmond Tutu

Quote: How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.

By: Winnie the Pooh

Quote: The comfort of having a friend may be taken away but not that of having had one.

By: Seneca

Quote: Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends leave footprints in your heart.

By: Eleanor Roosevelt

Quote: Our family chain is broken and nothing seems the same, but as God calls us one by one the chain will link again.

By: Ron Tranmer

Quote: Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity.

By: Terri Guillemets

Quote: Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim

By: Vicki Harrison

Celebration of Life quotes to bring a bit of laughter

Quote: I am ready to meet my maker. Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

By: Winston Churchill 

Quote: Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

By: W. Somerset Maugham 

Quote: Death is nature’s way of saying, ‘Your table is ready.

By: Robin Williams

Quote: Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

By: Isaac Asimov 

Quote: I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.

By: Willa Cather