Then on your tombstone, where you only get a little bit of space to sum up your life, some wax-faced creep chisels a set of meaningless numbers instead of poetry or a secret love or the name of your favorite candy.

In the end, all you get is a few words.

Death looses its sting when the epitaph drafted for the tombstone of the departed even by those with whom he crossed swords in his lifetime is filled with encomiums.

I never understood why when you died, you didn't just vanish, everything should just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn't be there. I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say 'figment'.

Here lies Dobby, a free elf.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

The most touching epitaph I ever encountered was on the tombstone of the printer of Edinburgh. It said simply: ''He kept down the cost and set the type right.''