Quotes / Our Angels Are Different

Anime & Manga

Goku: Say, you said all the gods were dead, but Whis is not dead, right? He's really dependable. Much more than Lord Beerus.
Supreme Kai: Goku, unfortunately when the god an angel serves dies the angel ceases to function until the next god appears.
Goku: An angel? So Whis is an angel? But he's got no wings, and his butt's not hangin' out.

— Dragon Ball Super

Film — Live-Action

"Oh, get over yourself, will you? I couldn't rape you if I wanted to. Angels are ill-equipped. [lowers his pants, revealing he has no genitalia] See? I'm as anatomically impaired as a Ken doll. You bottom-feeders and your arrogance; you think everybody's just trying to get in your knickers."

— Metatron, Dogma

"Did you ever notice how in The Bible, whenever God needed to punish someone or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, He sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?"

— Thomas Daggett, The Prophecy

"I'm an angel. I kill firstborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls, and, from now 'til kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why."

— Archangel Gabriel, The Prophecy

Literature

I began to understand what Father Anton had meant when he said that angels were terrible. There were drawings of angels that were nothing but intense sources of light with spreading wings. There were angels like fierce, proud beasts. And there were angels who were unseen but who came at night like violent storms and laid waste the houses of the wicked. It was plain from the captions under each of the pictures that you had to invoke the right angel for the right temporal task, otherwise you might find yourself, metaphorically speaking, plugging a flashlight bulb into a nuclear power station.

— The Devils Of D Day, by Graham Masterton

"In the plastic arts these symbols [depictions of angels] have steadily degenerated. Fra Angelico's angels carry in their face and gesture the peace and authority of heaven. Later come the chubby infantile nudes of Raphael; finally the soft, slim, girlish and consolatory angels of nineteenth-century art, shapes so feminine that they avoid being voluptuous only by their total insipidity — the frigid houris of a tea-table paradise. They are a pernicious symbol. In Scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying 'Fear not.' The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say 'There, there.'"

— C. S. Lewis, Preface to the Paper Back Edition, The Screwtape Letters

Father Verdi: [Seraphim] are... the purest essence of magnificence and dread. Would you ever want to see one, meet one? I bet you were just like me growing up, and dreamed of it. But be careful what you wish for. I don't think you would want it at all...
Father Laurenti: Do they not have any concept of mercy?
Father Verdi: Why should they? They are... incomplete. Pure in what they are, but incomplete. Are there angels that are heralds, or guardians, or comforters? Maybe. Probably. But I've never seen them.
Father Laurenti: Then what are these?
Father Verdi: Isn't it obvious? They are the perfect manifestations of His wrath, and nothing more. And for so long, they have had nothing to do.

— Brian Hodge, Hellboy: On Earth As It Is In Hell

Live-Action TV

Dean: Who are you?
Castiel: Castiel.
Dean: Yeah, I figured that much, I mean what are you?
Castiel: I am an Angel of the Lord.
Dean: Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing.

— Supernatural

"Our numbers are not unlimited: six of my brothers fell in the field this week."

— Castiel, Supernatural

Religion & Mythology

"Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the soles of calves' feet. They sparkled like the color of burnished bronze. The hands of a man were under their wings on their four sides; and each of the four had faces and wings. Their wings touched one another. The creatures did not turn when they went, but each one went straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle. Thus were their faces. Their wings stretched upward; two wings of each one touched one another, and two covered their bodies. And each one went straight forward; they went wherever the spirit wanted to go, and they did not turn when they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches going back and forth among the living creatures. The fire was bright, and out of the fire went lightning. And the living creatures ran back and forth, in appearance like a flash of lightning."

—Book of Ezekiel 1:1-12

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphim, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of His glory.' "

—Book of Isaiah 6:1-3

"Behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men."

— Matthew 28:2-4, The Four Gospels

Tabletop Games

"We are natural laws, Matthew. We were once waves and quanta. We danced, not on the heads of pins, but in the orbits of electrons."

— Gaviel, Demon: The Fallen

Her body began to unravel, not in pieces, but in a flurry of strips, like pages of sheet music falling from a conductor's hand. When her clothes and her flesh had been stripped away, only a dim glow remained in front of me — but if I relaxed, and let the glow take its own form instead of forcing any mind to give it shape, I could make out the vision of the pure her: smooth-skinned and wiry thin, with wings of light and eyes full of strength and passion and nobility. No one could ever have eyes like that — no human, at least. Her mouth, bordered top and bottom by perfect purple lips, opened enough to let the soft tinkle of music escape.
"Kill him," she sang, and so I did.

— In Nomine Corebook

Theatre

"Angels is all right, singin' an' playin' an' flying around, but dey ain't much on workin' de crops and buildin' de levees."

— God, The Green Pastures

Video Games

"TRANSMIT — initiate the titan signal — RECEIVE — initiate Enochian lexicon — FOR ADDITIONAL SUPPORT, PLEASE CONTACT THE MANUFACTURER — initiate the Grigori syntax — FOR LONG DISTANCE CALLS, EXTRA FEES MAY APPLY — initiate the Watcher prerogative — A BROKEN SMILE BENEATH HER WHISPERED WINGS — initiate the Nephilim manifesto — WITNESS — The Host.
See the immaculate machine weep. Initiate distress beacon. The builders! We call upon their secret names. Human children hear our cries in their sleeping minds, and then make angels in the snow — pictographic signals aimed at the sky."

— The Buzzing, The Secret World

A wheel of living flame; a commandment of the Westernmost King's highest Law; an utterance of fire and glory.

— A description of one of the Logoi, Sunless Skies

Webcomics

GC: WH4TS 4N 4NG3L
TA: 2ome terriible mythiical demon.
TA: wiith the2e awful feathery wiing2.
GC: Y1K3S
TA: paradox 2pace u2e2 them two u2her iin the end.

— Tezeri Pyrope and Sollux Captor, Homestuck

In some universes the battle tank was created — an armored shell protecting a core of weak flesh and razor sharp reason.
In many ways, an angel is perhaps similar, a fired stone or metal shell protecting a controlled nuclear explosion skilled in millennia old martial arts.
Perhaps.

— Kill Six Billion Demons

"It is well known that Angels, having tens of thousands of years of contemplation to perfect the martial arts, are unparalleled masters of them. If you are to seek an angel master, be respectful to them. Defer to them on all matters, worldly and otherwise, for they are dogmatic and proud beings. Attend to their requests, clean their monasteries, and humble yourself in your actions and words. Above all, do not spar with them, unless you want your arms torn from your sockets."

— Zao Xu, Horse Style Master, "49 Empty Palms", Kill Six Billion Demons

"I wasted five hours of hard fighting and a hundred and fifty of my best men bringing it down. Then it exploded."

— General Yross of the Yellow Moon Brood, on fighting angels, Kill Six Billion Demons

Web Original

"Angels have claws. You wouldn't think so, but they do. That was probably my least favorite part about the glorious battle we fought against them in Heaven."

— Dennis Rodman, Clickhole, The Oral History of Michael Jordan's Legendary "Flu Game"

"Honestly, if you see an angel that's all eyes and wings and wheels of fire, you should be worried. Like, not because it's going to hurt you or anything, but because scripturally, angels invariably appear to ordinary people in human form. In general, they only show their inhuman true forms to prophets — which means if you're seeing them like that, they come bearing responsibility."

— David J. Prokopetz

Other

"Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly."

— G. K. Chesterton

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