Quotes about heaven
page 8

“Say it, reader. Say the word "quest" out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn't it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope. so trthen despererux died i n heaven and in peace”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux (2004)

Peace, Hope

“I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Time and Eternity, p. 188
Collected Poems (1993)

God, Sea

“These moments were wondrous and divine, instances when the gossamer curtain between heaven and earth ripped and all of humanity witnessed the marvel of the ethereal beings.
Angelology pg. 32”

Danielle Trussoni book Angelology

Source: Angelology

“A happy familiy is but an earlier heaven.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Happiness

“So long as my body lives, and yours -- we are one flesh," he whispered, "And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours. Claire -- I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you.”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author

Hope, Soul, Parting

“Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

El infierno y el paraíso me parecen desproporcionados. Los actos de los hombres no merecen tanto.
As quoted in Borges Verbal (1999) edited by Pilar Bravo and Mario Paoletti, p. 156

Men, Hell

“How to Commit the Perfect Murder" was an old game in heaven. I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Game, Perfection

“Babies, we are told, are the latest news from heaven.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Baby

“I am so fed up and joyless that not only have I nothing to fill my soul, I cannot even conceive of anything that could possibly satisfy it - alas, not even the bliss of heaven.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Soul

“I don't believe in Heaven or anything. But I want to be the kind of person that qualifies for entry anyway.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

Personality

“No, there is no escape. There is no heaven with a little of hell in it - no place to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Hell, Heart

“I worry about a lot of things, but I don’t worry about achievements. I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in Heaven.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

“Heaven is important, but its not the end of the world”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

World

“Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Love, Death

“We are healed to help others. We are blessed to be a blessing. We are saved to serve, not to sit around and wait for heaven.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Waiting, Help

“She was tired of everyone wanting to go to heaven, nobody wanting to die. The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Life, World, Beauty

“Love in your mind produces love in your life. This is the meaning of heaven.
Fear in your mind produces fear in your life. This is the meaning of hell.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Love, Life, Fear, Hell

“Wherever there's laughter, there is heaven.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Ring of Endless Light

Source: A Ring of Endless Light

Laughter

“Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Angels, Home, Heart, Joy

“We may speak about a place where there are no tears, no death, no fear, no night; but those are just the benefits of heaven. The beauty of heaven is seeing God.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Knowing His Heart, Feeling His Love

Death, God, Fear, Beauty

“No one knows better than I do how far heaven is, but I also know all the shortcuts. The secret is to die, when you want to, and not when He proposes. Or else to force Him to take you before your time.”

Juan Rulfo book Pedro Páramo

Source: Pedro Páramo

Secret, Time

“I do what I do without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require Heaven or Hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently.”

Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow

Source: The Sparrow

Fear, Hope, Hell

“Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale.”

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) Italian writer

Source: Fortune's Fool

World, Evil

“Sure baby, mañana. It was always mañana. For the next few weeks that was all I heard––mañana a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Love, Baby

“Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Sometimes a bone
Is flung.

To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only heaven.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Love, People, Joy

“Hill House, she thought, You're as hard to get into as heaven.”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House

Housing

“According to the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth. It is man’s prerogative - and woman’s - to create their own particular and private hell.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Source: The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories

God, Hell

“No, he is not a ghost; he is a man of Heaven and earth, that is all.”

Gaston Leroux (1868–1927) French writer

“You are Joseph the dreamer of dreams, dear Jude.
And a tragic Don Quixote. And sometimes you are St. Stephen, who, while they
were stoning him, could see Heaven opened. Oh, my poor friend and comrade,
you'll suffer yet!”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Source: Jude the Obscure

Dreams, Suffering

“They say all marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

Marriage, Funny

“In the great debate that has raged for centuries about what, if anything, happens to you after death, be it heaven, hell, purgatory or extinction, one thing has never been in doubt - that you would at least know the answer when you were dead.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Death, Hell, Rage, Dead

“Some kids get called 'bundles of joy' or 'slices of heaven' or 'dreams come true.' We got 'the fifty-fourth generation of DNA experiments.' Doesn't have the same warm and fuzzy feel. But maybe I'm oversensitive.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Dreams, Feeling, Joy

“It's the child who's supposed to cry, and the mom who makes it all better, not the other way around, which is why mothers will move heaven and earth to hold it together in front of their own kids.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Way, Moms, Cry

“If warm air rises, Heaven could be hotter than Hell.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Hell

“Chris:I forgive you.
Annie: For killing my children and my sweet husband?
Chris: For being so wonderful a guy would choose hell over heaven just to be around you.”

Richard Matheson book What Dreams May Come

Source: What Dreams May Come

Children, Guy, Forgiveness, Hell

“I dreamt a limitless book,
A book unbound,
Its leaves scattered in fantastic abundance
On every line there was a new horizon drawn,
New heavens supposed;
New states, new souls.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Books, Soul

“Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

Source: Old Christmas: From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving

Happiness, Smile, Light

“The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveler".”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Travel, Star, Nature, Light

“When I was little I bragged about my firefighting father: my father would go to heaven, because if he went to hell he would put out all the fires”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Hell

“I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud -
I build it bright to see, -
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Dreams, Housing

“This was heaven. "Hey, baby," Hugh said. Heaven just got canceled.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Baby

“Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies;
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

Lift Every Voice and Sing, st. 1 (1900).

Singing, Sea

“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.”

George Gordon Byron book Hebrew Melodies

She Walks in Beauty http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-SWB42.htm, st. 1. The subject of these lines was Mrs. R. Wilmot.—Berry Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 7. Hebrew Melodies (1815)

Beauty, Light, Night

“Boughton says he has more ideas about heaven every day. He said, "Mainly I just think about the splendors of the world and multiply by two. I'd multiply by ten or twelve if I had the energy.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

World, Idea, Thinking

“Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Love, Heart Touching

“People think of heaven as a paradise garden, a place where they can float on clouds and laze in rivers and mountains. But scenery without solace is meaningless.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

People, Mountain, Thinking

“I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

People, Idea, Thinking, Housing

“Once heaven is done with grandma, we'd like her back, thanks.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Grandma

“It was heaven. Forget angels, forget St. Peter and glittering harpsichords. Heaven was a dance in the arms of one's true love.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Love, Angels, Dance, Forgetting

“You're beautiful in battle…. Like an avenging angel come to deliver the justice of heaven."

"Funny. That is kind of why I'm here."

"Angels fall, Rose.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Justice, Beauty, Angels

“The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas.
The latter will get you to heaven.
Take your pick.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Knowing His Heart, Feeling His Love

God

“Once, in second grade, Kate drew a picture of a firefighter with a halo above his helmet. She told her class that I would only be allowed to go to Heaven, because if I went to Hell, I'd put out all the fires.
~Brian Fitzgerald”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Hell

“If they invent a four legged chicken," Will said, "Horace will think he's gone to Heaven.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Erak's Ransom

Thinking

“Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another’s loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.”

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

The Clod and the Pebble, st. 3
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)
Source: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

Love, Hell, Loss, Joy

“Heaven would never be heaven without you.”

Richard Matheson book What Dreams May Come

Source: What Dreams May Come

For Him, For Boyfriend

“But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future´s sakes.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"Two Tramps in Mud Time" (1936), st. 9
General sources

Love, Future

“Sometimes you've got to go through hell to get to heaven.”

Dean Karnazes (1962) American distance runner

Source: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

Hell

“All these books are published in Heaven.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Books

“Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

"Lazarus" · Video at YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8 Song lyrics, Blackstar (2016) Context: Look up here, I’m in heaven I’ve got scars that can’t be seen I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen Everybody knows me now Look up here, man, I’m in danger I’ve got nothing left to lose I’m so high it makes my brain whirl Dropped my cell phone down below Ain’t that just like me

“That's what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

Sense

“Oh, good grief! I’ve never had a man pick me up before and not grunt like he’s dying. I’m in heaven. Marry me, Ash, please! (Pam)
I would say yes, but I come with more baggage than even Samsonite can cover. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

“With the moon walk, the religious myth that sustained these notions could no longer be held. With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens. (105)”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

“God owns heaven but He craves the earth.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

God

“Poor Wales. So far from Heaven, so close to England.”

Sharon Kay Penman (1945) American historical novelist

Source: Here be Dragons

“To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Hell

“Here's my question: What age are you when you're in Heaven?”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Age, Question

“The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read.
They taught me I had a language in heaven
and another language on earth.”

Mahmoud Darwich (1941–2008) Palestinian writer

Source: Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems

Star, Reading

“Summer romances end for all kinds of reasons. But when all is said and done, they have one thing in common: They are shooting stars-a spectacular moment of light in the heavens, a fleeting glimpse of eternity. And in a flash, they're gone.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Star, Light, Summer

“A calm despair, without angry convulsions or reproaches directed at heaven, is the essence of wisdom.”

Alfred De Vigny (1797–1863) French poet, playwright, and novelist

Un désespoir paisible, sans convulsions de colère et sans reproches au ciel est la sagesse même. Page 32 http://books.google.com/books?id=BVdHAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Un+d%C3%A9sespoir+paisible,+sans+convulsions+de+col%C3%A8re+et+sans+reproches+au+ciel+est+la+sagesse+m%C3%AAme%22&pg=PA32#v=onepage. Journal d'un poète (1867)

Wisdom, Despair

“From every place below the skies
The grateful song, the fervent prayer,—
The incense of the heart, —may rise
To heaven, and find acceptance there.”

John Pierpont (1785–1866) American writer

Every Place a Temple, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "This is that incense of the heart / Whose fragrance smells to heaven" Nathaniel Cotton, The Fireside, stanza 11.

Heart

“Heaven is not gained by a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies;
And we mount to its summit round by round.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881) Novelist, poet, editor

Variant: Heaven is not gained by a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies;
And we mount to its summit round by round.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 564.

“Considered as the last finish of education, or of human culture, worth and acquirement, the art of speech is noble, and even divine; it is like the kindling of a Heaven's light to show us what a glorious world exists, and has perfected itself, in a man.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

World, Education, Art, Light

“Tomorrow and on every anniversary as long as the Happier Hunting Ground existed a postcard would go to Mr. Joyboy: Your little Aimée is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you.”

Evelyn Waugh book The Loved One

Source: The Loved One (1948), Chapter 10

Thinking

“Anchorites used to ill-treat themselves in the way they did, so that the common people would not begrudge them the beatitude they would enjoy in heaven.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

People, Way

“He took his way to the abode of sacred Loyalty, seeking to discover her hidden purpose. It chanced that the goddess, who loves solitude, was then in a distant region of heaven, pondering in her heart the high concerns of the gods. Then he who gave peace to Nemea accosted her thus with reverence: "Goddess more ancient than Jupiter, glory of gods and men, without whom neither sea nor land finds peace, sister of Justice…"”
Ad limina sanctae contendit Fidei secretaque pectora temptat. arcanis dea laeta polo tum forte remoto caelicolum magnas uoluebat conscia curas. quam tali adloquitur Nemeae pacator honore: 'Ante Iouem generata, decus diuumque hominumque, qua sine non tellus pacem, non aequora norunt, iustitiae consors...'

Silius Italicus Punica

Book II, lines 479–486
Punica

Love, Men, God, Peace

“Pleasant to bring back the divisions of a parish;
Also pleasant to us the time of paradise.
Pleasant, the moon, a luminary in the heavens;
Also pleasant where there is a good rememberer.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Pleasant Things of Taliesin

Time

“Tombed in the solid night of starless space;
From nearest living orb so far removed,
That light, of all material things most swift,
Myriads on myriads of earth's years must speed,
Ere the mere outskirts of that Stygian gloom,
If ever, it might reach,-at rest eterne,
Lies the cold wreck of an extinguished sun.
Prime glory once of all heaven's radiant host;
Body, for soul of purest light most fit-
'Tween its first darkening, and eclipse complete,
Streamed years which might eternity appear;
While into ether, like the particles,
Invisible, which are the breath of flowers,
The mighty bulk its softer elements
Still ever was exhaling. As when flesh
And sinew of earth's monster Mastodon,
By the slow wasting of the elements,
All are dissolved, and hard, enduring bones
Alone remain,- even so, of this immense,-
When, by the ocean waves of centuries,
Millions succeeding millions, worn away,-
The adamantine skeleton alone,
In darkness, silence, utter solitude,
A ruin for eternity, was left.”

Edwin Atherstone (1788–1872) British writer

Israel in Egypt, Book the First (1861)

Soul, Flowers, Solitude, Light

“They married well because the marriage-place
Was what they loved. It was neither heaven nor hell.
They were love’s characters come face to face.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Give Pleasure

Love, Marriage, Hell

“In Heaven all reviews will be favorable; here on earth, the publisher realizes, plausibility demands an occasional bad one, some convincing lump in all that leaven, and he accepts it somewhat as a theologian accepts Evil.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Contemporary Poetry Criticism”, p. 140
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Evil

“Vows with so much passion, swears with so much grace,
That ’t is a kind of heaven to be deluded by him.”

Nathaniel Lee The Rival Queens

Act i., Sc. 3.
The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great (1677)

Passion

“He was worried lest during his late discontent he had imperiled his salvation. He was not quite sure there was a Heaven to be attained, but Dr. John Jennison said there was, and Babbitt was not going to take a chance.”

Sinclair Lewis book Babbitt

Babbitt (1922), Ch. 34

Chance

“The life of Jesus was a translation into humanity, of the life of God, as far as man is capable of discerning the latter. In the same way, the church is not something born on earth which grew to divine proportions and significance, but a translation into terms of space and time of the divine community eternally existent in heaven.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Location unknown
The Christian Agnostic (1965)

Life, God, Way, Communication

“I’ve moved heaven and earth to find you.”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: The Skin Map (2010), p. 420

“If this is heaven ahm bailin' out!”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Mutiny (1993), Mutiny in Heaven

“The original language of the Divine Principle is Korean, so if you want to become a true authority on the subject you must learn Korean. What if, when you go to the Kingdom of Heaven. the only language is Korean? You would be in deep trouble! Later on. when the Unification Church becomes larger, the official language of our church will be Korean. All official conferences and meetings will be conducted in Korean.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

Our Pledge http://www.unification.net/1982/821121.html (1982-11-21)

Learning

“Fools make researches and wise men exploit them—that is our earthly way of dealing with the question, and we thank Heaven for an assumed abundance of financially impotent and sufficiently ingenious fools.”

H. G. Wells book A Modern Utopia

Source: A Modern Utopia (1905), Ch. 2, sect. 5

Men, Fools, Way, Question

“The Southern emperor rules the Southern land.
Our destiny is writ in Heaven's Book.
How dare ye bandits trespass on our soil?
Ye shall meet your undoing at our hands!”

Lý Thường Kiệt (1019–1105) Vietnamese general and poet

"The Southern emperor rules the Southern land", in An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems, trans. Huỳnh Sanh Thông (Yale University Press, 1996), ISBN 978-0300064100

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