quotations about Hell
The extreme horribleness of hell, as portrayed by priests and nuns, is inflated to compensate for its implausibility. If hell were plausible, it would only have to be moderately unpleasant in order to deter. Given that it is so unlikely to be true, it has to be advertised as very very scary indeed.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Gonzo Papers
Imagine some foul and putrid corpse that has lain rotting and decomposing in the grave, a jelly-like mass of liquid corruption. Imagine such a corpse a prey to flames, devoured by the fire of burning brimstone and giving off dense choking fumes of nauseous loathsome decomposition. And then imagine this sickening stench, multiplied a millionfold and a millionfold again from the millions upon millions of fetid carcasses massed together in the reeking darkness, a huge and rotting human fungus. Imagine all this, and you will have some idea of the horror of the stench of hell.
JAMES JOYCE
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Hell is no less than the eternal and second death, in its utmost extent and terror, as, just in all respects the opposite to eternal life, 'tis the most finished misery of the wicked, wherein they are ternally separated from the pleasing perception of God, and the fruition of all kinds of good, confined in chains of despair and darkness, under the lively and afflicting sense of the punishing vengeance of the Deity, justly kindled and continually flaming against them for their offensive actions, and in a wise and equitable proportion to the measure of those offenses. So that they are filled with incessant stings and horrors of conscience, and tormented in soul and body with such painful and raging flames, as will forever distress, but never consume their bodies, or destroy a lively consciousness of guilt in their souls to all eternity.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
I think hell is something you carry around with you. Not somewhere you go
NEIL GAIMAN
Season of Mists
Forever, we hear of hell. During the Middle Ages, people had nightmares that were filled with visions of it. They feared hell. Talk of hell went in and out of fashion. As the Catholic Church's power broke with the Protestant divisions, hell and its clost friends of spiritualism and witchcraft gained tenuous hold. Enlightenment eroded hell's horrors and civilization learned tolerance for the Underworld. Today we believe in hell, but we don't want to believe it could be waiting for us. Hell is cold. It is lonely. It is filled with the dispossessed, the bad, the ugly, and the things about which we choose not to remember. Hell is a leftover idea from our past that we could best do without. The problem is that it will not do without us.
S. KAYE SAUNDERS
Hell Exposed
I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity.
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Perhaps people take umbrage at a God who condemns people to hell because they feel like they're already there.
CRAIG DETWEILER
A Purple State of Mind
The only reason people go to bars is to get drunk and have sex. To me, bars are what hell is like.
CLAY AIKEN
Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of Hell.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Misalliance
Hell doesn't make God less loving. It reveals the depth of his love, which went to hell and back for us.
PHIL MOORE
Straight to the Heart of Matthew
Maybe that's what Hell is. You go mad. And all your demons come and get you just as fast as you can think them up.
ANNE RICE
Memnoch the Devil
Hell's my wife's home town.
BOB DYLAN
"My Wife's Home Town"
The Justice of God demands there be an everlasting hell, both as a punishment for the wicked and as a deterrent against those contemplating wickedness.
DAVID MICHAEL LINDSEY
The Woman and the Dragon
All right, God, send me to hell. You think You're frightening me with Your hell, don't You? You think Your hell is worse than mine.
DOROTHY PARKER
"A Telephone Call"
Let me say to you here very clearly: it is my firm opinion, and it is my foremost conviction, and it is what I fervently preach, that HELL IS HOT.
SHELTON L. SMITH
Hell is for Real!
If hell has no answer for the questioning dead, it is not because it refuses to answer (for rigorous, alas, in observance, is the imperishable fire), but it is because hell has nothing to say, will say nothing eternally.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Joy