If there is no smoking in Heaven, I shall not go there.

The exact wording “If there is no smoking in Heaven, I shall not go there” is commonly attributed to Mark Twain, but the strongest early support located in the provided material is a 1929 reminiscence by Twain’s cousin James Ross Clemens reporting Twain saying a closely related line about wanting to go to heaven if there is smoking there. Later appearances often come through performances or secondary attributions, which likely helped shift the phrasing into the more absolute “I shall not go” form.

The quip uses humor to suggest that small earthly pleasures (here, smoking) are so central to the speaker’s identity that a joyless or overly restrictive paradise would be unattractive. It also lightly mocks the idea of an afterlife defined mainly by prohibitions.

“If there is smoking in Heaven I want to go there.”

If I cannot smoke in heaven, I shall not go there.

If there are no cigars in heaven, I shall not go.

If there is smoking in heaven, I want to go there.