Monday, July 22, 2013

"I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling." (Quotent Quotables)

So you want to be a monk? ... Well, it's a good opportunity. You'll pray for us sinners; we have sinned too much here.  I've always been thinking who would pray for me, and whether there's anyone in the world to do it.  My dear boy, I'm awfully stupid about that.  You wouldn't believe it. Awfully.  You see, however stupid I am about it, I keep thinking, I keep thinking -- from time to time, of course, not all the while.  It's impossible, I think, for the devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die.  Then I wonder-- hooks?  Where would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where do they forge them ? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks in the monastery probably believe that there's a ceiling in hell, for instance.  Now, I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling.  It makes it more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran that is.  And, after all, what does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn't? But, do you know, there's a damnable question involved in it? If there's no ceiling there can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks it all breaks down,which is unlikely again, for then there would be none to drag me down to hell, and if they don't drag me down what justice is there in the world? Il faudrait les inventer, it would be necessary to invent them, those hooks, on purpose for me alone.

-- The Brothers Karamazov

3 comments:

Andrew Leon said...

Don't take my review of Pacific Rim to be all positive and stuff. You need to make sure you come back for part 2 for the whole story.

Briane said...

So you Paul Harvey'd me.

Andrew Leon said...

I did. I certainly did.

Did you get my email with the magic cookies?