You Like It Darker

by Stephen King

Robert Frost said home is the place that, when you go there, they have to take you in. It’s also the place you start from, and if you’re one of the lucky ones, it’s where you finish up.

“Timidity never won a fair maiden the Nobel Prize,”

His public persona was crusty and a bit cynical—plus there was that dry sense of humor—but at heart he was always a romantic and could be a bit corny. He told me once that he kept that part hidden, because it bruised easily.

Pop would have said it’s an old story: in death as in life, politics almost always trumps art.

the last leaf on the Carmody family tree, and now turning an autumnal brown. Sic transit gloria mundi.

I remember thinking that the fading of hopes and ambitions was mostly painless. That was good, but it was also rather horrible. I wanted to be a writer, but I was beginning to think being a good one was beyond me. If it was, the world would continue to spin. You relaxed your hand… opened your fingers… and something flew away. I remember thinking maybe that’s all right.

Nothing is colder than cold November rain. It crossed my mind that someone should write a song about it… and eventually, someone did.

Our dreams came true. Nothing wrong with those things, and if I ever have doubts about the shape of my life, doesn’t everybody? Don’t you?

“When intelligence outraces emotional stability, it’s always just a matter of time.”

“I’m sorry for you. Your world is a living breath in a universe that is mostly filled with deadlights.”

I don’t want to feel that way, and mostly I don’t, yet part of me does and always will. That part of me is a cave-dweller who grins a lot but never smiles.

It’s all right to want what you can’t have. You learn to live with it. I tell myself that, and mostly I believe it.

In the hallway, with the door closed, she lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

Gossip is like radioactive waste. It has a long and toxic half-life.

It occurs to Ella that lack of belief is the curse of intelligence.

The trouble with the old bastard, Corinne thinks, is that he still gets a kick out of life, and people who get a kick out of life take a long time kicking the bucket. They like that old bucket.

he isn’t worth a dry popcorn fart.

“A grieving person needs something to occupy his mind. Something to take care of.

I remembered Donna once saying something similar. This was months after Tad died and not long before we divorced. Sometimes I see him, she said, and when I told her that was stupid—by then we had recovered enough to say unkind things to each other—she said, No. It’s necessary

assorted other wrigglies.

hilarious phrasing; Mr King, indeed!

Love and hate are also twins.

If onlies are also rattlesnakes, I think. They are full of poison.

Grief sleeps but doesn’t die.

There was a tree behind our house that split apart—maybe because of a lightning strike—and then grew back together, leaving a heart-shaped hole. That was us.

“Better to accept the dead, wear the scar, and move on.”

mr king, with all due respect, please do not use the word “portly” anymore. thank you

Hiram Gaskill

“Is it heaven we go to? Is it hell? Is it reincarnation? Are we still ourselves? Do we remember? Will I see my wife and son? Will it be good? Will it be awful? Are there dreams? Is there sorrow or joy or any emotion?” The Answer Man, almost lost in the gray, said: “Yes.”

Horror stories are best appreciated by those who are compassionate and empathetic. A paradox, but a true one. I believe it is the unimaginative among us, those incapable of appreciating the dark side of make-believe, who have been responsible for most of the world’s woes.

scars become beauty marks when there is love.

Great thanks to you, dear readers, for allowing me to inhabit your imaginations and your nerve-endings. You like it darker? Fine. So do I, and that makes me your soul brother.