Quotes about afterlife

A collection of quotes on the topic of afterlife, people, life, believer.

Quotes about afterlife

Kurt Cobain photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo

“About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.”

In A Man Without a Country (2005) p. 80–81 Vonnegut makes a very similar statement:
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
Context: About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves "Freethinkers," which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, "If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?"
I myself have written, "If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."

Margherita Hack photo
Stephen Hawking photo
Stephen Hawking photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Arianna Huffington photo

“Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an afterlife.”

Arianna Huffington (1950) Greek-American author and syndicated columnist

[The Female Woman, 1973, Davis-Poynter, London, ISBN 0706700988, unspecified page, unspecified chapter]

Stephen Hawking photo

“We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Quoted from the Discovery Channel, 15 August 2011.
"Stephen Hawking There is no God. There is no Fate." from episode 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7VTdzuY7Y · [Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?, http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/did-god-create-the-universe.htm, Discovery Communications, LLC., 7 August 2011, 4 July 2013]
Curiosity (2011)

Temple Grandin photo
Greg Graffin photo

“Our faith should be expressed in working toward a better planet for our children and not the selfish, juvenile hope for a better afterlife for ourselves. I don't think anyone is going to Hell, because it only exists in the minds of people who wish ill will on others.”

Greg Graffin (1964) American musician

Bozell, Brent, Punk Rockers Knock Christmas, townhall.com, December 20, 2013, http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2013/12/20/punk-rockers-knock-christmas-n1766181, 2013-12-25

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Rick Riordan photo
Douglas Adams photo
Brandon Sanderson photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

As quoted in Philosophy on the Go (2007) by Joey Green, p. 222
General sources

Daniel Wallace photo
Tom Robbins photo

“…to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell.”

Variant: To concentrate on heaven is to create hell.
Source: Skinny Legs and All (1990)

Rick Riordan photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Carrie Fisher photo
Michael Ignatieff photo
Rick Riordan photo
Leo Buscaglia photo
David Levithan photo
William H. McNeill photo
Amit Chaudhuri photo
Halldór Laxness photo

“In the afterlife, people never forget to feed the dog.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Friðrik the elf doctor
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Tad Williams photo

“It was impossible to see warfare as anything other than what Morgenes had once termed it: a kind of hell on earth that impatient mankind had arranged so it would not have to wait for the afterlife.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 12, “Raven’s Dance” (p. 392).

Matt Dillahunty photo
Lucius Shepard photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo
John Gray photo
Dana Gioia photo
Sheri-D Wilson photo

“There is an afterlife to love
and there is love in the afterlife.”

Sheri-D Wilson (1958) Canadian Spoken Word Poet

"Heart"
Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe (2012)

Philip José Farmer photo
James K. Morrow photo
George W. Bush photo
Pat Condell photo

“But just because I believe that religion is a cynical perversion of the human spirit that exists purely for the benefit of the parasites we know as clergy, doesn't mean I'm not looking for answers to the big questions just like everybody else — you know, the questions that religion pretends it has answers to, because it knows that for some people, anyone answer is better than no answer at all. Questions like, Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going?…Is there an afterlife, and if so, is it fully licensed for alcoholic drinks? That last bit may seem like a trivial concern to you, but not to me, because I live in a society where many people enjoy a social drink from time to time — not a huge amount, just enough to kill a horse. And in these enlightened days of the twenty-first century, when everyone's human rights and cultural identity are so very important, I don't see why I should have to abandon my culture, just because I'm dead. It's only the afterlife, not Saudi Arabia. Let's keep things in perspective. Of course in reality, we know that there will be beer in heaven, and lots of it, otherwise it wouldn't be heaven, would it? It's almost not even worth pointing that out, but I thought I would anyway, just in case someone wants to take the opportunity to be offended.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"God is not enough" (23 May 2008) http://youtube.com/watch?v=1czXvHSjDac&feature=related)
2008

Zygmunt Bauman photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Woody Allen photo
Lisa Randall photo
Woody Allen photo

“I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.”

"Conversations with Helmholtz"
Getting Even (1971)

Edward St. Aubyn photo
John Updike photo

“The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise for the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6

Adam Roberts photo
Philip José Farmer photo

“All the human beings I met were either sure that there would be no afterlife or else that they would get preferential treatment in the hereafter.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Source: The Riverworld series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971), Chapter 4 (p. 17)

Craig Venter photo
Ann Druyan photo

“When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance.... That pure chance could be so generous and so kind.... That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time.... That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful.... The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.”

Ann Druyan (1949) American author and producer

Ann Druyan interviewed by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. — "Ann Druyan Talks About Science, Religion, Wonder, Awe … and Carl Sagan" http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ann_druyan_talks_about_science_religion/. Skeptical Inquirer 27 (6). November–December 2003.

Jerry Coyne photo
Derren Brown photo
Robert Lanza photo
Roger Ebert photo

“The film's coda provides a vision of an afterlife, a desolate landscape on which quiet people solemnly recognize and greet one another, and all is understood in the fullness of time.”

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

Review of The Tree of Life (2 June 2011) http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110602/REVIEWS/110609998
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives. The only other film I've seen with this boldness of vision is Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it lacked Malick's fierce evocation of human feeling. … I don't know when a film has connected more immediately with my own personal experience. In uncanny ways, the central events of The Tree of Life reflect a time and place I lived in, and the boys in it are me. If I set out to make an autobiographical film, and if I had Malick's gift, it would look so much like this. … There is a father who maintains discipline and a mother who exudes forgiveness, and long summer days of play and idleness and urgent unsaid questions about the meaning of things. … The film's portrait of everyday life, inspired by Malick's memories of his hometown of Waco, Texas, is bounded by two immensities, one of space and time, and the other of spirituality. The Tree of Life has awe-inspiring visuals suggesting the birth and expansion of the universe, the appearance of life on a microscopic level and the evolution of species. This process leads to the present moment, and to all of us. We were created in the Big Bang and over untold millions of years, molecules formed themselves into, well, you and me.
And what comes after? In whispered words near the beginning, "nature" and "grace" are heard. … The film's coda provides a vision of an afterlife, a desolate landscape on which quiet people solemnly recognize and greet one another, and all is understood in the fullness of time.

Carl Sagan photo

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Context: I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

Philip José Farmer photo

“It was like no hell or heaven of which he had ever heard or read, and he had thought that he was acquainted with every theory of the afterlife.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Source: The Riverworld series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971), Chapter 1 (pp. 3-4)
Context: It was like no hell or heaven of which he had ever heard or read, and he had thought that he was acquainted with every theory of the afterlife.
He had died. Now he was alive. He had scoffed all his life at a life-after-death. For once, he could not deny that he had been wrong. But there was no one present to say, "I told you so, you damned infidel!"
Of all the millions, he alone was awake.

James K. Morrow photo
John Prine photo

“When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand
Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand
Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock-n-roll band
Check into a swell hotel, ain't the afterlife grand?”

John Prine (1946–2020) American country singer/songwriter

"When I Get to Heaven" · Live performance on Austin City Limits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKPDFQRmG_M · Lyric video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0EiV423j0M
Song lyrics, The Tree of Forgiveness (2018)

Porochista Khakpour photo

“I like ghosts as a metaphor for the outsider. I wish they were real; that would be my preferred afterlife plan. I'd love to observe and haunt with little involvement—I guess that's what being a writer is.”

Porochista Khakpour (1978) American writer

On the appearance of ghosts in Sick in “'THIS BOOK KEPT ME ALIVE': A CONVERSATION WITH POROCHISTA KHAKPOUR” https://psmag.com/social-justice/this-book-kept-me-alive-a-conversation-with-porochista-khakpour in Pacific Standard (2018 Jun 5)