Paradise Built In Hell Quotes

A precursor to the Social Darwinists, Hobbes argued from th premise that the primordial human condition was a war fought by each against each, so brutal and incesssant that it was impossible to develop industry or even agriculture or the arts while that condition persisted. It's this description that culmintes in his famous epithet "And the life of man, solitary, poor, brutish, and short." It was a fiction to which he brought to bear another fiction, that of the social contract by which men agree to submit to rules and a presiding authority, surrendering their right to ravage each other for the sake of their own safety. The contract was not a bond of affection or identification, bot a culture or religion binding togetehr a civilization, only a convenience. Men, in his view, as in that of many other European writers of the period, are stark, mechanical creatures, windup soldiers social only by strategy and not by nature ... ~ Rebecca Solnit

What the hell was that?" one of them asked.

"Jackal," Irene stated quietly while watching city streets turn to suburb.
They weren't taking her to a main airport but a small airstrip. One built
exclusively for private planes.

"Did she just call us jackals?" one of them joked.

Irene grinned which wiped the smile off the man's face. "No. I said the howl
you heard was jackal." She looked at Jenny. "They'll be coming for you."

Jenny glanced at the men and back at her. She looked terribly concerned she
had a lunatic in the car with her. "The jackals will be coming for me?"

"No. The wolves."

Jenny sighed. "Why oh why do I always get the nutcases?"

"Oh!" Irene pointed excitedly. "See that spot up there?"

"What about it?"

"That's where it all started. Where I crossed the Rubicon."

Exasperated, Jenny snarled, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"It's feeding time," Irene whispered.


"That's it." Jenny threw up her hands. "We're so medicating her. ~ Shelly Laurenston

Many of us have gotten so used to playing
to the expectations of society, of our families,
of our friends, and of our minds, that we don't
even allow ourselves to consider who we really
are or what we really need. We ignore the calls
of our hearts, giving our lives, instead, to the
demands of an outside world built on fitting in.
We can stop this, right now. We can choose to
listen to ourselves, to heed our deepest callings,
whatever they are. We can give ourselves the
freedom to be whoever the hell we want to be
in this world. Right now, if we choose to.
And why wouldn't we? ~ Scott Stabile

Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat
That we must change for heav'n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so since he
Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid
What shall be right. Farthest from him is best Whom reason hath equaled force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell happy fields
Where joy forever dwells. Hail horrors Hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell
Receive thy new possessor, one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time
The mind is its own place and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
What matter where if I be still the same
And what I should be--All but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater. Here at least
We shall be free. Th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy will not drive us hence.
Here we may reign supreme, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.
Better to reign in hell than serve in Heav'n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th'associates and co-partners of our loss
Lie thus astonished on th' oblivious pool.
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion? Or, once more,
With rallying arms, to try what may be yet
Regained in heav'n or what more lost in hell! ~ John Milton

When I was about five my dad built a stage for me in our basement. A full stage, with a curtain, a backdrop and a dressing room. There were three colored spotlights - a red one, a white one, and a blue one. Blue was for nighttime scenes, and red was for when we were in hell. If the neighborhood kids wanted to use the stage, they had to incorporate me into the play. ~ Paul Reubens

The whole operation is built on artificialness of facts which are fiction, so the mass is ignorant.
They believe everything is legit and even though there are those that know something is wrong, they don't "what" & "why" but if those two aspects are figured out, the "how" will amaze them out the hell and maze they've been in. ~ Jose R. Coronado

The Chinamen built the railroad, the Indians saved the Pilgrim,
And in return, the Pilgrim killed 'em.
They call it it Thanksgiving, I call your holiday 'hell-day.' ~ Nas

Chesterton made a marvelously insightful comment concerning Christ's selection of Peter as the "rock": When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, he chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward - in a word, a man. And upon this rock he has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link.252 ~ Dave Armstrong

I am banished from the patient men who fight.
They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.
Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,
They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light.
Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight
They went arrayed in honour. But they died,
Not one by one: and mutinous I cried
To those who sent them out into the night.
The darkness tells how vainly I have striven
To free them from the pit where they must dwell
In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven
By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.
Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;
And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven. ~ Siegfried Sassoon

Who were the men in the Bronco?"
"If I had to guess, FBI."
"Are they following you?"
"Apparently."
"But you made it sound like they couldn't arrest you."
"Which is exactly why they're only following me."
"What do they want?"
"Information. Names. Dates. Locations. The measurements of my dick."
"Nine and three quarters."
"Excuse me?"
"Nine and three quarters."
"My dick is not ten inches long."
"No, I said nine and three quarters."
"Even I'm not that self-inflated."
"Have you ever measured it?"
For fear of setting off Morgan's bullshit o-meter, I had to fess up. "Just under eight and a half."
"When?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well, if you did it before the age of twenty, you probably gained an inch."
"My dick is not… okay, even if it was, when did you measure it?"
"I had it in my ass. I think I would know."
"Is this where you tell me everyone has a built in ruler and all I need to do is bend over so you can show me how to use mine?"
Morgan snorted. "No, but we can test that theory if you want."
If I said anything but hell yeah, it would have been a five-alarm bullshit fire. "My dick is not that big." And as soon as I got the chance, I was whipping out the tape measure to prove it. ~ Adrienne Wilder

Tell me one thing. Has Rider Sinclair done something to hurt you in any way? If he has,I'll shoot that man!"
Willow was taken aback by Miriam's vehemence. "No,no," she hastily assured. "He might have hurt my feelings some but that's all."
"I noticed he wasn't being very gentlemanly, but I overlooked it because I thought perhaps he was still showing his temper over the Scofield incident."
"You're probably right. But, Miriam, this ain't, er,isn't about Sinclair, not entirely anyway. It's about me." Willow's smile was sad. "Being a man would be easier and a hell of a lot more fun but I ain't built right. So, I want you to teach me how to look and act like a fine and proper lady. You will, won't you?"
Merry chuckles bubbled and rolled out of Miriam. "Oh, Willow!" More chuckles. "I know I shouldn't laugh right now, but I can't help myself. You say the most awful things!"
Willow didn't know if she should be insulted or not, but since it was Miriam laughing at her, she gave her the benefit of the doubt. "I know my wanting to be a real lady is funny, but not that funny."
"No,no." Miriam laughed, gasping for breath. "No that, the part about you're not being built right. ~ Charlotte McPherren

In the centre of Bond was a hurricane-room, the kind of citadel found in old-fashioned houses in the tropics. These rooms are small, strongly built cells in the heart of the house, in the middle of the ground floor and sometimes dug down into its foundations. To this cell the owner and his family retire if the storm threatens to destroy the house, and they stay there until the danger is past. Bond went to his hurricane room only when the situation was beyond his control and no other possible action could be taken. Now he retired to this citadel, closed his mind to the hell of noise and violent movement, and focused on a single stitch in the back of the seat in front of him, waiting with slackened nerves for whatever fate had decided for B. E. A. Flight No. 130. ~ Ian Fleming

Suddenly I realized I was standing on the hot wood of the dock, still touching elbows with Adam, staring at the skull-and-crossbones pendant. And when I looked up into his light blue eyes, I saw that he was staring at my neck. No. Down lower.
"What'cha staring at?" I asked.
He cleared his throat. "Tank top or what?" This was his seal of approval, as in, Last day of school or what? or, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders or what? Hooray! He wasn't Sean, but he was built of the same material. This was a good sign.
I pumped him for more info, to make sure. "What about my tank top?"
"You're wearing it." He looked out across the lake, showing me his profile. His cheek had turned bright red under his tan. I had embarrassed the wrong boy. Damn, it was back to the football T-shirt for me.
No it wasn't, either. I couldn't abandon my plan. I had a fish to catch.
"Look," I told Adam, as if he hadn't already looked. "Sean's leaving at the end of the summer. Yeah, yeah, he'll be back next summer, but I'm afraid I won't be able to compete once he's had a taste of college life and sorority girls. It's now or never, and desperate times call for desperate tank tops."
Adam opened his mouth to say something. I shut him up by raising my hand. Imitating his deep boy-voice, I said, "I don't know why you want to hook up with that jerk." We'd had this conversation whenever we saw each other lately. I said in my normal voice, "I just do, okay? Let me do it, and don't get in ~ Jennifer Echols

I wonder what I'm going to be when I grow up,' Rob asked himself.

'Well, not a film star,' Mike said. 'And not an all-in wrestler. Why don't you be a drunk? You don't need any talents for that.'

'It's got to be something in your blood,' Rob said. It was his view that all history was a matter of blood.

'That's a lot of bullshit,' Mike said. 'Hell, Australia was built by people who didn't know who their grandparents were. You can be anything you want to be, and you ought to be what you want to be, not what your grandpa was.'

'Well, what are you going to be?' Rob demanded… 'A drunk,' said Mike. 'I haven't got any talents. ~ Randolph Stow

Well, what you ding this kind of work for--against your own people?"

"Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner--and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day and it comes every day."

"But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can't eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?"

"Can't think of that. Got to think of my own kids."

***

"Nearly a hundred people on the road for your three dollars. Where will we go?"

"And that reminds me, you better get out soon. I'm going through the dooryard after dinner...I got orders wherever there's a family not moved out--if I have an accident--you know, get too close and cave in the house a little--well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet."

"I built this with my hands...It's mine. I built it. You bump it down--I'll be in the window with a rifle..."

"It's not me. There's nothing I can do. I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look--suppose you kill me? They'll just hang you, but not long before you're hung there'll be another guy on the tractor, and he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right guy."

***

Across the dooryard the tractor cut, and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again; the uncut space was ~ John Steinbeck

Fantasy elevates ordinary and eternal problems of young people into stories via the language of myth. It turns "No one really knows me" into "I've got a secret identity." It turns "I don't understand why other people act the way they do" into "I'm trapped in a faerie realm." It turns "my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell" into "my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell."
There are certain things in life that are glorious, and they are glorious for everyone. There are more that are hard, and they are hard for everyone. We like to see these things retold, but with dragons. ~ Erin Bow

He grasped her by the wrist , running a thumb along the sensitive skin underneath. "Then let me call you Mine for a dance or two"

She grinned but someone was suddenly between them, a tall, powerfully built person. Sam. He ripped the stranger's hand off of her wrist. "She's spoken for," he growled, all too close to the young man's maked face. The stranger's friend was behind him in an instant, his bronze eyes fixed on Sam.

Celaena grabbed Sam's elbow. "Enough," she warned him.

The masked stranger looked Sam up and down, then held up his hands. "My mistake," he said, but winked at Celaena before disappeared into the crowd, his armed friend close behind.

Celaena whirled to face Sam. "What in hell was that for?"

"You're drunk," he told her, so close her chest brushed his, "And he knew it, too."

"So?" Even as she said it, someone dancing wildly crashed into her and set her reeling. Sam caught her around the waist, his hands firm on her as he kept her from falling to the ground.

"You'll thank me in the morning."

"Just because we're working together doesn't mean I'm suddenly incapable of handling myself." His hands were still on her waist.

"Let me take you home. ~ Sarah J. Maas

None of the palaces in Hell come close to Lucifer's in size or beauty. Lucifer lives at the top of a literal ivory tower, miles high. You can't even see the top from the ground. The joke is that he built it that high so he can lean out the window and pound on Heaven's floor with a broom handle when he wants them to turn down the choir. ~ Richard Kadrey

Cole had made this commitment to save Beckett from hell. So he had to keep it, no matter how endlessly his soul cried in the corner of the church, begging and reaching for Kyle. At that moment he'd built a wall between her soul and his. Confusion turned to anger, which turned to panic as Kyle tried desperately to bring him back, to reconnect.
She tried to kiss the truth out of him, but he turned his head and held her at bay. She fell to her knees, but he just shook his head. His future was predetermined. Even if banishing this newborn love sliced his heart in half, it had to be done. ~ Debra Anastasia

Fear not little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail ... Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not. ~ Dallin H. Oaks

Jakob Hlasek is six foot two and built like a halfback, his blond hair in a short square Eastern European cut, with icy eyes and cheekbones out to here: He looks like either a Nazi male model or a lifeguard in hell and seems in general just way too scary ever to try to talk to. His backhand is a one-hander, rather like Ivan Lendl's, and watching him practice it is like watching a great artist casually sketch something. I keep having to remember to blink. ~ David Foster Wallace

Many peoples practiced agriculture, but they were never obsessed by the delusion that what they were doing was *right*, that everyone in the entire world had to practice agriculture, that every last square yard of the planet had to be devoted to it...

If they got tired of being agriculturalists, if they found they didn't like where it was leading them in their particular adaptation, they were *able* to give it up. They didn't say to themselves, 'Well, we've got to keep going at this even if it kills us, because its the *right* way to live.' For example, there was once a people who constructed a vast network of irrigation canals in order to farm the deserts of what is now southeastern Arizona. They maintained these canals for three thousand years and built a fairly advanced civilization, but in the end they were free to say, 'This is a toilsome and unsatisfying way to live, so to hell with it.' They simply walked away from the whole thing and put it so totally out of mind that we don't even know what they called themselves. The only name we have for them is the one the Pima Indians gave them: Hohokam--those who vanished.

But it's not going to be this easy for the Takers. It's going to be hard as hell for them to give it up, because what they're doing is *right*... Giving it up would mean that all along they'd been *wrong*. It would mean they'd *never* known how to rule the world. It would mean relinquishing their pretensions to godhood.... It would mean ~ Daniel Quinn

Do you think if it was the fairy tale about a man who lived inside of a whale and it was religion that Jack built a beanstalk today, you would know the difference? Why do you believe in one fairy tale and not the other? Just because adults told you it was true and they scared you into believing it, at pain of death, at pain of burning in hell. ~ Bill Maher

Ren crossed his arms over his chest. "is it LoJacked?"
"Of course," Andy said indignantly. "That's my baby. I even have a kill switch on her."
"Then stop the engine."
Andy appeared downright horrified by Ren's suggestion. "Are you out of your mind? What if someone hits it for stalling? I had that thing on order for over a year. Custom hand built. The epitome of German engineering. I even paid extra for the paint on her. Ain't no way I'm going to chance someone denting my baby. Or, God forbid, totaling it."
Jess rolled his eyes at the boy's hissy fit. If he kept that up, he'd be putting Andy back in diapers.
He turned to Ren. "You take the air. I'll get a bike." Then he focused his attention on Andy again. "And you-"
Andy held his cell phone out to him. "Have an app. Track her down, get my car back, and beat the hell out of her ... in that precise order. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

There is in hell a place stone-built throughout, Called Malebolge, of an iron hue, Like to the wall that circles it about. ~ Dante Alighieri

Is it as bad out there as they say it is?" he asked. "From my six-inch window, it looks like we got hit with one hell of a storm."

"It took me nearly an hour to shovel the sidewalk this morning," Jordan said.

Kyle brushed his neck-length dark blond hair off his face. "See? That's one of the positives of being in prison. No shoveling."

Her brother had long ago set the rules regarding their visits. Jokes about being in prison were expected and encouraged, sympathy was not. Which was good for both of them, considering her family had never done particularly well with the mushy and sentimental stuff.

"You live in a penthouse condo and haven't shoveled snow for years," she pointed out.

"A deliberate choice I made because of the trauma of my youth," Kyle said. "Remember how Dad used to make me shovel the whole block every time it snowed? I was eight when he came up with that plan - barely taller than the shovel."

"And I got to stay inside making hot chocolate with Mom." Jordan waved off the retort she saw coming. "Hey, it was good for you - it built character." She paused for a moment, taking in their steel-barred surroundings. "Maybe Dad should've made you shovel the next block over, too."

"That's cute."

"I thought so. ~ Julie James

An hour later, Cookie, Lacey, and I sat in the graveyard, watching a slave demon who looked like a nineteen-year-old kid
a very well-built nineteen-year-old kid
dig up a grave shirtless, his wide shoulders shimmering in the moonlight.
"I'm going to hell," Cookie said, unable to rip her gaze off him.
"Well, if you go, there are probably others who look like that. It might not be such a bad place."
"I want to have his demon babies," Lacey said ~ Darynda Jones

But evil is always illusion. It insists on the lie that we can have something for ourselves. This is the sole principle at work in hell. Lucifer chose to believe it; or, since it is unimaginable that he actually could have believed it, then we may say that he chose to pretend it might be. Very well, says Truth, you may pretend this. But the pretense will be, literally, your undoing. It will unmake you. You will have opted for something that is not, namely, a lie. Hell is built of lies. ~ Thomas Howard

Neliss, why is this rug wet?"
Legna peeked around the corner to glance at the rug in question, looking as if she had never seen it before.
"We have a rug there?"
"Did you or did you not promise me you were not going to practice extending how long you can hold your invisible bowls of water in the house? And what on earth is that noise?"
"Okay, I confess to the water thing, which was an honest mistake, I swear it. But as for a noise, I have no idea what you are talking about."
"You cannot hear that? It has been driving me crazy for days now. It just repeats over and over again, a sort of clicking sound."
"Well, it took a millennium, but you have finally gone completely senile. Listen, this is a house built by Lycanthropes. It is more a cave than a house, to be honest. I have yet to decorate to my satisfaction. There is probably some gizmo of some kind lying around, and I will come across it eventually or it will quit working the longer it is exposed to our influence. Even though I do not hear anything, I will start looking for it. Is this satisfactory?"
"I swear, Magdelegna, I am never letting you visit that Druid ever again."
"Oh, stop it. You do not intimidate me, as much as you would love to think you do. Now, I will come over there if you promise not to yell at me anymore. You have been quite moody lately."
"I would be a hell of a lot less moody if I could figure out what that damn noise is."
Legna came around the corner, mo ~ Jacquelyn Frank

Everyone who has ever built anywhere a new heaven first found the power thereto in his own hell. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n. ~ John Milton

The Bible is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies. This Bible is built mainly out of fragments of older Bibles that had their day and crumbled to ruin. So it noticeably lacks in originality, necessarily. Its three or four most imposing and impressive events all happened in earlier Bibles; there are only two new things in it: hell, for one, and that singular heaven I have told you about. ~ Mark Twain

Time, Liam has learned, is not an arrow. Neither is it a road. It goes in no particular direction. It simply accumulates - in the body, in the world - like wood does. Layer upon layer. Light, then dark. Each one dependent upon the last. Each year impossible without the one preceding it. Each triumph and each disaster written forever in its structure. His own life, he can admit now, will never be clear, will never be unblemished, will never be reclaimed. Because it is impossible to ungrow what has already grown, to undo what is already done. Still, people trust the things he's built, and there is something to that. It's not enough, but it's what he'll take with him. ~ Michael Christie

Here, in the Land of Israel, we returned and built a nation. Here, in the Land of Israel, we established a State. The Land of the prophets, which bequeathed to the world the values of morality, law and justice, was after two thousand years, restored to its lawful owner - the members of the Jewish People, On its Land, we have built an exceptional national Home and State. ~ Yitzhak Rabin

This country is heaven, in the spiritual sense of the word. And I say, we prefer to die in heaven than survive in hell. ~ Fidel Castro

Milla put her hands on his ribs, holding on as he braced his weight on one arm while with his other hand he guided his penis to her and in the same rough motion pushed deep inside.
He froze in place, his breath panting between his parted lips as they stared at each other. She couldn't move; the feel of him inside her was too sharp, almost painful in its intensity. Their gazes met in the mellow lamplight, and she was mesmerized by the tension in his face, the way his steely muscles were locked as if he didn't dare move. It built and built, that clawing need, and yet she remained poised on the razor's edge of something she knew she couldn't control. His chest suddenly heaved on a convulsive breath, and he moved in a long, deep stroke that took him all the way to the hilt. ~ Linda Howard

I write about the emotional crises that we face in our lives. Readers tell me that they identify with my characters. They know them. They are them. I'm an everyday woman writing about everyday people facing not- so-everyday challenges. And believe me, I love readers like you to bits. I've built my career one reader at a time. I owe a dept of gratitude to you all! ~ Barbara Delinsky

If the kingdom of God is within us and that is a kingdom of justice, of peace, and of joy then whoever remains with these virtues is certainly in the kingdom of God. By contrast, all who deal in unrighteousness, in discord, and in death-bearing gloom have taken their stand in the kingdom of the devil, in hell and in lifelessness. It is by these tokens that the kingdom of God or of the devil is recognized. ~ John Cassian

You don't do that.
You don't just announce that your dad built a mysterious house on a sacred spot for dryads, then get up and leave without an explanation.
So, of course, that's what Meg did.
"See you in the morning," she announced to no one in particular.
She trudged up the ramp, still barefoot despite traipsing past twenty different species of cactus, and slipped into the dark. ~ Rick Riordan