Hell

 Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Hell is other people.
~ Jean-Paul Sartre

To which Wittgenstein quipped:

     Hell isn’t other people. Hell is yourself.

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Dostoevsky also said:
     I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.

Make mine a hot toddy, please.

We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
~ Oscar Wilde

Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.
~ Aldous Huxley

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
~ Dante Alighieri

He also said:

     The path to paradise begins in hell

To which I must add a Talking Heads lyric

     We’re on a road to paradise
     Here we go, here we go

     We’re on a ride to nowhere
     Come on inside

What is hell? Hell is oneself.
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.
~ T.S. Eliot

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
~ Robert Frost

And, naturally, Dylan comes to mind

     Then time will tell
     Just who has fell
     And who’s been left behind
     When you go your way and I go mine

Jen just mentioned that, when she woke at 2AM and couldn’t get back to sleep, Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone was stuck in her head. Possibly there’s something in the air off the bay this morning?

     How does it feel, how does it feel?
     To be on your own, with no direction home
     A complete unknown, like a rolling stone

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
~ Victor Hugo, Ninety-Three

I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.
~ Peter Ustinov

In my world it’s everyone else’s punctuality, Republi/Fascist ‘humor’ and American whisky.

I think hell is something you carry around with you. Not somewhere you go.
~ Neil Gaiman

The whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God’s infinite love. That’s the message we’re brought up with, isn’t it? Believe or die! Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options.
~ Bill Hicks

animals never worry about Heaven or Hell. neither do I. maybe that's why we get along
~ Charles Bukowski

Hell is just a frame of mind.
~ Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

Hell is truth seen too late.
~ Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

The special quality of hell is to see everything clearly down to the last detail.
~Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

I can appreciate that there can be comfort and solace in seeing only one side of a story…almost any story. It’s easier.

The voice says, maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do. The things you don't finish.
~ Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

So, have a little fun. Soon enough you'll be dead and burning in Hell with the rest of your family.
~ George Carlin