Quotes from Angels in America
Angels in America (Parts One and Two)

I see the universe…as a kind of sandstorm in outer space with winds of mega-hurricane velocity, but instead of grains of sand it’s shards and splinters of glass.
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.13

Pretend-happy! That’s better than nothing. .
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.23

Catholics believe in forgiveness. Jews believe in Guilt. .
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.25

I usually say, “Fuck the truth,” but mostly, the truth fucks you. .
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.34

Well for us [Jewish people] it’s not the verdict that counts, it’s the act of judgment. .
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.38

Well, it’s old. Very old. Which in some cirlces equals impressive. .
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.51

She was capable of… more than loyalty. Devotion. .
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.51

What can death bring that I haven’t faced? I’ve lived; life is the worst. .
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.58

I try to learn to live dead, just numb, but then I see someone I want, and it’s like a nail, like a hot spike right through my chest, and I know I’m losing. .
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.77

It’s a hard place, Salt Lake: baked dry. Abundant energy; not much intellegence.
Sorry to all of my Mormon friends but I liked this quote. Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.82

…what I think is that what AIDS shows us is the limits of tolerance, that it’s not enough to be tolerated, because when the shit hits the fan you find out how much tolerance is worth. Nothing. And underneath all the tolerance is intense passionate hatred.
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p.90

”I’m going to hell for doing this.”
”Big deal. You think it could be any worse than New York City?”
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches p. 116

We don’t [count]; faggots; we’re just a bad dream the real world is having, and the real world’s waking up.
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.34

In making people God apparently set in motion a potential in the design for change, for random event, for movement forward.
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.42

With faith and time and hard work you reach a point…where the disappointment doesn’t hurt as much, and then it gets actually easy to live with. Quite easy. Which is in its own way a disappointment.
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.50

That’s America. It’s just no country for the infirm.
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.58

You can’t believe a word he says but the sound of him is reassuring.
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.59

Angelology. The field work must be rigorous. You’d have to drop dead before you say your first specimen.
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.60

[On the Mormon trek to Salt Lake City] that’s the joke, they drag you on your knees through hell and when you get there the water of course is undrinkable. Salt. It’s a Promised land, but what a disappointing promise!
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.62

Any religion that’s not at least two thousand years old is a cult.
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.63

I never imagined losing my mind was going to be such hard work.
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.65

”You have to reconcile yourself to the world’s unperfectibility by being thoroughly in the world but not of it…That’s what being a Mormon is.”
”That’s what being a schizophrenic is.”
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.70

You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind always but it’s not always kind to be gentle and soft, there’s a genuine violence softness and weakness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be.
This really reminds me of a particular relationship I’ve been through. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.73

Well you better be keeping a file on the hearts you break, that’s all that counts in the end, you’ll have bills to pay in the world to come. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.89

[On America] It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.94

An angel is just a belief, with wings and arms that can carry you. It’s naught to be afraid of. If it lets you down, reject it. Seek for something new. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.103

It isn’t easy, it doesn’t count if it’s easy, it’s the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet. Peace, at least. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.122

You’ll find, my friend, that what you love will take you places you never dreamed you’d go. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.125

Even sick. I want to be alive. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.131

The addiction to being alive. We live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that’s it, that’s the best I can do. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.133

”I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
”Well that’s a stupid thing to do.” Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.137

Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.142

You can’t live in the world without an idea of the world, but it’s living that makes the ideas. You can’t wait for a theory, but you have to have a theory. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.144

[On AIDS and those who have it] This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away…You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.146

…here I risk pretentiousness, and an excess of optimism to boot – another American trait. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.150

She feels safest, she says, knowing the worst, while most people I know, myself included, would rather be spared and feel safer encircled by a measure of obliviousness. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.153

We have no words for the people to whom we are indebted. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.154

Together we organize the world for ourselves, or at least we organize our understanding of it; we reflect it, refract it, criticize it, grieve over its savagery and help each other to discern, amidst the gathering dark, paths of resistance, pockets of peace and places from whence hope may be plausibly expected. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika p.155

Lessons that were never intended as lessons are the lessons you never forget.
The Autobiography of Roy Cohn Ch. 1 p.19

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