Philip José Farmer - To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

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All the human beings I met were either sure that there would be no afterlife or else that they would get preferential treatment in the hereafter.

Philip José Farmer
The aerial canoe had no visible means of support, he thought, and it was a measure of his terror that he did not even think about his pun. No visible means of support. Like a magical vessel out of The Thousand and One Nights.

Philip José Farmer
Death, the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Society, had arrived at last.
Blackness. Nothingness. He did not even know that his heart had given out forever. Nothingness.
Then his eyes opened. His heart was beating strongly. He was strong, very strong! All the pain of the gout in his feet, the agony in his liver, the torture in his heart, all were gone.
It was so quiet he could hear the blood moving in his head. He was alone in a world of soundlessness.
A bright light of equal intensity was everywhere. He could see, yet he did not understand what he was seeing. What were these things above, beside, below him? Where was he?

Philip José Farmer
In a frenzy, kicking his legs and moving his arms in a swimmer's breaststroke, he managed to fight toward the rod. The closer he got to it, the stronger the web of force became. He did not give up. If he did, he would be back where he had been and without enough strength to begin fighting again. It was not his nature to give up until all his strength had been expended.

Philip José Farmer
His wife had held him in her arms as if she could keep death away from him.
He had cried out, "My God, I am a dead man!"

Philip José Farmer
I did it! she said. I... I! I wanted to! Oh, what a vile low whore I am!
I don't remember offering you any money.

Philip José Farmer
Burton did not believe in miracles. Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles — if you knew all the facts.

Philip José Farmer
It was like no hell or heaven of which he had ever heard or read, and he had thought that he was acquainted with every theory of the afterlife.
He had died. Now he was alive. He had scoffed all his life at a life-after-death. For once, he could not deny that he had been wrong. But there was no one present to say, "I told you so, you damned infidel!"
Of all the millions, he alone was awake.

Philip José Farmer
Burton, though an infidel, made it his business to investigate thoroughly every religion. Know a man's faith, and you knew at least half the man. Know his wife, and you knew the other half.

Philip José Farmer
Some of you have asked why we should set out for a goal that lies we know not how far away or that might not even exist. I will tell you that we are setting sail because the Unknown exists and we would make it the Known. That's all!

Philip José Farmer
Burton sighed, laughed loudly, and said, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Another fairy tale to give men hope. The old religions have been discredited although some refuse to face even that fact so new ones must be invented.

Philip José Farmer