Fiction:
Anime & Manga"It was poetic using Earth's Dragon to save me from Earth's Hell. You can't imagine the depths of my suffering there...I spent most of my days strung up like a damned pupating moth, trapped over a field of delicate little flowers where bands of angels and fairies and enchanted stuffed animals lived! They played songs and danced asinine jigs as if their only care in life was when they would get their next warm fuzzy hug! Instead of ruling the universe with an iron fist, I WAS SERENADED BY TEDDY BEARS!"
— Frieza, Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F'
Comic Books
Sartre says that Hell is other people. Wise words, but I think they capture a state of mind rather than a universal truth. I admit, other people can make life a living hell. But they can also be your partners in paradise. For me, Hell is nothingness. A place without friends, without music, without words to stimulate the imagination, or beauty to arouse the senses.
— Blacksad: A Silent Hell
What is hell? There are places in the universe made of red rock and flame. Peopled by horned goats and fanged serpents. Built for the torment of souls. But these places are only places. Hell is not a place. Hell is the absence of God. Not atheism. A thing cannot be absent if it was never there. To be truly absent, God must have once been present. God must have a face, to turn it away from you. [...] What is God's anger? God's face turning away. Leaving us alone with what we have done.
Comic Strips
Heaven: Dying wish.
Hell: Dead certainty.
Hell: Dead certainty.
— Thorax, 9 Chickweed Lane
Films — Live-Action
"Hell is only a word. The reality is much, much worse."
— Dr. Weir, Event Horizon
"Whatever's waiting for you on the other side is gonna be *bad.* But don't worry, it's only forever."
—Nick Walker, R.I.P.D.
Literature
Hell is other people!
— No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
Mephistopheles: Within the bowels of these elements,
Where we are tortured and remain forever.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, for where we are is hell,
And where hell is must we ever be.
And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that is not heaven.
Where we are tortured and remain forever.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, for where we are is hell,
And where hell is must we ever be.
And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that is not heaven.
Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
Hell is a city much like London—
A populous and a smoky city;
There are all sorts of people undone,
And there is little or no fun done;
Small justice shown, and still less pity.
A populous and a smoky city;
There are all sorts of people undone,
And there is little or no fun done;
Small justice shown, and still less pity.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hell
Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,...Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.
I've never really believed in hell, pardon my language. God has to have a better plan than an all-or-nothing reality game show. But if you wanted to imagine hell, you could do better than trudging knee-deep through a hot subterranean swamp of liquid garbage while a thousand rusty metal mouths bite and bite endlessly above you.
Loki: What am I looking at, here? Is this the hell of Milton, Dante or Hieronymus Bosch, perhaps? Scenes out of a Dore etching?
Hellspawn: You've done your research. It is all these and more. There are Circles of Hell. There are realms of darkness. There is a lake of fire. There are dukes of hell, and imps, and hellhounds, and most anything collectively imagined by humans.
— The Naughtiest Cherub, by Kevin Hearne
"A Universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good,
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Then Fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons and Hydra's, and Chimera's dire."
Created evil, for evil only good,
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Then Fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons and Hydra's, and Chimera's dire."
— Paradise Lost, Lines 622-628
"Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
— Divine Comedy, inscription on the gate of Hell
One can conceive of Heaven having a Telephone Directory, but it would have to be gigantic, for it would include the Proper Name and address of every electron in the Universe. But Hell could not have one, for in Hell, as in prison and the army, its inhabitants are identified not by name but by number. They do not have numbers, they are numbers.
— W. H. Auden, The Dyer's Hand
You died in New York, you went to Hell New York. You died in Bangkok, you went to Hell Bangkok.
But this - Los Angeles captured forever in the yellow of a jackal's eye; a Los Angeles where it forever rained ash, and only the demons thrived; where humanity was always dying, everyone perpetually dying: in crushed cars, in rubbled malls amid melting plastic, in the very mortar of brick buildings... or torn to pieces as part of a show that never ended in the Hollywood Bowl.
—Constantine: The Novelization
To hell with you. But then you're there, aren't you?
Live-Action TV
"What is Hell, but the total absence of Hope? The substance, the tactile proof of despair?"
— Ken, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Music
In the afterlife
You could be headed for the serious strife
Now you make the scene all day
But tommorrow there'll be Hell to pay
You could be headed for the serious strife
Now you make the scene all day
But tommorrow there'll be Hell to pay
— Squirrel Nut Zippers, "Hell"
Where do bad folks go when they die?
they don't go to heaven where the angels fly
go to a lake of fire and fry
see 'em again, till the fourth of July.
they don't go to heaven where the angels fly
go to a lake of fire and fry
see 'em again, till the fourth of July.
— Meat Puppets, "Lake of Fire"
Tabletop Games
Hell is very real. But no humans ever go there. Only demons go there. So imagine that, no matter what you do in life, you cannot go to Hell. Puts a whole different spin on things, doesn't it?
There are Nether Realms for each major religion, and for each major aspect of that religion. Some hells abound with excruciations too complex to describe, while others recall the simple torments of flaying, boiling and tearing limb from limb. The minds of Inquisitors must have flown to such Realms during the darkest ages past - or perhaps those same minds fashioned these same instruments of torture. One hell simply presented the damned with a blank and empty room in which to spend eternity. I have even heard of a Nether Realm that resembles an endless nightclub, only here the night never ends and the doors never open. Those who dance do so forever, and those who drink thirst for eternity. Some Nether Realms are abandoned, forgotten spiritual reminders of lost religions. Others are all too active.
— Mage: The Ascension - The Book Of Worlds
Theatre
"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."
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."
— Edward Chamberlayne, The Cocktail Party
Video Games
"You're not a good person. You know that, right? Good people don't end up here."
— GLaDOS, Portal
"Setting coordinates - just above the chasm of pain, which holds the din of infinite grief - just when you see a fire overcome a bleak hemisphere of night - just when the notes of agony in sad crescendo reach your ear - you are there, where light grows mute. What is Hell? Now you know. It is being out of the sight of the Immaculate Machine, beyond the breath of her anima.
Fie! Fie! No anima! Entropy eats all. The infinity Ebola. We shiver. Our wings dissolve. Oh, let us not linger, sweetling. Let us fly. Let us fly, for we must!
See the engines and cogs. It is technology older than stars. Can you read the writing in the scars? Now you know the next truth - Hell was once wondrous. A great civilization palpitated here. What went wrong?"
Fie! Fie! No anima! Entropy eats all. The infinity Ebola. We shiver. Our wings dissolve. Oh, let us not linger, sweetling. Let us fly. Let us fly, for we must!
See the engines and cogs. It is technology older than stars. Can you read the writing in the scars? Now you know the next truth - Hell was once wondrous. A great civilization palpitated here. What went wrong?"
— The Buzzing, The Secret World
...The lowest reaches of the Underworld are reserved not just for the Master's own abode, but for the benefit of every wretch who, in the course of drawing breath, failed every opportunity to leave any sort of positive impression behind. Tartarus is one of the Master's most elaborate designs, constructed not just to contain the wretched dead, but to oppress them, to punish them. The Master has no pity for the wretches, here; he would say they had their chance, and knew the risks of leading hateful lives. Punishment is all that is left for souls such as these; no more chance of rehabilitation, only suffering. Some miserably toil about, while others receive dedicated hands-on treatment, courtesy of the Master's overseers, who ensure Tartarus always retains the reputation that it has.
— Hades
Webcomics
Black Mage: Wait, If I did evil and you guys are evil, shouldn't you be showering me with rewards and concubines etc.?
Demon Lord: This is hell. We are big on irony here.
Demon Lord: This is hell. We are big on irony here.
"help me"
Karnak: You don't get how this place works, do you? No one is happy here. Nothing good lasts, even for the punishers. That's why every demon lord or would-be ruler tries to escape this pit. This is a realm of misery and torture for all who dwell here. This is Hell.
Western Animation
"Hell is not a very nice place."
— Father Maxi, South Park
Trevor: What the hell is that?!
Saint-Germain: Well, that is very probably actually Hell!
Saint-Germain: Well, that is very probably actually Hell!
— Castlevania (2017), "Abandon All Hope"
"It was Judgment Day, and we all got sent to the bad place! The bad place!!"
— Copperhead, Justice League, "Kid Stuff"
Wolverine: What the heck is going on?!
Morph: Haven't you figured it out? We're in Hell!
Morph: Haven't you figured it out? We're in Hell!
— X-Men '97, "Fire Made Flesh"
Non-Fiction:
"I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse."
"According to Christianity, eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, believe or die. Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options."
"I believe that you’re born with eternal sin, and that mankind is Hell. You don’t have to die to go to Hell. There is no redemption in Christ. The only redemption you have is in realizing that you’re alone in the universe, and to take command of your own life."
— Joe Coleman
"Hell came right along with God, hand in hand. The stink of sulfur swirled in the air of the church, fire burned in the aisles, and brimstone rained out of the rafters. From the evangelist's oven mouth spewed images of a place with pitchforks, and devils, and lakes of fire that burned forever. God had fixed a place like that because he loved us so much."
— Harry Crews
"Written over the gate here are the words Leave every hope behind, ye who enter. Only think what a relief that is! For what is hope? A form of moral responsibility. Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself."
"An idea, which has terrified millions, claims that some of us will go to a place called Hell, where we will suffer eternal torture. This does not scare me because, when I try to imagine a Mind behind this universe, I cannot conceive that Mind, usually called 'God,' as totally mad. I mean, guys, compare that 'God' with the worst monsters you can think of—Adolph Hitler, Joe Stalin, that sort of guy. None of them ever inflicted more than finite pain on their victims. Even de Sade, in his sado-masochistic fantasy novels, never devised an unlimited torture. The idea that the Mind of Creation (if such exists) wants to torture some of its critters for endless infinities of infinities seems too absurd to take seriously. Such a deranged Mind could not create a mud hut, much less the exquisitely mathematical universe around us."
"It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix—a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing . . . And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get . . ."
"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these 10 things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! ...But he loves you!"
"Hell is where no one has anything in common with anybody else except the fact that they all hate one another and cannot get away from one another and from themselves."
— Thomas Merton
"I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
"Hell is God's great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human personality."
"We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment."
