“In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it’s the worst kind of hell for those who love you.”
Source: Lady Sings the Blues (1956), Ch. 24.
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Billie Holiday 26
American jazz singer and songwriter 1915–1959Related quotes
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Context: If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
I would also want a God who would not allow a Hell. Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God?
I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.
“If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
Source: Abiola Abrams The Sacred Bombshell Handbook of Self-Love: The 11 Secrets of Feminine Power http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ILK0AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT30, El Dorado Publishing, 25 June 2014, p. 30
“You inflict eternal punishment on people,” Julie countered.
“Merely because it’s our job. And remember, we persecute only the guilty, which puts us one up on most other institutions.”
Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 9 (p. 162)
“If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic.”
Source: Wide Sargasso Sea