Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
-John Milton, Paradise Lost
Except for the horns he might have been a nude middle-aged man, shaved, and painted bright red. But if he’d been human you wouldn’t have wanted to know him. He seemed built for all of the Seven Deadly Sins. Avaricious green eyes. Enormous gluttonous tank of a belly. Muscles soft and drooping from sloth. A dissipated face that seemed permanently angry. Lecherous—never mind. His horns were small and sharp and polished to a glow.
-Larry Niven, Convergent Series
Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.
-Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
There was a time when I used to get lots of ideas… I thought up the Seven Deadly Sins in one afternoon. The only thing I’ve come up with recently is advertising.
-George Spiggott (Peter Cook), Bedazzled
People all said beware,
Beware, you’ll scuttle the ship.
And the devil will drag you under
By the fancy tie ’round your wicked throat.
– Frank_Loesser, Guys & Dolls
He was a softly glowing, richly smoldering torch, column, statue of pallid light, faintly tinted with a spiritual green, and out from him a lunar splendor flowed such as one sees glinting from the crinkled waves of tropic seas when the moon rides high in cloudless skies…So I chanced the remark that he was surprisingly different from the traditions, and I wished I knew what it was he was made of. He was not offended, but answered with frank simplicity:
“Radium!”
-Mark Twain, Sold To Satan
Therefore Lucifer was perhaps the one who best understood the divine will struggling to create a world and who carried out that will most faithfully.
-Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion: West and East
There had been times, over the past millennium, when he’d felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there’s nothing we can do to them that they don’t do to themselves and they do things we’ve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination. And electricity, of course. One of them had written it, hadn’t he…”Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
-Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
Brilliant composition, brother. 👍🏻
Thank you–this is part of my annual Halloween quotes on a theme. In 2015 it was “Signs”. In 2016 it was “Spacemen”. In 2017 it was “Dangerous Plants”.
In 2019…who knows?
Also from “Bedazzled”:
[George climbs up on a London postbox.]
George Spiggott: I’m God. This is my throne, see? All around me are the cherubim, seraphim, continually crying ‘Holy, holy, holy’. the angels, archangels, that sort of thing. Now you be me, Lucifer, the loveliest angel of them all.
Stanley Moon: What do I do?
George Spiggott: Well, sort of dance around praising me, mainly…
Stanley Moon: What sort of things do I say?
George Spiggott: Anything that comes into your head that’s nice – how beautiful I am, how wise I am, how handsome…that sort of thing. Come on, start dancing.
Stanley Moon: You’re wise!, You’re beautiful! You’re handsome!
George Spiggott: Thank you very much.
Stanley Moon: The universe! What a wonderful idea – take my hat off to you!
George Spiggott: Thank you.
Stanley Moon: Trees – terrific! Water – another good one!
George Spiggott: That was a good one…
Stanley Moon: Yes! Sex – top marks!
George Spiggott: Now make it more personal… a bit more fulsome please. Come on.
Stanley Moon: Immortal… invisible… you’re handsome… you’re glorious… you’re the most beautiful person in the WORLD!
[Stanley performs a headstand, removes his hat and wipes his brow.]
Stanley Moon: Here, I’m getting a bit bored with this. Can’t we change places?
George Spiggott: That’s exactly how I felt.
Thanks for another devilishly good post, Chris.
Thank you so much! I love that exchange but some devilry prevented me from finding it. You’ve come to my rescue. I wouldn’t say no if you asked if we could change places.