It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is unfamiliar. In spite of the fact that it happens all the time, we never see it.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004), a Swiss-American psychiatrist, became a leading public voice in the late 1960s–1970s for bringing the experiences of dying patients into medical and popular conversation. Her work argued that modern Western life—especially hospital-based medicine—tends to sequester dying people from everyday view, replacing communal rituals with professionalized, often hidden processes. The quote reflects her broader critique that death is simultaneously ubiquitous and socially “invisible,” which in turn makes it harder for individuals and families to face mortality with familiarity or preparation. It aligns with themes she developed in her lectures and writings on death, dying, and the need for more open, humane engagement with end-of-life realities.

Kübler-Ross is pointing to a paradox: death is a constant fact of life, yet cultural practices can make it feel rare and alien. When dying is removed from homes and communities and placed behind institutional doors, people lose firsthand contact with the processes of decline, caregiving, and farewell. The result is not merely ignorance but anxiety—death becomes an abstract terror rather than a familiar human passage. The quote implies that acceptance is partly a social skill: societies that allow death to be seen, spoken about, and ritually acknowledged may help individuals meet it with less denial and fear. It also critiques a culture of avoidance that can leave the dying and bereaved isolated.