Woke Up in a Strange Place Quotes

“Gay angels are all the rage in heaven.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“Lou reluctantly drew back, still holding Joe, and placed his soft lips on Joe's own. Existence reacted to their reunion. Immediately, it was as if two halves became whole once again. The sky flashed colors overhead as they stood together: day to night, night to day. They stood motionless and kissing for so long a period that they might have been mistaken for part of the landscape, as vines climbed up their legs and grass grew around them; as dirt gathered and buried even more the scattered fragments of the abbey. Only the keepers of time knew that lifetimes did indeed pass, possibly entire eras. And yet it was but a scant moment to Joe and Lou. All of it but a simple, longed-for embrace neither time nor death could contain.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“Oh wouldn't that twist your twat if that turned out to be true!”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“Il paradiso è chiuso?” disse Joe incredulo.

“È fallito da un po’,” disse l’aeronauta disinteressata. “Ho visto io stessa gli ultimi dei suoi cittadini andare via. Uscivano dalle porte del paradiso come bambini curiosi che si avventurano in un luogo pensando di poter finire nei guai.”

“Dove sono andati?” chiese Joe.

“Chi lo sa,” rispose lei. “Sono tornati sulla Terra, in qualche altra esistenza, o forse hanno visto come il resto di noi andava avanti e hanno deciso che stavamo meglio di loro. Ma se ne sono andati e con una fretta entusiasta.”

“San Pietro ha chiuso la porta, eh?” intervenne Baker.

L’aeronauta sbuffò irritata. “Non gli è mai piaciuto molto il lavoro o il vestito. Sandali e tunica sono così fuori moda. Stava aspettando che tutti si svegliassero dalle loro idee inflessibili e stagnanti. Ha accettato il lavoro solo perché tutti — ogni singolo cristiano sulla Terra — si aspettava che lui fosse qui ad aspettarli. Verso la fine è diventato lunatico. Era un lavoro che gli avevano imposto, dopotutto. Non ha mai chiesto di essere il guardiano del cancello.”

“Dov’è adesso?” chiese Joe.

“È tornato a un’altra vita sulla Terra. Voleva fare tutto da capo, ma questa volta con meno responsabilità. È stato qui per tutte le età della Terra. Sperava di potersi riunire con quegli altri undici pazzi che facevano parte della sua banda. Dico ‘pazzi’ con affetto, naturalmente.” Disse l’ultima parte come se si trattasse di un fardello.

“Intendi gli apostoli?”

“Quello che sono,” disse lei, sempre guardando davanti.

“Allora, cosa ha portato tutti a svegliarsi finalmente?”

“Qual è la causa per cui tutti noi capiamo finalmente qualcosa che si trova davanti ai nostri occhi? Chi lo sa? Non so dirtelo. Hanno avuto un’epifania, suppongo. Hanno capito che doveva esserci più nella morte che girare su soffici nuvole e cantare nei cori. Probabilmente erano veramente annoiati.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“Great courage, Joe.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“Questo è il Giardino dell’Incredulità. È così che tutti lo chiamano da quando si ha memoria. Ma anche qui, ci piace la nostra teatralità, non è vero?” Joe la guardò, sperando che si spiegasse.

“Sono atei, tesoro,” disse senza mezzi termini, indicando la massa di dormienti. “Loro non credevano in una vita ultraterrena. Niente di niente. Così, quando sono morti, questa convinzione d’incredulità si manifesta loro… bene, finiscono qui, e restano distesi ignari della loro esistenza fino a quando…”

“Fino a quando si svegliano,” Joe finì la sua frase”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“Il paradiso è chiuso,” ripeteva Joe a se stesso.
Si domandò se c’era qualcuno che ancora credeva nella vita dopo la morte, con le arpe e i cori di angeli e San Pietro alle porte del paradiso. Che cosa avrebbe fatto quando fosse arrivato lì? Avrebbe semplicemente galleggiato intorno al suo perimetro, in attesa che si aprisse come un parco a tema, pensando che forse era semplicemente chiuso per la stagione o per delle riparazioni?”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“You gotta know it before you move on. You gotta recognize yourself. Understand the lessons. If you cain’t make no sense of it, well then, what use was it?”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“There are lost souls here too. They just wander and stumble about, sad and incomplete. They look real tired all the time. But most of us find our way okay. Then, when we know our way well enough, we can help others out. Others who don’t know their way so well. Some lost ones maybe. But the truth is, we never stop discovering new things. There’s always more.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“The sight of it stunned Joe to the point that, if the strength of the sea had not held him, he would have fallen down. In this underwater existence, he was straight. This was his life’s curiosity incarnate. He had often wondered how his life would have been different—easier—if he were a heterosexual man.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“Joe and Guy kicked through the tall dandelions like lovers on a first walk under the moon.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“There’s yer heaven, chief,” Baker answered Joe’s curiosity. “You see, it existed, I suppose, at one time. Back when people thought that’s what the afterlife was. Looks kinda like a ghost town now, huh?” “Heaven is closed?” Joe said incredulously. “It’s been out of business for a while,” said the disinterested balloonist.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“CLOSED DUE TO INFREQUENT USE”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“It’s the City of Thought,” their balloonist said, still staring straight, still committed to her job. “Be careful of your thoughts here. They’re not your own. Once you think them, they belong to everyone.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“What the hell is this?” Baker mumbled, swatting at a sentence as if it were a pesky bee or a mosquito. The letters scattered from the disturbance but kept climbing all the same. A capital O got caught on his ring finger, and he shook it loose frantically.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“You grow the most, you see, when there are boundaries, when there are things to climb over.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“They’re only being punished by themselves. There ain’t no higher power doin’ it. Not like you’re thinking. As I said, there ain’t no hell. You keep makin’ me repeat myself, boy. There ain’t no heaven, God, devil—none of it. Only the mind makes it so. ’S’a powerful thing, the mind. We can create somethin’ outta nothin’.” He paused. “Are we done with today’s sermon?”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“They came to a vast, spanning, multi-colored fern that was as huge as anything Abigail grew in her gardens but pulsating like the beat of a heart (thump, thump, thump) with vibrant hues of individual colors.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“The moons and heavenly bodies in the blue sky hung like guardians over the ground as Joe was taken onward.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“They took the snide grimaces and foul remarks of the day, the shoves in the hallway or laughs on the playground, and turned them into monsters and giant squids they could just as easily vanquish to darkened caves under the earth. They made the bullies’ scoffs destructible things.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“There were much larger things as well. Otters and beavers and turtles and platypuses. Were they to break out in song, Joe would have thought it none the stranger. After all, the river did sing. At one point, a beaver placed its tiny hands on the aft of the boat, as if to aid their speed, using its slight might to push.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place

“Well, human beings have always done one thing very well, and that is create their own hells and bask in their own misery. They complain about what they create for themselves; they relish the pain. What they don't do so well most of the time is find a way out of it.”
― Eric Arvin, Woke Up in a Strange Place