“Well, then, go you into hell?BEATRICENo, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.”

“You have been to hell, Ketut?"He smiled. Of course he's been there.What's it like in hell?" Same like in heaven," he said.He saw my confusion and tried to explain. "Universe is a circle, Liss."He said. "To up, to down -- all same, at end."I remembered an old Christian mystic notion: As above, so below. I asked. "Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?"Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell, you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up, Liss." He laughed.Same-same," he said. "Same in end, so better to be happy in journey."I said, "So, if heaven is love, then hell is.. " Love, too," he said. Ketut laughed again, "Always so difficult for young people to understand this!”

“Liz: What's it like in hell?Ketut: Same like heaven. Universe is a circle, Liss. To up, to down -- all same, at end.Liz: Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?Ketut: Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up, Liss.Liz: You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell -- same destinations -- are the same thing anyway?Ketut: Same-same. Same in end, so better be happy on journey.”

“Oh, Marya Morevna! Do you know how the church-folk call me, me and my daughter Gamayun, when they paint us on their ceilings? They call us archangels, and say that we live in heaven, where no vine of sorrow or memory grows. That is where I sent you, not to heaven—tscha! I know nothing of that place. But to a place like the ceiling of a church.”

“To all of us the thought of heaven is dear -Why not be sure of it and make it here?No doubt there is a heaven yonder too,But 'tis so far away - and you are near.Men talk of heaven, - there is no heaven but here;Men talk of hell, - there is no hell but here;Men of hereafters talk, and future lives,O love, there is no other life - but here.”

“Sometimes to get to heaven you need to go through hell.”