“It goes without saying that even those of us who are going to hell will get eternal life—if that territory really exists outside religious books and the minds of believers, that is. Having said that, given the choice, instead of being grilled until hell freezes over, the average sane human being would, needless to say, rather spend forever idling in an extremely fertile garden, next to a lamb or a chicken or a parrot, which they do not secretly want to eat, and a lion or a tiger or a crocodile, which does not secretly want to eat them.”

“There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing … The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.”

“God made a beauteous garden With lovely flowers strown,But one straight, narrow pathway That was not overgrown.And to this beauteous garden He brought mankind to live,And said “To you, my children, These lovely flowers I give.Prune ye my vines and fig trees, With care my flowers tend,But keep the pathway open Your home is at the end.”God’s Garden”