The Best Midnight Mass Quotes

Erin: When I die... My body stops functioning. Shut down. All at once, or gradually. My breathing stops, my heart stops beating. Clinical death. And a bit later, like, five whole minutes later... My brain cells start dying. But in the meantime, in between... Maybe my brain releases a flood of DMT. It's the psychedelic drug released when we dream, so... I dream. I dream bigger than I have ever dreamed before, because it's all of it. Just the last dump of DMT all at once. And my neurons are firing and I'm seeing this firework display of memories and imagination. And I'm just... Tripping. I mean, really tripping balls because my mind's riffling through the memories. You know, long and short-term, and the dreams mix with the memories, and... It's a curtain call. The dream to end all dreams. One last great dreams as my mind empties the fuckin' missile silos and then... I stop. My brain activity ceases and there is nothing left of me. No pain. No memory, no awareness that I ever was, no... That I ever hurt someone. That I ever killed someone. Everything is as it was before me. And the electricity disperses from my brain till it's just dead tissue. Meat. Oblivion. And all of the other little things that make me up, they... The microbes and bacterium and billion other little things that live on my eyelashes and in my hair and in my mouth and on my skin and in my gut and everywhere else, they just keep on living. And eating. Uh... And I'm serving a purpose. I'm feeding life. And I'm broken apart, and all the littlest pieces of me are just recycled, and I'm billions of other places. And my atoms are in plants and bugs and animals, and I'm like the stars that are in the sky. There one moment and then just scattered across the goddamn cosmos. Your turn. What happens when you die?

Riley: - So what do you think happens when we die, Erin?
Erin: - Speaking for myself?
Riley: - Speaking for yourself.
Erin: - Myself. My self. That's the problem. That's the whole problem with the whole thing That word, "self." That's not the word. That's not right, that isn't... How did I forget that? When did I forget that? The body stops a cell at a time, but the brain keeps firing those neurons Little lightning bolts, like fireworks inside, and I thought I'd despair or feel afraid, but I don't feel any of that. None of it. Because I'm too busy. I'm too busy in this moment. Remembering. Of course. I remember that every atom in my body was forged in a star. This matter, this body is mostly just empty space after all and solid matter? It's just energy vibrating very slowly and there is no me. There never was. The electrons of my body mingle and dance with the electrons of the ground below me and the air I'm no longer breathing. And I remember there is no point where any of that ends and I begin I remember I am energy. Not memory Not self. My name, my personality, my choices, all came after me I was before them and I will be after, and everything else is pictures, picked up along the way. Fleeting little dreamlets printed on the tissue of my dying brain. And I am the lightning that jumps between. I am the energy firing the neurons, and I'm returning. Just by remembering, I'm returning home. And it's like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, of which it's always been a part. All things... a part. All of us... a part. You, me and my little girl, and my mother and my father, everyone who's ever been, every plant, every animal, every atom, every star, every galaxy, all of it. More galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the beach. And that's what we're talking about when we say "God." The one. The cosmos and its infinite dreams. We are the cosmos dreaming of itself. It's simply a dream that I think is my life, every time. But I'll forget this. I always do. I always forget my dreams. But now, in this split-second, in the moment I remember, the instant I remember, I comprehend everything at once. There is no time. There is no death. Life is a dream. It's a wish. Made again and again and again and again and again and again and on into eternity. And I am all of it. I am everything. I am all. I am that I am.

Riley: When I die... My body stops functioning. Shut down. All at once, or gradually. My breathing stops, my heart stops beating. Clinical death. And a bit later, like, five whole minutes later... My brain cells start dying. But in the meantime, in between... Maybe my brain releases a flood of DMT. It's the psychedelic drug released when we dream, so... I dream. I dream bigger than I have ever dreamed before, because it's all of it. Just the last dump of DMT all at once. And my neurons are firing and I'm seeing this firework display of memories and imagination. And I'm just... Tripping. I mean, really tripping balls because my mind's riffling through the memories. You know, long and short-term, and the dreams mix with the memories, and... It's a curtain call. The dream to end all dreams. One last great dreams as my mind empties the fuckin' missile silos and then... I stop. My brain activity ceases and there is nothing left of me. No pain. No memory, no awareness that I ever was, no... That I ever hurt someone. That I ever killed someone. Everything is as it was before me. And the electricity disperses from my brain till it's just dead tissue. Meat. Oblivion. And all of the other little things that make me up, they... The microbes and bacterium and billion other little things that live on my eyelashes and in my hair and in my mouth and on my skin and in my gut and everywhere else, they just keep on living. And eating. Uh... And I'm serving a purpose. I'm feeding life. And I'm broken apart, and all the littlest pieces of me are just recycled, and I'm billions of other places. And my atoms are in plants and bugs and animals, and I'm like the stars that are in the sky. There one moment and then just scattered across the goddamn cosmos. Your turn. What happens when you die?

Bev: I hate to speak ill of the dead, but if Riley Flynn, a drunk and a murderer, was evidence of the quality of his parenting...
Annie: He was. Every part of him. God loves him. Just as much as he loves you, Bev. Why does that upset you so much?