“There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven;”
"Gossip in a Library"
In the Name of the Bodleian, and Other Essays
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Augustine Birrell 11
British politician 1850–1933Related quotes

"The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid"
The Poems of Marianne Moore (2003)

Young America's Foundation conference at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW2SFGIIqFI#t=06m45s
2013

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there”
No known source in Oscar Wilde's works. Earliest known example of a similar quote comes from a 2001 usenet post https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.atheism/ZadPWBw-wew/G_3tx370wpoJ (not attributed to Wilde)
Attributed to Wilde on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/15736-i-don-t-want-to-go-to-heaven-none-of-my?page=83 some time on or before January 2008.
Bears some resemblance to Machiavelli's deathbed dream https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli#Disputed.
Disputed

“None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell.”
Savitri (1918-1950), Book Two : The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
Context: p>As in a studio of creative Death
The giant sons of Darkness sit and plan
The drama of the earth, their tragic stage.
All who would raise the fallen world must come
Under the dangerous arches of their power;
For even the radiant children of the gods
To darken their privilege is and dreadful right.
None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell.This too the traveller of the worlds must dare.</p

“Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.”
"Reading", p. 10
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“There is indeed a heaven on this earth, a heaven which we inhabit when we read a good book.”
Source: The Haunted Bookshop