Tom Robbins on Heaven and Hell

"The way I figure it, Heaven and Hell are right here in Earth. Heaven is living in your hopes and Hell is living in your fears. It's up to each individual which one he chooses."

Bonanza Jellybean in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Neil Peart on Belief

“Sure, I still wonder. As infuriating and senseless as organized religion seems, and with all the abuses of the evangelists and fanatics, I am still intrigued by the romance, the ritual, and the security of a Higher Power. Like most everyone, I’d like to believe in something larger than life, especially for those times when life seems small and mean. But after I’ve admired the poetry of the King James Bible, appreciated the peaceful wisdom of Buddhism, recoiled from a vengeful Allah or God, wondered about the secret societies of Freemasons and Illuminati, in the end I return to reality, and believe in Life. And that seems good to me.

I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty. Art gives a spiritual depth to existence – I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books. And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact and personal affirmation. I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder. I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I’m told to by self-appointed guides.” (pp. 108-109)


“All dogma aside, it is nakedly humane and truly compassionate not to want people to suffer, whether or not someone says it is “God’s will.” That must be the simplest of truths, the kind that can only be contested by people who place dogma above life, and those are the people, whether communist, fascist, Muslim, or Catholic, who must represent the enemy to those of us who worship Life and the supreme good, and the supreme god. Or to those of us who just want to enjoy it.” (p. 113)


From Masked Rider

Arthur T. Jersild on Education

“A detached teacher is one who, so to speak, teaches with his head but not with his heart.” (p.33)

“…one way of responding anxiously to the idea of anxiety is to resist it and to avoid its complications; and one form of resistance is to insist on a letter-perfect definition—to keep fiddling with meanings until the concept becomes only an academic matter and ceases to have any personal significance at all.” (p.41)

“The grievances teachers have about tasks that seem arbitrary and meaningless probably often stem from the compulsion of administrators to work and to assign work as means of coping with their anxieties.” (p.53)

“Where meaning is lacking in one’s work as a teacher, the self is uninvolved. The substance is lacking, and the teaching is just an empty formality.” (p. 78)

“Any theory that has its roots in the realities of life has an immediate practical meaning to those who are willing to accept it.” (p 87)

“To despair is to surrender.” (p.89)


All quotes from When Teachers Face Themselves

Bertrand Russell on Education

The teacher should love his children better than his state or his church; otherwise he is not an ideal teacher.

A free mental life cannot be as warm and comfortable and sociable as a life enveloped in a creed: only a creed can give the feeling of a cozy fireside while the winter storms are raging without.


From "The Aims of Education" (1926)

The Wisdom of Viktor Frankl

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves, and furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks that it constantly sets forth for each individual.


...morality is more than just a sleeping pill, or a tranquilizing drug.


What man actually needs is not a tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.


All quotations from Man's Search for Meaning (Frankl's reflections on life in a concentration camp)

God and Music

The Devil--the true Devil--hates rock 'n' roll. Strives to suppress it through his false prophets. The Devil hates rock 'n' roll because the devil hates freedom, and freedom of expression and anything that unifies men. And God...God loves music. All kinds of music. God thinks with music. And when God chooses...God knows how to rock 'n' roll!

John Shirley

Harlan Ellison's Philosophy

My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration, and ignoble deaths; that there is security in personal strength; that you can fight City Hall and win; that any action is better than no action, even if it's the wrong action; that you never reach glory or self-fulfillment unless you're willing to risk everything, dare anything, put yourself dead on the line every time; and that once one becomes strong or rich or potent or powerful it is the responsibility of the strong to help the weak become strong.

From The Harlan Ellison Hornbook

Ben Franklin's Prayer

O Powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase in me that Wisdom which discovers my truest Interests; Strengthen my Resolutions to perform what that Wisdom dictates. Accept my kind Offices to thy other Children as the only Return in my Power for thy continual Favors to me.

From The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin