Heaven Or Hell Quotes

Do you think this is it? That the life we have here on earth is all we'll have together?"
He looked at me with a half smile on his face. "I believe that true love exists. And I believe there are souls in this world that are meant to be together in this life and anything that comes after. After all this time, I've finally got you where I want you. There's nothing in heaven or hell that could keep us apart. ~ Liliana Hart

She believed in herself maybe more than other people believed in God or the devil or Heaven or Hell. ~ John Corey Whaley

I'm not afraid of death. What's to fear? Once you're dead, that's it. Nothing. I don't believe in heaven or hell. That's baloney. What matters is the here and now. Yes, I'm 88, and there are things I can't do: I can't run a race or climb Everest. But isn't life magnificent? ~ Patrick Macnee

Once Shepard asked to Mahavatar Babaji, 'Where on earth is heaven or hell'? He said, 'there is no heaven or hell, those places were created by humans, the only place which supreme lord created was mother earth, those who know how to love themselves will know this truth.', poor Shepard started to love himself and was happy ever after. ~ Santosh Kalwar

You will know you are in love when it doesn't matter if you sit in heaven or hell with that special someone just as long as they can make you laugh, while you put out the fires. ~ Shannon L. Alder

This life is a path more than just going to heaven or hell, it's a way of testing ourselves everyday. I feel that there is more to getting into heaven than just doing what is right or wrong, I feel it's a way of testing our maturely, and to see if we are able to grow as a person inside and out, and to know that we have learn from our mistakes, life is a way of testing us to see if we know the meaning about this life. ~ Austin V. Songer

But it's believed the soul can stay on earth for three to forty days after death. It eventually recieves temporary judgment that sends it on from this world to heaven or hell-although no one will truly experience either until the actual Judgment Day, when the soul and body are reunited to live out eternity as one. ~ Richelle Mead

IT IS YOUR JOB TO PROTECT THE UNITY OF YOUR CHURCH. Unity in the church is so important that the New Testament gives more attention to it than to either heaven or hell. God deeply desires that we experience oneness and harmony with each other. Unity is the soul of fellowship. Destroy it, and you rip the heart out of Christ's Body. It is the essence, the core, of how God intends for us to experience life together in his church. Our supreme model for unity is the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are completely unified as one. God himself is the highest example of sacrificial love, humble other-centeredness, and perfect harmony. ~ Rick Warren

Marriage may be the closest thing to Heaven or Hell any of us will know on this earth. ~ Edwin Louis Cole

A Woman's Question

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the Hand above?
A woman's heart, and a woman's life---
And a woman's wonderful love.

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy?
Demanding what others have died to win,
With a reckless dash of boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Manlike, you have questioned me.
Now stand at the bars of my woman's soul
Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirt be whole;
I require your heart be true as God's stars
And as pure as His heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef,
I require a far greater thing;
A seamstress you're wanting for socks and shirts---
I look for a man and a king.

A king for the beautiful realm called Home,
And a man that his Maker, God,
Shall look upon as He did on the first
And say: "It is very good."

I am fair and young, but the rose may fade
From this soft young cheek one day;
Will you love me then 'mid the falling leaves,
As you did 'mong the blossoms of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and true,
I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
Joshua Harris

The first twenty-four hours of a young man's life in London usually settled his eternity in heaven or hell. ~ George Williams

Love can take you to heaven or hell, but it will always take you somewhere. ~ Paulo Coelho

Groin' is a funny word," Babe said quietly. "I don't know the German for it, but I'm sure you do." He began to talk more quickly then, because he could tell Szell was starting to die. "Oh, maybe you didn't see it in the papers, but they've made this fabulous theological discovery, do you know what they've found? People don't go to heaven or hell, they all go to one spot first, sort of a way station, and that's were things happen, because, you probably won't believe this, but some people on this earth have been known to do bad things to other people, innocent people, and at this way station, the innocent people wait, and then when their savager comes, they get to exact a little portion of revenge. God says revenge is good for the soul. Do you know who's waiting for you, Mr. Szell? All the Jews. They're all there, and you know what else? They've all got drills, like you used on me - remember how you said how wonderful it was, anyone could learn that, how to use them? Well, they have and they're waiting, and I don't know about you, but I think it's gonna be terrific."

Szell was almost dead now, but Babe just had time to get it in.

Have a swell eternity," Babe said... ~ William Goldman

So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read. ~ Robert Graves

Heaven or Hell has ALWAYS been a choice one makes, and has never been a place one goes. ~ Raymond D. Longoria Jr.

These great turning-days of life cast no shadow before, slip by unconsciously. Only a trifle, a little turn of the rudder, and the ship goes to heaven or hell. ~ Rebecca Harding Davis

I found that I couldn't muster any belief in a literal heaven or hell, anyway. I thought the best we could all do was to look after one another and clean up the various hells we've made right here on earth. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Being an atheist means you have to realise that when you die, that really is it. You've got to make the most of what you've got here and spread as much influence as you can. I believe that you only live through the influence that you spread, whether that means having a kid or making music.
... I don't believe in heaven or hell, I don't really believe in that version. ~ Matthew Bellamy

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world. ~ Blaise Pascal

I think there are some who live on a knife-edge in the soul, and at times are driven to hurl themselves into the air, at the mercy of heaven or he'll which way to fall. ~ Ellis Peters

[C]oncepts of dying in to a heaven or hell seem a good deal more political than spiritual. (124) ~ Stephen Levine

I have tried if I could reach that great resolution ... to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell. ~ Thomas Browne

Vae Victus
suffering to the conquered. Ironic that now I was the one suffering. Not anything as pedestrian as physical pain. Rather the cruel jab of impotent anger
the hunger for revenge. I didn't care if I was in Heaven or Hell
all I wanted was to kill my assassins. Sometimes you get what you wish for. The Necromancer Mortanius offered me a chance for vengeance. And like a fool, I jumped at his offer without considering the cost. Nothing is free, not even revenge. ~ Denis Dyack

If I'm dead right now, I know it was at your hand. No one else in heaven or hell had power over me. Please don't cry, I was dead before I met you, I was born the day you loved me, and my love for you will keep me alive.. Forever. ~ Unknown

All you may know of heaven or hell is within your own self. ~ Edgar Cayce

Life is exactly what you make it; it can be a heaven or hell; it's all up to you. ~ Steven Redhead

The camera will never compete with the brush and palette until such time as photography can be taken to Heaven or Hell. ~ Edvard Munch

My whole life long I learn'd to love,
This hour my utmost art I prove.
And speak my passion - heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well! ~ Robert Browning

people made their own heaven or hell on earth. ~ Janice Cantore

While life on earth offers many choices, eternity offers only two: heaven or hell. Your relationship to God on earth will determine your relationship to him in eternity. ~ Rick Warren

At times, Zen does get into some Buddhist Cosmology. Nishijima Roshi, my main teacher would talk about that and almost every time immediately say that it was only one way of looking at it. Whenever addressing realms of Heaven or Hell, he'd also address that it was just a psychological state. ~ Brad Warner

I will be with you and there is nothing in heaven, or hell, that can keep me away. - Michael ~ Cameo Renae

They say you should never hide anything from your doctors and lawyers. Hiding from a doctor could lead your way to heaven (or hell). Hiding from a lawyer could land you behind bars. Doctors give you the right direction to your present and lawyers give a picture to your future. They need to know more than what you could share with your best of friends. ~ Shikha Kaul

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. ~ Walt Whitman

For a sweeter kiss had never been bestowed upon a girl. Not in storybooks or real life.
Not in heaven or hell. ~ Gwen Hayes

God, the devil, good, evil, it's all in our heads, not in Heaven or Hell, which we also invented. We do not realize that, having invented God, we immediately became His slaves. ~ Jose Saramago

It doesn't really matter where I go (Heaven or Hell). I'll have plenty of friends in both places. ~ Leslie Nielsen

Earth is heaven. Or hell. Your choice. ~ Wayne W. Dyer

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

Your so-called religions have made you very tense. Because they have created guilt in you. My effort here is to help you get rid of all guilt and all fear. I would like to tell you: there is no hell and no heaven. So don't be afraid of hell and don't be greedy for heaven. All that exists is this moment. You can make this moment a hell or a heaven - that certainly is possible - but there is no heaven or hell somewhere else. Hell is when you are all tense, and heaven is when you are all relaxed. Total relaxation is paradise. ~ Rajneesh

It is a mistake to reduce every decision about Christian living to a "Heaven-or-Hell issue."
For example, some ask if the Bible specifically says a certain action is a "sin" or will send them to "Hell." If not, they feel free to indulge in that action unreservedly and ignore any scriptural principles involved. But this approach is legalistic, which means living by rules or basing salvation on works. It treats the Bible as a law book, focusing on the letter and looking for loopholes.
By contrast, the Bible tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, not by our works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Grace teaches us how to live righteously, and faith leads us into obedience. (See Titus 2:11-12; Romans1:5; Hebrews 11:7-8.) ~ David K. Bernard

You know what? I really resent the idea that the only reason someone might be good or moral is because they're religious. I do what I do," Anne said, biting off each word, "without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require heaven or hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently, thank you very much. ~ Mary Doria Russell

What a man has made himself he will be; his state is the result of his past life, and his heaven or hell is in himself. ~ Catherine Crowe

Whether your destination is heaven or hell, you always have to change planes in Dallas. ~ Kinky Friedman

THOUGHTS
Heaven and hell are not geographic locations. The thoughts that you entertain create heaven or hell. ~ Sirshree

In the end, forever, you and I will be in Heaven or Hell. Period. ~ John Corapi

If you go to heaven, better earn it. If you go to hell, better earn it too! Either way, you'd better burn for what you live for and for where you are going. And you better get there knowing you burned for it. What do you feel? What do you want? What do you burn for? This is what makes you human, this is what gives you a soul. This is what earns you heaven or hell. ~ C. JoyBell C.

I don't know about Heaven or Hell, but I do know that we are visited all the time by the spirits of those who affected us in life. ~ Mitch Albom

The choice of heaven or hell starts right here on Earth. When we leave this life we will already know where we will go. ~ Mihail Militaru

Life is not a straight forward plain ... no linear pattern, simply A to B, and on to C and inevitably ending us up at Z, where we are the inevitably tossed by angels into heaven or hell. Progression is immaterial, time relative. For Jacob, life ebbed and flowed into complex woven conundrums of interrelatedness, of stops and starts and intervening presents transforming over and into elaborate and repeating futures. He believed that at all times man existed with one foot in heaven, another in hell, and everywhere in between and within lay his soul. ~ Nancy Young

What discordant vespers do the tinker's goods chime through the long twilight and over the brindled forest road, him stooped and hounded through the windy recrements of day like those old exiles who divorced of corporeality and enjoined ingress of heaven or hell wander forever the middle warrens spoorless increate and anathema. Hounded by grief, by guilt, or like this cheerless vendor clamored at heel through wood and fen by his own querulous and inconsolable wares in perennial tin malediction. ~ Cormac McCarthy

They say that in the second before our death, each of us understands the real reason for our existence, and out of that moment, heaven or hell is born. ~ Paulo Coelho

When I die I won't go to heaven or hell; there will just be nothingness. ~ Isaac Asimov

Man must learn to stand and walk with his spirit rather than crawl with his technology before he allows that technology - which is the physical expression of his spiritual Shadow - to destroy him. God's ultimate aim for Man is not known and not even knowable in our present state; we must become spiritually adult before we can even discover what God holds in store for us as a spiritual species; all previous ideas of Heaven (or Hell) or Second Comings or Judgment Days are childish attempts to come to terms with our own ignorance. ~ Iain Banks

most religions adhere to some form of determinism and predestination. Since God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, He knows the future, and hence the future is determined ahead of time. He knows even before you are born whether you will go to Heaven or Hell. The Catholic Church split in half on this precise question during the Protestant revolution. According to Catholic doctrine at that time, one could change one's ultimate fate with an indulgence, usually by making generous financial donations to the Church. In other words, determinism could be altered by the size of your wallet. ~ Michio Kaku

I hate that I've become one of those old men who visits a cemetery to be with his dead wife. When I was (much) younger I used to ask Kathy what the point would be. A pile of rotting meat and bones that used to be a person isn't a person anymore; it's just a pile of rotting meat and bones. The person is gone - off to heaven or hell or wherever or nowhere. You might as well visit a side of beef. When you get older you realize this is still the case. You just don't care. It's what you have. ~ John Scalzi

Oh, I suppose they're not exactly gone, those green boys. It's rather like a sapling turning into a tree. Can't scrape off the bark, and whittle it down until you find that sapling again, now can you? No, of course not. The sapling becomes an oak. Forever changed. The realities of that war will remain inside us through heaven or hell. Best try and face it, Ty. Running from it won't help. You'll never turn back into the innocent sapling you once were." Robert lifted his glass and grinned. "My friend, we've become a pair of gnarled old trees. ~ Kathleen Baldwin

If you think that one day you gonna lose the all data, you are kind of right from point of view of dead, yeah you will lose it in your mind. Your mind doesn't come in heaven or hell, does it?

From other point of view, from cyber point of view again yeah, you are right... one day everything dies. ~ Deyth Banger

A world without God to give people faith that all their suffering is not meaningless is a nightmare. A world without religion means a world without any systematic way of ennobling people. A world without countries is a world without the United States of America, and it is a world governed by the amoral United Nations, where mass murderers sit on "human rights" councils. A world without heaven or hell is a world without any ultimate justice, where torturers and their victims have identical fates. A world without possessions is a world in which some enormous state possesses everything, and the individual is reduced to the status of a well-fed serf. Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. What we fear is transforming that which is already good. The moral record of humanity does not fill us with optimism about "fundamentally transforming" something as rare as America. Evil is normal. America is not. ~ Dennis Prager

2:130
WHAT TO BEGIN NEXT

I can't decide what work, what study, to being next, among the several possible. If there is no spirit, no soul, no divine dimension or value, then whatever we do is just killing time, meaningless and idle. On the other hand, if God and the mystery of spirit overlap with this time and place in simultaneous layering, then anything we work on performs eternity and is the very motion of mystery. Each gesture and word and idea appears in this moment's presence and in the other as well. This is a great truth of being.

Whether a particular actions leads toward a future heaven or hell is not worth considering. Even when you will die is not important. Eternity creates itself at this point. This moment is where you grow nearer and nearer God. Time and the infinite curl together in every nick, touch, taw, tine, and root fiber. Here and now is where you can be shown the miracle of what continuously occurs. ~ Bahauddin

Love can take us to heaven or hell, but it always takes us somewhere. Therefore, be prepared to travel ... ~ Paulo Coelho

When ... I've thought of madness, it seems most easily explained to me as poetry in action. A life of symbol rather than reality. On paper one can understand Gulliver, or Kafka, or Dante. But let a man go about behaving as if he were a giant or a midget, or caught in a cosmic plot directed at himself, or in heaven or hell, and we feel horror - we want to disavow him to proclaim him as far removed as possible from ourselves. ~ Helen Eustis

I believe there is no heaven or hell. There are no devils or angels. No afterlife or salvation. My soul won't be incarnated or lost in the oblivion. One day, I will just stop existing ... and that's it! ~ Bhavya Kaushik

Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe? / Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du NOUVEAU! (rough translation : Into the abyss
Heaven or Hell, what difference does it make? / To the depths of the Unknown to find the NEW!) ~ Charles Baudelaire

Marriage is neither heaven or hell, it is merely purgatory. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Until your our last breath, lots of surprises waiting for you each day, and at those points you can't do anything, just wait, watch and react according to the situation like helpless kid.
After the last breath also, you don't know, even more surprises are there for you like heaven or hell.. Hahaha, it's the true meaning of life ... ~ Nutan Bajracharya

We do not believe in heaven or hell ... ; we do not believe in eternal damnation. We believe only in the unavoidable horror of hurting others and of likewise being hurt. ~ Alice Walker

Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see. Remember this. In this lies either Heaven or hell, as you elect. Manual ~ Robert Holden

Because with every action, comment, conversation, we have the choice to invite Heaven or Hell to Earth. ~ Rob Bell

She wasn't religious. She didn't believe in heaven or hell, only in ghosts, Ouija boards, tables which rapped and little inept voices speaking plaintively of flowers ~ Graham Greene

I care little in the existence of a heaven or hell; self respect does not allow me to guide my acts with an eye toward heavenly salvation or hellish punishment. I pursue the good in life because it is beautiful and attracts me; and shun the bad because it is ugly and repulsive. All our acts should originate from the spring of unselfish love, whether there be a continuation after death or not. ~ Heinrich Heine

We email, Facebook, tweet and text with people who are going to spend eternity in either heaven or hell. Our lives are too short to waste on mere temporal conversations when massive eternal realities hang in the balance. Just as you and I have no guarantee that we will live through the day, the people around us are not guaranteed tomorrow either. So let's be intentional about sewing the threads of the gospel into the fabric of our conversations every day, knowing that it will not always be easy, yet believing that eternity will always be worth it. ~ David Platt

The Bible teaches that you are an immortal soul. Your soul is eternal and will live forever ... the real you - the part of you that thinks, feels, dreams, aspires; the ego, the personality - will never die ... your soul will live forever in one of two places - heaven or hell. ~ Billy Graham

Buddhism suits me 'cuz nobody's in charge. Nobody's decidin' for me if I'm good or bad, goin' to heaven or hell. It's just me workin' on my head, you workin' your head, the friggin' Dalai Lama workin' on his head. ~ Ramez Naam

In The Touch, the love scenes are the same as they were in The Thorn Birds or anything else I've ever written. I find a way of saying that either it was heaven or hell but in a way that still leaves room for the reader to use their own imagination. ~ Colleen McCullough

He loved her beyond earth, heaven, or hell. Every moment out of her company was agony; every moment with her was the only peace he had ever known. Every touch of her hands left an imprint that ate down to his soul. He would have killed himself before admitting it to anyone. The truth was buried deep in his heart. ~ Lisa Kleypas

We would say homosexuality is not the original design for sexuality. Therefore, it's not good for human flourishing. We want people to do things that are good for human flourishing. But that's not what sends you to heaven or Hell. ~ Timothy Keller

Listen: it's got to be all honeymoon, always.
Either heaven, or hell:
no comfortable safe peaceful purgatory between
for you and me to wait in until good behavior or forbearance
or shame or repentance overtakes us. ~ William Faulkner

I don't think I can really believe in doomsday; I could hardly believe in rewards and punishments, in heaven or hell. As I wrote down in one of my sonnets - I seem to be always plagiarizing, imitating myself or somebody else for that matter - I think I am quite unworthy of heaven or of hell, and even of immortality. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Do you think there is heaven or hell? he signed.
'I don't know. Not in the Christian way, if that's what you mean. I think people have a right to believe in whatever they want. I just don't.'…
If someone came in here and gave you positive proof, would you do anything different?
She shook her head. 'I think it's just as likely that someone could say that this place, right here, is heaven, hell and earth all at the same time. And we still wouldn't know what to do differently. Everyone just muddles through, trying not to make too many mistakes. ~ David Wroblewski

Just understanding life as it is, and living it with courage; not escaping from it, not hiding from it, facing it with courage, whatsoever it is, good or bad, divine or evil, heaven or hell. ~ Osho

There's no place on Earth, feck, there's no place in all of heaven or hell that they'll ever be safe from me again! ~ Karen Marie Moning

You can live in heaven right now. Heaven or hell is here and now; you don't need to wait to die. If you take responsibility for your own life, for your own actions, then your future is in your hands, and you can live in heaven while your body is alive. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz

THE soul should always stand ajar,
That if the heaven inquire,
He will not be obliged to wait,
Or shy of troubling her.
Depart, before the host has slid
The bolt upon the door,
To seek for the accomplished guest,
Her visitor no more. ~ Emily Dickinson

CAMILLO Swear his thought over By each particular star in heaven and By all their influences, you may as well Forbid the sea for to obey the moon As, or by oath remove, or counsel shake The fabric of his folly, whose foundation Is pil'd upon his faith, and will continue The standing of his body. ~ William Shakespeare

We sang in church "Tata Nzolo"! Which means Father in Heaven or Father of Fish Bait depending on just how you sing it, and that pretty well summed up my quandry. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

It is no wonder that Mary loves our day and age. Thanks to persecution, we are giving more to her Son than any other age or day since Calvary. The Nazis in Germany, Austria, and Poland; The Reds in all the Balkan lands, Russia, and now in China, have done more for heaven than ever did the Roman Caesars, the kings and queens of England, or the madmen of the French Revolution. They have done more for the earth, too. For while peopling heaven with martyrs, they have also spread far and wide the grace of Christ Jesus, thanks to the oneness of His mystical body. ~ M. Raymond

Books are essential to me. I cannot live without them, because I cannot live without reading.

But, Arry has just said to me, you can always borrow them so why buy them?

I don't buy books just to collect them. I'm not a collector. I'm not interested in them as objects that might be valuable one day, regardless of what they are about, nor do I want to own every book ever written by one particular author or on one particular subject. I buy them because I want to read them, and I keep them because I've read them.

I can't afford to buy all the ones I'd like to, so I have to borrow quite a few, and this has taught me something about myself, which I haven't heard anyone else admit. When I've read a book which I really like, a book which MATTERS, I feel it belongs to me. I mean, the book itself, the copy I've read. It's as if I pour myself onto the pages as I read them, all my thoughts and emotions, so that by the time I've finished that copy holds inside it the essence of my reading.

A borrowed book has to be returned, so I lose this essence of myself when I give it back. Besides which, a borrowed book has inside it something of everyone else who's read it. They've fingered it and pawed over it, breathed on it, done heaven knows what else as well as read it. And knowing this spoils my reading. The other readers get in my way. I can feel their presence on the cover and on the pages. They even make it smell differently from my own books. In ~ Aidan Chambers

Believe me when I tell you this. It will just take a little time and you will one day find that all your loves have merged together. You will be surprised because you will find yourself laughing or smiling over a memory of me and that's when you will know that your tears will soon subside. I want you to be free to love again and to be happy when you are reminded of me! You'll get there, you'll see, and it will be sweet and beautiful with a few sentimental tears now and again for all the loves you have had. ~ Kate McGahan

We dance. Sweet, downcast, through-the-lashes-glances bely every beating she got at thirteen, every lash of the tongue from her dad at fourteen, every heroin high that let her out for awhile, every hour and day she had to be tough.

She is so natural and soft. Her shoulders are down, hips loose and swinging as we close together. I swear I'm growing chest hair just looking at her. I've been a boy in public before, but I've never seen her like this. That's it exactly; I haven't seen her at all, except in glimpses, in half-confessional role-play sex. And here she is - pressed tight against my chest, hips grinding against my crotch to the bass bump of the music. Her thigh along mine is electric heaven. Two drag queens cannot decide whether we are breeders or in drag. I stroke my mascara-made mustache at them - but none of it matters with hands in suede and the way she smiles. ~ Various

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you're dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. ~ Alan Watts

It's a lot to being a gangster, Harold," Sam replied. "If it's not in you, it's not in you. Everybody can't be a gangster; but just because a person chooses not to be one, it doesn't mean that he, or she, doesn't have it in them. A family person will hurt or kill you just as quickly as a street gangster would. Remember, gangsters don't have nothin' to lose, so getting killed, or killing somebody would mean nothing. On the other hand, a family man has a lot to lose, his kids, his wife, his family, so he'd kill someone to protect his family - or he'll die trying. Two different men fighting for the same purpose - the survival of him and his family. Which one's the real gangster? ~ Clever Black

I smoothed Colton's blanket across his chest and tucked him in snug the
way he liked - and for the first time since he started talking about heaven, I
intentionally tried to trip him up. "I remember you saying you stayed with
Pop," I said. "So when it got dark and you went home with Pop, what did
you two do?"
Suddenly serious, Colton scowled at me. "It doesn't get dark in heaven,
Dad! Who told you that?"
I held my ground. "What do you mean it doesn't get dark?"
"God and Jesus light up heaven. It never gets dark. It's always bright."
The joke was on me. Not only had Colton not fallen for the "when it gets
dark in heaven" trick, but he could tell me why it didn't get dark: "The city
does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives
it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. ~ Todd Burpo

When the boy sits up, ... , holds his holy votive tablet up with both hands as if to heaven, up at the level of his head like a priest raising the bread, cause this place is full of people who have eyes and choose to see nothing, who all talk into their hands as they peripatate and carry these votives, some the size of a hand, some the size of a face or a whole head, dedicated to saints perhaps or holy folk, and they look or talk to or pray to these tablets or icons all the while by holding them next to their heads or stroking them with fingers and staring only at them, signifying they must be heavy in their despair to be so consistently looking away from their world and so devoted to their icons. ~ Ali Smith

Because we cannot repair the loss of years away, homecomings are almost always conflicted. We are not longer at "home" in our former familiar place. And we do not live between two or more cultures, but rather in both. We are neither fully away, nor fully home.

In the pain of this tension, there is a strange blessing, a nudge that helps us to realise the fundamental sojourner status of our human existence. Life moves towards death. And for the Christian, there is the sense that this world as it is now is not our final home. Having made the return, our pilgrim status in the journey of faith becomes even more evident. This reminds us that in some strange way we are too early for heaven and too late for this world. ~ Charles Ringma

I can admire the solemn and stately language of worship that recognizes the greatness of God, but it will not warm my heart or express my soul until it has also blended therewith the joyful nearness of that perfect love that casts out fear and ventures to speak with our Father in heaven as a child speaks with its father on earth. My brother, no veil remains. ~ Charles Spurgeon

The more consciousness there is in such a sufferer who in despair wills to be himself, the more his despair intensifies and becomes demonic. It usually originates as follows. A self that in despair wills to be itself is pained in some distress or other that does not allow itself to be taken away from or separated from his concrete self. So now he makes precisely this torment the object of all his passion, and finally it becomes a demonic age. By now, even if God in heaven and all the angels offered to help him out of it- no, he does not want that, now it is too late. Once he would gladly have given everything to be rid of this agony, but he was kept waiting; now it is too late, now he would rather rage against everything and be the wronged victim of the whole world and of all life, and it is of particular significance to him to make sure that he has his torment on hand and that no one takes it away from him- for then he would not be able to demonstrate and prove to himself that he is right. This eventually becomes such a fixation that for an extremely strange reason he is afraid of eternity, afraid that it will separate him from his, demonically understood, infinite superiority over other men, his justification, demonically understood, for being what he is. ~ Søren Kierkegaard

Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call today his own: He who, secure within, can say, Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. ~ John Dryden

The desire intensified, burned, and consumed us until we let go of the world shattering around us. We surrendered and fell into the sweet abyss of love, our souls entwined, never to be broken on Earth or in Heaven. We were, and forever would be, as one. ~ Ashlan Thomas

He was a dark and stormy knight. A latter-day rake with eyes the color of emeralds worth a queen's ransom. His smile promised voyages to the moon. And heaven alone knew how many females lay littered in his wake.

To a rousing burst of Rachmaninoff, he swept into my London flat one January evening and, with the hauteur of his greeting, captured my virgin heart forever and a day.

'Miss Ellie Simons? My car awaits. Shall we splurge on dinner or parking tickets? ~ Dorothy Cannell