# Quote — Robert Silverberg, Across a Billion Years

> The funeral customs of alien races defy all comprehension. So do the funeral customs of non-alien races. Can you explain to me the virtue of putting dead people in a box and burying the box in the ground?

- Author: [Robert Silverberg](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg.md)
- Book: [Across a Billion Years](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/across-a-billion-years.md)
- Page: 95
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Silverberg#Across_a_Billion_Years_(1969)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/across-a-billion-years/the-funeral-customs

## More from this book

> Now, you know I’m no bigot, Lorie. I don’t care how many eyes, tentacles, eating orifices, or antennae an organism happens to have, so long as it knows its stuff. What I object to is having someone who is professionally inferior jacked into an expedition simply for the sake of racial balance.

p. 14 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/across-a-billion-years/now-you-know.md)

> They equally detest our third boss, who is Pilazinool of Shilamak, the big expert on intuitive analysis. Which means the science of jumping to conclusions. He’s good at it.

p. 22 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/across-a-billion-years/they-equally-detest.md)

> The higher powers reward us most tenderly by their absence from our lives.

p. 153 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-silverberg/across-a-billion-years/the-higher-powers.md)