C.S. Lewis "The Great Divorce"

'Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it already.' (Ch 9)

'There are two only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.' (Ch 9)

'Milton was right,' said my Teacher. 'The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy--that is, to reality. . .' (Ch 9)

'Son', he said, 'ye cannot in your present state understand eternity. . . But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on Earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed wills say "we have never lived anywhere except in Heaven," and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will speak truly.'  (Ch 9)

'. . . the Saved . . . what happens to them is best describe as the opposite of a mirage. What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery turns out, when they look back, to have been a well; and where present experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that the pools were full of water . . . Hell is a state of mind--ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself , every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind--is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly.' (Ch 9)

''Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity. . . Did you think joy was created to live always under that threat? Always defenseless against those who would rather be miserable than have their self-will crossed? . . . Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers fo misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves. . .The action of Pity will live for ever: but the passion of Pity will not. The passion of Pity, the Pity we merely suffer . . . that will die. It was used as a weapon by bad men against good ones: their weapon will be broken.' (Ch 13)

'Friend, I am not suggesting at all. You see, I know now. Let us be frank. Our opinions were not honestly come by. We simply found ourselves in contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemed modern and successful. At College, you know, we just started automatically writing the kind of essays that got good marks and saying the kind of things that won applause. When, in our whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on which all turned: whether after all the Supernatural might not in fact occur? When did we put of one moment's real resistance to the loss of our faith?' (Ch 5)

'I'm asking for nothing but my rights. You may think you can put me down . . . But I got to have my rights same as you, see?'
'Oh no. It's not so bad as that. I haven't got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You'll get something far better. Never fear.' (Ch 4)