#afterlife

When we were alive, they told us that when we died we'd go to heaven. And they said that heaven was a place of joy and glory and we would spend eternity in the company of saints and angels praising the Almighty, in a state of bliss. That's what they said. And that's what led some of us to give our lives, and others to spend years in solitary prayer, while all the joy of life was going to waste around us and we never knew. Because the land of the dead isn't a place of reward or a place of punishment, it is a place of nothing. The good come here as well as the wicked, and all of us languish in this gloom forever, with no hope of freedom, or joy, or sleep, or rest, or peace. But now this child has come offering us a way out and I'm going to follow her. Even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothing. We'll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves; we'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we'll be glistening in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true home and always was. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#death #life #death

And here we see again that we do not decide our own lives. Dieneke, even if we won't see each other again on earth, we will never be sorry for what we did, that we took this stand. ↗

— Diet Eman

#no-regrets #surrender #unpredictability-of-life #diet

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

— Jodi Picoult

#age

I told you before, Jem, that you would not leave me," Will said, his bloody hand on the hilt of the dagger. " And you are still with me. When I breath, I will think of you, for without you I would have been dead years ago. When I wake up and when I sleep, when I lift up my hands to defend myself or when I lie down to die, you will be with me. You say we are born again. I say there is a river that divides the dead and the living. What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so we can cross together." Will took a deep breath and let go of the knife. He drew his hand back. The cut on his palm was already healing- the result of the half dozen iratzes on his skin. " You hear that, James Carstairs? We are bound, you and I, over the divide of death, down through whatever generations may come. Forever." He rose to his feet and looked down at the knife. The knife was Jem's, the blood was his. This spot of ground, whether he could ever find it again, whether he lived to try, would be theirs. He turned around to walk to Balios, towards Wales and Tessa. He did not look back. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#death #jem #will #death

Time," the Captain said, "is not what you think." He sat down next to Eddie. "Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning. ↗

— Mitch Albom

#death-and-dying #death

Nor dread nor hope attend A dying animal; A man awaits his end Dreading and hoping all. ↗

— W.B. Yeats

#death #hope #prayer #death

When it all comes to an end, please let it be the very end. ↗

— the Farce

#death #death

If I lie down on my bed I must be here, But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere. ↗

— Stevie Smith

#afterworld #death #death

I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing. ↗