The Sunset Limited - Yin Yang

B: Belief aint like unbelief. If you're a believer and you finally got to come to the well of belief itself, then you aint got to look no further. There aint no further. But the unbeliever's got a problem. He's set out to unravel the world. For everything he can point to that aint true, he leaves two things laying there.

B: I ain't a doubter, but I am a questioner.
W: What's the difference?
B: A questioner wants the truth. A doubter wants to be told there ain't no such thing.

W: Do you really believe everything that's in there... the Bible?
B: The literal truth? Probably not, but then you already know I'm an outlaw. Probably the notion of original sin... you know, when Eve ate the apple, turned everybody bad. I don't see people that way. I think for the most part people was good to begin with. I think evil is something you bring on your own self, mostly from wanting things you ain't supposed to have.

W: I long for Darkness. I pray for death, real death. And if I thought that in death I would meet the people I knew in life, I don't know what I would do. That would be the ultimate horror, the ultimate nightmare. If I thought I was gonna meet my mother again an' start all of that over, only this time without the prospect of death to look forward to... that would be the final nightmare. Goddamn Kafka on wheels.

W: I don't believe in God. Can you understand that? Look around you, man. Can't you see? The clamour and din of those in torment has to be the sound most pleasing to his ear.

B: This book is a guide for the ignorant and the sick at heart. A whole man wouldn't need it at all. And if you was to read this book, you're gonna find there's more talk in here about the wrong way than there is the right way.

W: The Bible is full of cautionary tales...all of literature, for that matter... telling us to be careful. Careful of what? Taking the wrong turn, the wrong path. How many wrong paths are there? Their number is legion. How many right paths? Just one. Hence the imbalance that you spoke of.

W: Even God gives up at some point. There's no ministry in hell that I ever heard of.
B: No, there ain't. And that's well put. Ministry is for the living. That's why you're responsible
for your brother. Once he quit breathing you can't help him no more. He's in the hands of other parties. So you got to look after him now. You might even want to monitor his train schedule.



W: I gather it to be your belief that culture tends to contribute to human misery, that the more one knows, the unhappier one is likely to be.
B: As in the case of certain parties known to us.
W: It's the first thing in that book there... the Garden of Eden. Knowledge as destructive to the spirit, destructive to goodness.
B: I thought you ain't read that book.
W: Everyone knows that story. It's probably the most famous story in there.
B: Hmm, why you think that is?
W: I suppose from the God's point of view all knowledge is vanity. Or maybe it just gives people the unhealthy illusion that they can outwit 'the devil'.

W: The darker picture is always the correct one. When you read the history of the world you are reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore. And yet we imagine that the future will somehow be different. I've no idea why we are even still here. In all probability we won't be here much longer.
B: Them's some pretty powerful words, professor. That's what's in your heart though, ain't it?
W: Yes.
B: All right, well, I can relate to them thoughts.
W: You can?
B: Sure I can.
W: That surprises me.
B: But you could be wrong, you know.

B: The light is all around you but you don't see nothing but shadow. And you're the one causing it. It's you. You're the shadow. That's the point.
W: Well, I don't have your faith. Why don't we just leave it at that?
B: You ain't never thought about just starting over?
W: I did at one time. I don't anymore.
B: Well, maybe faith is just a case of not having nothing else left.
W: Well, I do have something else.
B: Well, why don't you just keep that in reserve? Just take a shot at starting over. I don't mean starting again. Everybody's done that. Over means over. Just walk away. I mean, if everything you are and everything you have and everything you done has brought you at last to the bottom of a whisky bottle or bought you a one-way ticket on the Sunset Limited, you can't give me one good reason on God's green earth for salvaging none of it, 'cause there ain't none. If you can bring yourself to close the door on all of that, it will be cold and it will be lonely and there will be a fierce wind blowing. But you don't say nothing. You just turn your collar up and keep walking.
W: I can't. I can't.

W: Banish the fear of death from men's hearts... They wouldn't live a day. Who would want this nightmare but for fear of the next?

Black asks a question at the end of the movie to God and the answer to me seems obvious, he may not have found the words, but despite everything he has the spirit and that's wonderful.He's proven he's saved himself.