"Here at least we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."
—Satan, Paradise Lost
"Horror and doubt distract [Satan's] troubl'd thoughts, and from the bottom stirr the Hell within him, for within him Hell he brings, and round about him, nor from Hell one step no more then from himself can fly by change of place."
—Paradise Lost Book IV
"The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it."
—William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
"Milton believed that God was his 'natural superior' and that Charles Stuart was not."
—C. S. Lewis, writer of The Great Divorce (Of Heaven and Hell)
