Quotes by Authors - Page 295

...We die, we turn, we are reborn as we deserve to be reborn, based on our doings in this world." Will looked down at his bitten nails. "I will probably be reborn as a slug that someone salts.
Cassandra Clare
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
The average human lifespan compared to the age of the universe is the same as comparing a blink of an eye to that human lifespan. Relatively speaking, short and long lifespans are the same. Both are non-existent compared to the infinite that’s ahead. Furthermore, we cannot change the past, and have no guarantees for the future. We are only in charge of the present. The present is nothing—and it is everything.
John K. Brown
I used to be terrified of death. My grandfather was terminal in the hospital across from my high school, yet I never visited him. That fact still haunts me to this day. Years later, my arms were around my grandmother as she struggled with her last breaths. I told her we were with her and everything was going to be okay. She died as I held her tightly and I felt her body lose life. It was the most peaceful moment I ever experienced, and I felt joy for her. It was an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual moment for me. I wasn’t afraid anymore.... One day years later I received the phone call every parent dreads. My daughter was in a serious automobile accident. As I raced to her I prepared myself for the news she had died. Once again, I felt an unexpected and profound emotion. She lived, but in the face of that horrifying time there was a strange overall calm. I realized, no matter what, everything was going to be okay. I remembered I wasn’t afraid anymore.
John K. Brown
The only satisfactory thing about death is that our knowledge about it is unsatisfactory.
Raheel Farooq
The faith in an afterlife, however much our reason ridicules it, very modestly extends our faith that each moment of our consciousness will be followed by another - that a coherent matrix has been prepared for this precious self of ours. The guarantee that our self enjoys an intended relation to the outer world is most, if not all, of what we ask from religion. God is the self projected onto reality by our natural and necessary optimism. He is the not-me personified.
John Updike
In fact we do not try to picture the afterlife, nor is it our selves in our nervous tics and optical flecks that we wish to perpetuate; it is the self as the window on the world that we can't bear to thinkof shutting. My mind when I was a boy of ten or eleven sent up its silent scream at the thought of future aeons -- at the thought of the cosmic party going on without me. The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise of the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience.
John Updike
Oh, how crafty of religion, I cried out indignantly, to transplant rewards and punishments into a future life in order to comfort cowards and the enslaved and aggrieved, enabling them to bow their necks patiently before their masters, and to endure this earthly life without groaning (the only life of which we can be sure)!
Nikos Kazantzakis
All three explanations—eternal life, reincarnation, and nothingness—are descriptions of the same reality.
John K. Brown
Natural law has decreed it so. Isn't death as much a part of the flow as life? Why fight it? Because maybe the flow splashes into a bottomless pit past that blind turn.
Thomm Quackenbush
In Western culture, the 'miracles' referenced in scripture seem to have been relegated to the past as if to imply that they were reserved exclusively for certain historical periods.
Mark Ireland
Many people profess a belief in the existence of a spiritual realm, often aligning with their religious training or background. (Recent surveys indicate that, on average, between 48 percent and 59 percent of Europeans claim to believe in an afterlife, while between 72 percent and 74 percent of people in the United States assert a belief in life after death.) But when confronted with the loss of a child, a spouse, or another deeply loved person, one may find that his or her belief set is deeply challenged, and some suffer a crisis of faith.
Mark Ireland
For some, reassessing concepts about truth and reality can be a scary proposition.
Mark Ireland
Reductionism argues that we can learn what 'makes things tick' by looking more closely at matter, examining the underlying units. There are at least two problems with this approach. First, reductionism assumes that only observable, material items are 'real,' even though the vacuum of space is known to contain vast amount of inaccessible, 'invisible' energy. Subatomic particles go in and out of observable 'existence,' and science does not know 'where' they go when they are not manifesting here. Second, this path of reasoning ignores a major quandary encountered in the realm of quantum physics. When examining matter more closely--diving down from the molecular level to the subatomic--a point is soon reached where there is virtually nothing present, at least not an obvious 'material something.
Mark Ireland
First, I have culled evidence that physical death is not the end of the road for any of us. I know this message is critical because I've seen people consumed by fear of death or suffering unbearable grief after losing a loved one. Some can draw into a shell, ceasing all efforts to reach their potential, or even give up on life.
Mark Ireland
Some contemporary mediums dislike the term 'psychic' because they feel it carries a negative connotation, leading people to associations with crystal balls, tea-leaf reading, fortune-telling, or other stereotypes.
Mark Ireland
Perhaps the day will come when Western science is able to confirm the existence of immaterial forces and realms. Compelling research in the field of parapsychology indirectly points to this possibility, yet most people in mainstream science can't bring themselves to consider the implications.
Mark Ireland
People can fall into habitual programmed patterns of thinking, underpinned by long-held beliefs and blind acceptance of conventional wisdom. Lying beneath such surface thoughts are mental cues that operate on the subconscious level, compelling people to act in certain ways, yielding conclusions that fit within their pre-existing biases. Many people are unaware that these processes are even occurring.
Mark Ireland
We don’t see the life after life as it truly is, because in our eyes it conforms to our mechanics of nature.
Scott Lynch
Through discussions, reading, contemplation, and practice I've come to recognize the importance of subtle feelings and symbols. By paying attention to subtle energy, typically in the form of thoughts and feelings, we began to tap into our inner capacity to commune with those we've loved and lost, as well as other streams of consciousness and information.
Mark Ireland
It has been suggested that the color of an aura can reveal characteristics about the generating source.
Mark Ireland
By his [God's] help I will arise and address myself diligently to my appointed duty. If happiness in this world is not for me, I will endeavor to promote the welfare of those around me, and my reward shall be hereafter.
Anne Brontë
I also don't believe that whatever come after life depends on my correctly reciting a list of my transgressions-that sounds too much like an Erudite afterlife to me, all accuracy and no feeling.
Veronica Roth
Death is only frightening from the near side.
Jim Butcher
Death is only the death of death not the death of life.
Muhammad Ankan
Test.” Hades’ lovely mouth twisted bitterly around the word, as if he could read Helen’s thoughts and agreed with her. “If life is a test, then who do you think grades it?”“You?” she guessed.
Josephine Angelini
Death isn't the end of your life, you know. Your body is a lock. Death is the key. The key turns... and you're free. To be anywhere. Everywhere. Two places at once. Nowhere. Part of the background hum of the universe.
Joe Hill
If the afterlife really is a big war,” Kaladin said, “then I hope I end up in Damnation. At least there I might be able to get a wink or two of sleep.
Brandon Sanderson
Never take another human being to the third life, because we don't know how to go.
Orson Scott Card
How much does a man need to survive? two meals a day, one bed for the night and a few sets of clothes. That is all you need in life
Tim I. Gurung
The myth of purgatory is an allegory, a projection, from the present on to the future. This is why purgatory appeals to the imagination. It is our story. It is where we are now. If we are Christians, if we believe in the risen Jesus as Lord, if we are baptized members of his body, then we are passing right now through the sufferings which form the gateway to life.
N.T. Wright
How could you die and not be old enough to hear about premarital sex? How could you die and still not be allowed to fall in love or be honest? Surely not everything had to wait for university and a good job. Passion and truth had to trump even those things.
Zen Cho
Death is the start of a beginning, life is the start of the end, and the cycle continues forever." AFTERLIFE - TIM I GURUNG/AUTHOR
Tim I. Gurung
Now love doesn't stop at death - or if it does, it's a pretty poor sort of love! In fact, grief could almost be defined as the form love takes when the object of love has been removed; it is love embracing an empty space, love kissing thin air and feeling the pain of nothingness. But there is no reason at all why love should discontinue the practice of holding the beloved in prayer before God.
N.T. Wright
If you thought dead was just dead, then you wouldn't have to worry about any of this.
Marilynne Robinson
In that eternity of his, where everybody will be happy, how could he feel the lack of her, the loss of her?
Marilynne Robinson
Death is, in fact, oddly pleasant, and certainly an improvement on what comes immediately before it.
E.A.A. Wilson
What's afterlife?" Asher asked, sincerely, indicating a trio of passing shoppers laden with brightly colored bags, who turned up their noses. "There's only life.
David Edison
It is to be doubted whether anybody who said good-bye to Bert had any faith or interest whatsoever in the life everlasting. This life had, some of them thought, been quite bad enough.
Margaret Drabble
I realized aloud in the midst of saying it that even when we die we probably don't find out the answer as to why we were ever alive. Even the avowed atheist probably thinks that in death he'll get some answer. I mean God will be there, or there won't be anything at all.'But that's just it,' I said, 'we don't make any discovery at that moment! We merely stop! We pass into nonexistence without ever knowing a thing.' I saw the universe, a vision of the sun, the planets, the stars, black night going on forever. And I began to laugh.'Do you realize that! We'll never know why the hell any of it happened, not even when it's over!' I shouted at Nicolas, who was sitting back on the bed, nodding and drinking his wine out of a flagon. 'We're going to die and not even know. We'll never know, and all this meaninglessness will just go on and on and on. And we won't any longer be witness to it. We won't have even that little bit of power to give meaning to it in our minds. We'll just be gone, dead, dead, dead, without ever knowing!
Anne Rice
I've come to believe in some kind of afterlife. A return to our true selves, a spirit self. We're just in this physical body till we go back to spirit.
Kent Haruf
Faith is, by its very definition, belief without proof.
Stephen King
I think that's shameful, even if it's just a story, to propose an afterlife for evil... Any afterlife notion is a manipulation and a sop. It's shameful the way the unionists and the pagans both keep talking up hell for intimidation and the airy Other Land for reward.
Gregory Maguire
Life has its insidious way of crawling its way back into your sphere and you’re dumbed down again by so many distractions including work obligations, social niceties and mountains of clothes washing.
Josh Langley
If there is an after, I hope it's not dark. And I hope you can remember. I'd hate to wander around in the dark forever, not knowing who I was or what I was doin' here, or not even knowing that I'd ever had anything different.
Richard Bachman
When I die, I wonder what will happen to me. Is there some place like heaven, and will I be able to meet you there someday? I don't know. There's no way to know. No one knows what comes after death. But at the very least, we won't be able to talk until then.There's a wide, deep and fast running river between the living and the dead. Once you cross that river, no matter what happens, you're never coming back. It's a one way trip.
Ao Jyumonji
I'm sorry," Leon said. "I can see you loved your two friends and you miss them, and maybe they're flying around somewhere in the sky, zipping here and there and being spirits and happy. But you and I and three billion other people are not, and until it changes here it won't be enough, Phil; not enough. Despite the supreme heavenly father. He has to do something for us here, and that's the truth. If you believe in the truth--well, Phil, that's the truth. The harsh, unpleasant truth.
Philip K Dick
But what really happens after you are dead - that is what I want to know?I cannot tell you Renisenb. You should ask a priest these questions.He would just give me the usual answers. I want to know.We shall none of us know until we are dead ourselves.
Agatha Christie
That's what we think because we can't imagine what it's like to not exist.
Cath Crowley
Now is the time to create living relationships with our loved ones who have died.
Lynn Rollins Stull
It's everything and nothing ... It's like the absent moment between night and day.
Sophie Hardcastle
We are not forgotten by those we have loved, and they do visit us more times than we consciously know. I hope my story provides some comfort to those who have experienced the loss of someone they love deeply.“Paula Lenz’s book shows how the deepest grief can unlock the greatest spiritual treasures. The story of how the death of her beloved brother Don also provided her — and us — with inconvertible evidence of life after death should convince any skeptic that we live after we die. Driving into Infinity will take you on a riveting journey of self-discovery.” -Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.,Author of Lessons from the Light
Paula Lenz
The freedom is really free only happened in this life: after life is pseudo freedom
Giharu Si Perempuan Gunung
We had enough quite enough snobbery in this world without exporting it to the hereafter.
Rick Riordan
...he fed his insides before they fed on him.
Michael L. Martin Jr.
Life goes on. And so does death.
Michael L. Martin Jr.
Some would do just about anything for an exodus.
Michael L. Martin Jr.
Human knowledge hasn't been complete enough to understand the afterlife if it hasn't been through the valley of death.
Toba Beta
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
Eternity was a restless bitch.
Michael L. Martin Jr.