Damned

What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.

No, it’s not fair, but what makes earth feel like Hell is our expectation that it should feel like Heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. It won’t help the situation for you to get all upset.

Actually, watching television and surfing the Internet are really excellent practice for being dead.

Life is short, death is forever

Help me give up my addiction to Hope.

Death is a long process," Archer says. "Your body is just the first part of you that croaks." Meaning: Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. And your anger about investing a lifetime in learning shit and loving people and earning money, only to have all that crap come to basically nothing. Really, your physical body dying is the easy part. Beyond that, your memories must die. And your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope, all that Personal Identity Crap can take centuries to expire.

Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break.

If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes.

How miserably hypocritical, you might say, but no sooner am I offered a chance to flee Hell than I yearn to stay. Few families hold their relations as closely as do prisons. Few marriages sustain the high level of passion that exists between criminals and those who seek to bring them to justice. It’s no wonder the Zodiac Killer flirted so relentlessly with the police. Or that Jack the Ripper courted and baited detectives with his - or her - coy letters. We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired.

All the demons of Hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. As each subsequent civilization became a dominant power, among its first acts was to depose and demonize whoever the previous culture had worshipped. The Jews attacked Belial, the god of the Babylonians. The Christians banished Pan and Loki anda Mars, the respective deities of the ancient Greeks and Celts and Romans. The Anglican British banned belief in the Australian aboriginal spirits known as the Mimi. Satan is depicted with cloven hooves because Pan had them, and he carries a pitchfork based on the trident carried by Neptune. As each deity was deposed, it was relegated to Hell. For gods so long accustomed to receiving tribute and loving attention, of course this status shift put them into a foul mood.

It's obsequious little nicety-nice girls like me who allow assholes to run the world: Miss Harlot O'Harlots, billionaire phony tree huggers, hypocrite drug-snorting, weed-puffing peace activists who fund the mass-murdering drug cartels and perpetuate crushing poverty in dirt-poor banana republics. It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities.

I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful.

No, it's not fair, but what makes earth feel like Hell is our expectation that it should feel like Heaven.

It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities.

Reread that Bronte book all you want, but Jane Eyre's never going to get gender-reassignment surgery or train to become a kick-ass ninja assassin.

You’ve thrown down the gauntlet. You’ve brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. But… If I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist… then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master.

If you ask me, most people have children just as their own enthusiasm about life begins to wane.

The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul.

It's not true that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. At least, not all of it. Some of your life might flash. Other portions of your life it might take you years and years to recall. That, I think, is the function of Hell: It's a place of remembering. Beyond that, the purpose of Hell is not so much to forget the details of our lives as it is to forgive them.

My parents meant well, but the road to Hell is paved with publicity stunts.

A woman eats to feed her pussy." Meaning: Anything we do to excess is in compensation for not getting a minimum amount of sexual gratification.

I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune... but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. I hope, therefore I am.

The truth is, Archer tells me, you stay in Hell until you forgive yourself. "You fucked up. Game over," he says, "so just relax.

If you ask me, people in hell just scream to hear their own voice and to pass time.

The first time we meet another person an insidious little voice in our heads says, "I might wear eyeglasses or be chunky around the hips or a girl, but at least I'm not Gay or Black or a Jew." Meaning: I may be me- but at least I have the good sense not to be YOU.

Really, just looking around, you feel a twinge of pity for the poor souls who succeeded in getting past the Pearly Gates. One can't help but picture the lackluster VIP lounge in Heaven, a kind of nonalcoholic ice-cream social starring Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mahatma Gandhi. Hardly anyone's idea of a "with-it" social register.

...,dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. Chapter I.

As the child outlives the father,so must the character bury the author.

In Hell, you'd be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. The same goes for earth.

Nevertheless, if you ask me, most people have children just as their own enthusiasm about life begins to wane. A child allows us to revisit the excitement we once felt about, well... everything. A generation later, our grandkids bump up our enthusiasm yet again. Reproducing is a kind of booster shot to keep us loving life.