Extinction by Thomas Bernhard

"I have often observed that people who throughout their lives have been judged repulsive and distasteful are spoken of after their death as though they had never been repulsive and distasteful. This has always struck me as tasteless and embarrassing. When someone dies, his death does not make him a different person, a better character: it does not make him a genius if he was an idiot, or a saint if he was a monster. . . After the death of somebody who throughout his life was a dreadful person, a thoroughly low character, how can I suddenly maintain that he was not a dreadful person, not a low character, but a good person? We daily witness such tastelessness when someone has died."
~~ from Extinction by Thomas Bernhard