APOCALYPSE QUOTES III
quotations about the Apocalypse
The time of the apocalypse is divided between full stop (or, better, full stop with exclamation mark) and present continuous. It is ending and continuity at one and the same time. Apocalyptic indicates the end of time -- the ultimate rupture. But this co-exists in an awkward, disjunctive tension with another time, the present continuous, the time of survival and bathos; the time of (not least) continuing to produce, dust down and curate the apocalyptic archive.... The world, the film and the rolling corpus of apocalyptic all go on turning long after the gods call time.
YVONNE SHERWOOD
"Napalm Falling like Prostitutes"
We can understand that the Fathers of the Church in the East wanted Apocalypse left out of the New Testament. But like Judas among the disciples, it was inevitable that it should be included. The Apocalypse is the feet of clay to the grand Christian image. And down crashes the image, on the weakness of these very feet. There is Jesus--but there is also John the Divine. There is Christian love--and there is Christian envy. The former would "save" the world--the latter will never be satisfied till it has destroyed the world. They are two sides of the same medal.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation
Let us think today of the prospect of sharing in a sublime and blessed existence such as is portrayed in the text of the Apocalypse before us, and let us ask ourselves whether it should or should not make any difference in our present state of being.
HENRY PARRY LIDDON
Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
As humans, we tend to construct narratives around things we don't understand, especially when such things appear to have an arbitrary, limitless power. Dramatic, civilization-shaking events seem too meaningful to happen by pure chance -- they seem like some sort of divine punishment. As a result, apocalypse narratives throughout history have often come with strong moral connotations. There are recurring themes in the eschatological mythology of many different cultures, often concerning a final battle between good and evil, with the righteous ascending to paradise and the latter condemned to hell. (Or, alternatively, they'll be left behind on a godless and righteous-less Earth, which is implied to be pretty much the same thing.)
TOM HAWKING
"Not With a Bang: What If the Apocalypse Already Happened, and No One Noticed?", Flavorwire, March 7, 2016
It's also interesting to think about how people are acting in the light of the impending apocalypse. They can either throw away their life's structures and act on base desires (like Paradise Island), or they can live out their life normally, like the cops who still feel the need to arrest criminals.
ELENA ZHANG
"You, Me and the Apocalypse Season 1 Episode 7 Review: T Minus", TV Fanatic, March 10, 2016
What about your apocalypse then? Well, the universe is a leaf on a time-tree, and come autumn it's going to shrivel and fall off into hell.
CHINA MIEVILLE
Kraken
That "incision" made by the 9/11 hijackers opened a gaping wound that never really healed. And it's not just random acts of terror that are fueling our apocalyptic nightmares. We're living in a 24/7 news cycle of catastrophe -- plagues, floods, unending wars, all available for our viewing pleasure at the touch of a button, and often unavoidable thanks to the omnipresent screens in public spaces such as airports and gyms.
SARAH GOODYEAR
"Doomsday Scenarios", New York Daily News, February 23, 2016
That's great, it starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, an aeroplane, and Lenny Bruce is not afraid
R.E.M.
"It's the End of the World as We Know It"
The end has always been nigh. Where we once saw lightning and volcanoes as doomsday omens, we've subbed in climate change, oil dependencies, nukes, and world leaders tweeting pictures of engraved lethal weapons. This panic! at the eschaton disco has always been overblown, but if the world were to end, I've got to admit there's a tiny, black splinter in my brain stoked by the prospect.
BEN GUARINO
"How Psychotic Is It to Secretly Want the Apocalypse", Inverse, February 17, 2016
I have heard the languages of apocalypse, and now I shall embrace the silence.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Sandman: Endless Nights
Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.
LUKE 21:36
I think the whole focus on the end of the world is too focused on us. We've hardly been here as a species. Life had been so simple until the last billion years.
LAWFORD ANDERSON
"Apocalyptic theories, misconceptions revealed during BU panel", Daily Free Press, February 16, 2016
Any time a country is forced to rely on the conscience of a politician, absolute apocalypse is imminent.
RICHARD POPLAK
"Trainspotter: Been spendin' most our lives livin' in Gupta' Paradise", Daily Maverick, March 16, 2016
According to the Mayans, the world is supposed to end in the year 2012. Are you buying that? When's the last time you even ran into a Mayan?
JAY LENO
The Tonight Show, Jan. 4, 2012
Long may this mindless gore-filled juggernaut thunder on. The apocalypse is so much better than real life.
LUCY MANGAN
"Behind Closed Doors review: a full-blooded look at domestic abuse", The Guardian, March 15, 2016
When the end times are upon us, we'll know. This is a reassuring idea, in its own curious way: in ages past, we lived in a world where great changes seemed to happen at the whim of chance. An earthquake, a wildfire, or a volcano didn't mean the literal end of the world, but it could well mean the end of your world -- even if you weren't killed in the cataclysm, you'd be left in a society that would have changed irrevocably. Metaphorically, then, the apocalypse came to represent human fears of the way everything could be taken away in a single, unexpected moment.
TOM HAWKING
"Not With a Bang: What If the Apocalypse Already Happened, and No One Noticed?", Flavorwire, March 7, 2016
Here was a different way to interpret the Bible's eschatology. The end of the world meant the end of injustice, the kingdom of God meant a just society, and the return of Christ meant following him on earth.
REGINALD STACKHOUSE
The End of the World?
Ours is not a perfect world, and therefore the old must die in order that the young, that which is more perfect or at any rate capable of greater perfection, may live. Thus death becomes a thing necessary and useful in the evolution of the whole; the destruction of one celestial body contributes to the progress of the rest of the universe.
MAX WILHELM MEYER
The End of the World
What silence rules the ghostly hours
That guard the close of human sleep!
GEORGE STERLING
"The Testimony of the Suns"
If the apocalypse is scheduled for tomorrow at three, I want someone to tell me that the next 24 hours are going to be AWESOME--like the American Century, but just condensed.
JIM NELSON
"Vote for a Bitter Tomorrow!", GQ, March 3, 2016