Quotes about hell
page 17

Steven Wright photo

“I need one of those baby-monitors for my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I'm really thinking about.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

When the Leaves Blow Away (2006), I Still Have a Pony (2007)

Ralph Ellison photo
John le Carré photo
Bill Engvall photo
Steven Crowder photo
Steven Pressfield photo
Nastassja Kinski photo
P. D. James photo
Max Beckmann photo
Roger Ebert photo

“I remember when hard-core first became commonplace, and there were discussions about what it would be like if a serious director ever made a porn movie. The answer, judging by Anatomy of Hell, is that the audience would decide they did not require such a serious director after all.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/anatomy-of-hell-2004 of Anatomy of Hell (12 November 2004)
Reviews, One-star reviews

Algis Budrys photo
James K. Morrow photo
William Blake photo

“The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils' party without knowing it.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Note to The Voice of the Devil
1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)

John Steinbeck photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Jerry Coyne photo

““HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”
That’s the question you should always ask believers when they make unsupported assertions, ranging from “God is loving” to “Our souls live on after death.” The answer will always be one of two things: “The Bible says so,” or “I just know it to be true.” Neither of those are rational answers, but they satisfy the religious.
It is in fact the “how-do-you-know-that” query that really distinguishes New Atheism from Old. While atheists have always decried the lack of evidence for theism, it is the infusion of scientists and science-friendly people into atheism, starting with Carl Sagan and continuing on to Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Pinker, and Dennett, that has made us realize that religious dogmas are in fact hypotheses, and you need reasons and evidence for accepting them. If you have none, then you have no reason to believe in God.
Nevertheless, religious dogma does change, but not because theology has found better reasons. It’s because a.) science has shown the dogma to be false (Genesis, Adam and Eve, creation, the Exodus, etc.) or b.) secular morality has shown that the tenets of religious belief are no longer supportable”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

hell as a place of fire, limbo, discrimination against gays, the Mormons’ refusal to let blacks be priests, etc.
" Catholic official says that angels exist but are wingless http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/catholic-official-says-that-angels-exist-but-are-wingless/" December 21, 2013

Nigel Cumberland photo

“Success is the accomplishment of any number of possible aims, dreams, aspirations or goals. It’s very personal and unique to you. Your greatest desire could be someone else’s idea of hell; you might want to be an award-winning chef while your best friend hates cooking.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

John Fante photo
Robert Lynn Asprin photo
Robin Morgan photo
Howard F. Lyman photo
Russell Crowe photo
Meat Loaf photo

“You gotta understand that people attach me and Jim Steinman. But you really have to attach Todd Rundgren to that. … you really have to credit Todd Rundgren for the initial mark. Yes, Steinman had things in his head. And, yes, I had some things in my head; I had how “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” should sound in my head. Jim had how “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” should sound in his head. But pulling things out of your head and accomplishing them, and somebody else trying to accomplish them, is a remarkable feat. … So not taking anything away from Jim, ‘cause Jim is an absolute genius and one of the smartest people that I’ve ever known, and I consider him one of my best friends. But, y’know, sometimes, people just… they pigeonhole things, and they go, “Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf.” And my thing is, no, stop it! Because the Bat Out of Hell records are this: it’s a big wheel, and everybody is a spoke in that wheel… and, at different times as that wheel’s turning, different people have more input than others. It’s, like, as a wheel turns, the bottom spokes take more than the top spokes…but, pretty soon, those are gonna be the bottom spokes, and their import is more. And, so, that’s how that goes with the Bat Out of Hell records… and that’s exactly Bat Out of Hell III.”

Meat Loaf (1947) American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor

On credit for the Bat out of Hell albums.
A chat with Meat Loaf (2006)

Edmund Hillary photo

“I am hell-bent for the South Pole — God willing and crevasses permitting.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Comment (28 December 1957) eight days before he reached the South Pole as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, as quoted in news summaries (5 January 1958)

Jacques Maritain photo
Alexander Blok photo

“Hell and damnation,
life is such fun
with a ragged greatcoat
and a Jerry gun!”

The Twelve (1918); translation from Jon Stallworthy and Peter France (trans.) The Twelve, and Other Poems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 147.

Shamini Flint photo

“Twenty years ago I had been invited to a seminar on Hurdles To Secularism… There were four or five Muslim participants present in that seminar…. They were invited to speak next. But they all smiled and said that they had nothing to add to what their ‘Hindu brethren’ had already said so ‘loudly and so lucidly’. And then all of a sudden I saw some fireworks from the same silent and satisfied Islamic fraternity. They had all stood up, shaking with uncontrollable rage, and were shouting at the same time, “He is lying!” They were pointing their fingers at the gentleman who had been invited to speak by the president, and who had said only a few sentences…. This was the late Hamid Dalwai. I had heard of him. But this was the first time I saw him. He was a tall man with a slight stoop, a smiling face, and a rather relaxed self-possession. He was saying, “All that has been said about Hindu communalism today is nothing new. We have heard it for the nth time. The intention of the working paper of this seminar, however, was to highlight for the first time what has so far been ignored by all progressive people who swear by secularism. What I want to expose today is Muslim communalism which has already divided the motherland, and which is still strong enough to poison our body-politic…”
It was at this point that the Muslim gentlemen had stood up and started shouting… All hell now broke loose as the Islamic fraternity stood up again, and started shouting that they had not come to the seminar to be insulted by “a hired hoodlum of the RSS fascists”. JP could restrain them no more, and declared the proceedings closed with a note of anguish in his voice.”

Hamid Dalwai (1932–1977) Indian social reformer, thinker and writer

About Hamid Dalwai at a seminar. Goel, S. R. (1994). Defence of Hindu society.
About

Miguel de Unamuno photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Robbie Williams photo

“Hell is gone and heaven's here,
there’s nothing left for you to fear.”

Robbie Williams (1974) British singer and entertainer

Let Me Entertain You
Life Thru a Lens (1997)

Andrea Dworkin photo

“I know a hell of a lot about intercourse. I wish I knew less.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Norah Vincent, Sex, Love and Politics, id., p. 40, col. 4.

Jeff Foxworthy photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: I can't help but feel a little resp… hell, who am I kidding? I feel like I started this whole thing. This is all my fault. I've been at the epicenter of everything controversial ever since you took over—actually, since before that, I'm sure you remember, John-Boy.
Cena: I was there.
Punk: You were there. I'm the guy that made walking out look cool. The thing about is I think everybody in the parking lot having a picnic right now have completely misunderstood what I was trying to do. See, I didn't break my contract, I didn't break my word. My contract expired, and I was trying to prove a point to an entire company, not just one man. If anybody has any reason to walk out of the WWE, well you can probably put me at the top of that list. I mean, my microphone constantly cuts out, your friend Kevin Nash runs through the… well, slowly, briskly runs through the crowd, jumps me and screws me not once, but twice. Somebody here doesn't want me to be the WWE Champion. The thing about it is this entire industry is based on men solving their problems in between these ropes. This is the company that gives you Hell in a Cell, this is the company that gives you the Elimination Chamber. I don't wanna sound like a broken record, but "unsafe working environment"? I thrive on that! Hell, this is professional wrestling, this ain't ballet! If you believe in something, you stand and you fight, and you fight on the front line; you don't have a hippie sit-in and grill tofu dogs in the parking lot like a bunch of hippies. [To Triple H] When I had a problem with you and your authority, I dealt with you personally. [To Cena] And you, you big boy scout, when I had a problem with you being the poster boy for this company, I dealt with you personally. Shea-Mo, I'm sure sooner or later, you're gonna step on my toes, I will deal with you personally. Now, I know you three smiley good guys look across the ring from me, and I'm the last guy you expect to see here, [to Triple H] and I know I'm the last guy you expect to see in the foxhole with you. But you know what? Here I am. So… so I got a question—what do we do now?
Triple H: "What do we do now?" That's a big question, "what do we do now?" I say we do what we do on Monday Night Raw—we shut up and fight! How about this? As long as you guys are in agreement, Sheamus, you got yourself a match, fella. Tonight, right here, right now, you will go one-on-one with… [Punk raises his hand] one John Cena. And since I'm the only guy kinda wearing stripes out here, I'll referee. And, foxhole buddy, I got a whole table over there lined up with headphones and pipe bombs just waiting for you with your name on it. And if you want, you can go over there and say anything you feel like.
Punk: You want me to do commentary?!
Triple H: I want you to do commentary.
Punk: Can I wear your blazer?!
Triple H: You can even wear my blazer!
Punk: I'm in!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

October 10, 2011
WWE Raw

John Major photo

“John Major: What I don't understand, Michael, is why such a complete wimp like me keeps winning everything.
Michael Brunson: You've said it, you said precisely that.
Major: I suppose Gus will tell me off for saying that, won't you Gus?
Brunson: No, no, no … it's a fair point. The trouble is that people are not perceiving you as winning.
Major: Oh, I know … why not? Because…
Brunson: Because rotten sods like me, I suppose, don't get the message clear [laughs].
Major: No, no, no. I wasn't going to say that - well partly that, yes, partly because of S-H-one-Ts like you, yes, that's perfectly right. But also because those people who are opposing our European policy have said the way to oppose the Government on the European policy is to attack me personally. The Labour Party started before the last election. It has been picked up and it is just one of these fashionable things that slips into the Parliamentary system and it is an easy way to proceed.
Brunson: But I mean you … has been overshadowed … my point is there, not just the fact that you have been overshadowed by Maastricht and people don't…
Major: The real problem is this…
Brunson: But you've also had all the other problems on top - the Mellors, the Mates … and it's like a blanket - you use the phrase 'masking tape' but I mean that's it, isn't it?
Major: Even, even, even, as an ex-whip I can't stop people sleeping with other people if they ought not, and various things like that. But the real problem is…
Brunson: I've heard other people in the Cabinet say 'Why the hell didn't he get rid of Mates on Day One?' Mates was a fly, you could have swatted him away.
Major: Yeah, well, they did not say that at the time, I have to tell you. And I can tell you what they would have said if I had. They'd have said 'This man was being set up. He was trying to do his job for his constituent. He had done nothing improper, as the Cabinet Secretary told me. It was an act of gross injustice to have got rid of him'. Nobody knew what I knew at the time. But the real problem is that one has a tiny majority. Don't overlook that. I could have all these clever and decisive things that people wanted me to do and I would have split the Conservative Party into smithereens. And you would have said, Aren't you a ham-fisted leader? You've broken up the Conservative Party.
Brunson: No, well would you? If people come along and…
Major: Most people in the Cabinet, if you ask them sensibly, would tell you that, yes. Don't underestimate the bitterness of European policy until it is settled - It is settled now.
Brunson: Three of them - perhaps we had better not mention open names in this room - perhaps the three of them would have - if you'd done certain things, they would have come along and said, 'Prime Minister, we resign'. So you say 'Fine, you resign'.
Major: We all know which three that is. Now think that through. Think it through from my perspective. You are Prime Minister. You have got a majority of 18. You have got a party still harking back to a golden age that never was but is now invented. And you have three rightwing members of the Cabinet actually resigned. What happens in the parliamentary party?
Brunson: They create a lot of fuss but you have probably got three damn good ministers in the Cabinet to replace them.
Major: Oh, I can bring in other people into the Cabinet, that is right, but where do you think most of this poison has come from? It is coming from the dispossessed and the never-possessed. You and I can both think of ex-ministers who are going around causing all sorts of trouble. Would you like three more of the bastards out there? What's the Lyndon Johnson, er, maxim?
Brunson: If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.
Major: No, that's not what I had in mind, though it's pretty good.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Andrew Culf, "What the `wimp' really said to the S-H-one-T", The Guardian, 26 July 1993.
'Off-the-record' exchange with ITN reporter Michael Brunson following videotaped interview, 23 July 1993. Neither Major nor Brunson realised their microphones were still live and being recorded by BBC staff preparing for a subsequent interview; the tape was swiftly leaked to the Daily Mirror.

“The one from among the Muslims who recites the Qur'an but in the end finds his way to hell, is considerd to be among those that have taken the word of Allah in jest.”

Ali (601–661) cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol. 92, p. 182.
Regarding the Qur'an

Joseph McCabe photo

“Any body of men who believe in hell will persecute whenever they have the power.”

Joseph McCabe (1867–1955) British writer

What Gods Cost Man (1933).

H.L. Mencken photo

“I would go to heaven, but I would take my hell; I would not go alone.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Iría al paraíso, pero con mi infierno; solo, no.
Voces (1943)

Aldous Huxley photo
Will Eisner photo
J.B. Priestley photo
John Updike photo
Omar Bradley photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Thomas Brooks photo
Philip K. Dick photo
Kent Hovind photo

“Satan is using evolution theory to make kids go to hell.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

As quoted by Zlati Meyer, "Creation v Evolution Topic of Student Forum: A FLA. Evangelist Spoke at Pennridge High School", The Philadelphia Inquirer, (Nov 10, 2000)

Jonathan Edwards photo

“You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell.”

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)

Octave Mirbeau photo

“Desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual ideal of hell and its horror.”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright
Rex Ryan photo

“How much motivation are they going to get by putting a quote from me on the wall saying that I believe in my football team […] If that's where you're going to draw motivation from, hell, we'll probably kick your”

Rex Ryan (1962) American football coach

butt
[NY Jets coach Rex Ryan takes swipe at New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2009/08/ny_jets_coach_rex_ryan_takes_v.html, The Star-Ledger, Advance Publications, Hutchinson, Dave, August 18, 2009, http://www.webcitation.org/5x47EWTG5, March 9, 2011, March 9, 2011]

Alan Moore photo
Dave Barry photo
William Blake photo

“Grown old in love from seven till seven times seven,
I oft have wished for Hell for ease from Heaven.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Grown Old in Love
1800s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1807-1809)

Thom Yorke photo

“But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here
I don't belong here”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

Creep
Lyrics, Pablo Honey (1993)

Mark Heard photo
Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
Tim McGraw photo
David Berg photo
Edvard Munch photo
Brian Keith photo
Isaac Watts photo
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne photo

“Mankind, from Adam, have been women's fools;
Women, from Eve, have been the devil's tools:
Heaven might have spar'd one torment when we fell;
Not left us women, or not threatened hell.”

George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735) 1st Baron Lansdowne

She-Gallants; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), "Women", p. 886-97.

Stephen Baxter photo
Isaac Watts photo

“Just as a tree cut down, that fell
To north, or southward, there it lies:
So man departs to heaven or hell,
Fix'd in the state wherein he dies.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Song 10: "Solemn Thoughts of God and Death".
1710s, Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)

Common (rapper) photo
Thomas Brooks photo

“Many are now dropped into hell that have formerly presumed of their going to heaven.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Heaven On Earth, 1654

Emil M. Cioran photo

“The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

“[Henry, to Rod] "Hell's not a place, Rod, it's something people do to each other."”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: The Burning Plain (1997), p.304 (Chapter 23)

Barry Goldwater photo
Robert W. Service photo

“But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell... and that one is Dan McGrew.”

Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Canadian poet

The Shooting of Dan McGrew http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/service_r_w/dan_mcgrew.html (1907)

Donald J. Trump photo
Jay-Z photo
Elliott Smith photo

“I met a girl, snowball in hell she was hard and as cracked as the liberty bell.<BR”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

Don't Go Down.
Lyrics, From a Basement on the Hill (posthumous, 2004)

Andrei Sakharov photo
Sher Shah Suri photo

“…Upon this, Sher Shah turned again towards Kalinjar… The Raja of Kalinjar, Kirat Sing, did not come out to meet him. So he ordered the fort to be invested, and threw up mounds against it, and in a short time the mounds rose so high that they overtopped the fort. The men who were in the streets and houses were exposed, and the Afghans shot them with their arrows and muskets from off the mounds. The cause of this tedious mode of capturing the fort was this. Among the women of Raja Kirat Sing was a Patar slave-girl, that is a dancing-girl. The king had heard exceeding praise of her, and he considered how to get possession of her, for he feared lest if he stormed the fort, the Raja Kirat Sing would certainly make a jauhar, and would burn the girl…
“On Friday, the 9th of RabI’u-l awwal, 952 A. H., when one watch and two hours of the day was over, Sher Shah called for his breakfast, and ate with his ‘ulama and priests, without whom he never breakfasted. In the midst of breakfast, Shaikh NizAm said, ‘There is nothing equal to a religious war against the infidels. If you be slain you become a martyr, if you live you become a ghazi.’ When Sher Shah had finished eating his breakfast, he ordered Darya Khan to bring loaded shells, and went up to the top of a mound, and with his own hand shot off many arrows, and said, ‘Darya Khan comes not; he delays very long.’ But when they were at last brought, Sher Shah came down from the mound, and stood where they were placed. While the men were employed in discharging them, by the will of Allah Almighty, one shell full of gunpowder struck on the gate of the fort and broke, and came and fell where a great number of other shells were placed. Those which were loaded all began to explode. Shaikh Halil, Shaikh Nizam, and other learned men, and most of the others escaped and were not burnt, but they brought out Sher Shah partially burnt. A young princess who was standing by the rockets was burnt to death. When Sher Shah was carried into his tent, all his nobles assembled in darbAr; and he sent for ‘Isa Khan Hajib and Masnad Khan Kalkapur, the son-in-law of Isa Khan, and the paternal uncle of the author, to come into his tent, and ordered them to take the fort while he was yet alive. When ‘Isa Khan came out and told the chiefs that it was Sher Shah’s order that they should attack on every side and capture the fort, men came and swarmed out instantly on every side like ants and locusts; and by the time of afternoon prayers captured the fort, putting every one to the sword, and sending all the infidels to hell. About the hour of evening prayers, the intelligence of the victory reached Sher Shah, and marks of joy and pleasure appeared on his countenance. Raja Kirat Sing, with seventy men, remained in a house. Kutb Khan the whole night long watched the house in person lest the Raja should escape. Sher Shah said to his sons that none of his nobles need watch the house, so that the Raja escaped out of the house, and the labour and trouble of this long watching was lost. The next day at sunrise, however, they took the Raja alive…””

Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545) founder of Sur Empire in Northern India

Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi of Abbas Khan Sherwani in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume IV, pp. 407-09. Quoted in S.R.Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition

Robert Frost photo
Farkas Bolyai photo

“No monument should stand over my grave, only an apple-tree, in memory of the three apples; the two of Eve and Paris, which made hell out of earth, and that of I. Newton, which elevated the earth again into the circle of heavenly bodies.”

Farkas Bolyai (1775–1856) Hungarian mathematician

As quoted by Florian Cajori, A History of Mathematics (1893) p. 303, citing Franz Schmidt, "Aus dem Leben zweier ungarischer Mathematiker Johann und Wolfgang Bolyai von Bolya," Grunert's Archiv, 48:2, 1868.

John of St. Samson photo

“…the really damned not only like Hell, they feel loyal to it…”

Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 1, p. 28

Christopher Marlowe photo

“When all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that are not heaven.”

Mephistopheles, Act II, scene i, line 120. In the first line, Marlowe references Isaiah in Isaiah 24:19 and 34:4; in the second line, he references Daniel in Daniel 12:10.
Doctor Faustus (c. 1603)

Susan Neiman photo
Scott Lynch photo

““Why the hell are you here?”
“A matter of conscience.”
“Really?” said Locke. “Yours? You keep alluding to its existence. Somehow I’m not convinced.””

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 9 “The Five-Year Game: Reasonable Doubt” section 1 (p. 543)

Ray Bradbury photo
Harry Warner photo

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”

Harry Warner (1881–1958) Film studio executive

Full comment: "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? The music — that's the big plus about this."
Harry Warner, Warner Bros., as movies with sound made their debut in 1927 ( "Tech titans wish we wouldn't quote them on this baloney" http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/maney/2005-07-05-famous-quotes_x.htm)

Thomas Edison photo

“I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

As quoted in Jesus : Myth Or Reality? (2006) by Ian Curtis, p. 289.
Date unknown

E.M. Forster photo
William Morris photo
Sinclair Lewis photo