everybody wants to go to heaven...

Rudi Krause and I were chatting about The Great Divorce, and he mentioned a passage from Douglas Coupland's book which formed the basis for his Massey Lectures series on CBC earlier this year. I figure the opening quote is a reference to Albert King, whose song is used in the soundtrack of Jason Goode's production of Danny & The Deep Blue Sea, at Pacific Theatre next season.

Bertis says, "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die."
Karen blinks.
The power goes out and nobody is surprised.

. . .

Luke is in the foxhole, but it's not making him question his newly found atheism. He asks Bertis, "Why would you kill Leslie Freemont?"
"Why? Because he wanted to go to heaven without dying."
"Excuse me - explain that to me."
"He was a prisoner of the world. He thought earthly happiness was all we needed. 'Power Dynamics Seminar System.' What the hell is that? Leslie Freemont thought humans saw themselves as bottomless wells of creativity and uniqueness. But God refuses to see any one person as unique in his or her relationship to Him. Nobody's special. And life on earth is just a bus stop on the way to greater glory or greater suffering."

Douglas Coupland, "Player One: What is to Become of Us" 

pages 151-152