You Like It Darker

by Stephen King

His face was as white as fresh snow, as Moby-Dick’s underbelly, as amnesia.

God has a vile sense of humor.”

“Because of the noise in your lives. Because of your thoughts. Thoughts are pointless. Worse, dangerous.”

Your world is a living breath in a universe that is mostly filled with deadlights.”

“It’s all right,” I said, and laughed a little. It wasn’t all right, it stung, but I understood the sting would go away. I’d go back to my life and the sting would go away.

Jalbert doesn’t like leftover numbers, but sometimes you have to live with them.

The world is full of rattlesnakes. Sometimes you step on them and they don’t bite. Sometimes you step over them and they bite anyway.

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

The mind isn’t just a venomous reptile that sometimes bites itself; it’s also an enthusiastic garbage picker.

Grief sleeps but doesn’t die.

These memories circled and circled. They were buzzards, they were rattlesnakes. They pecked, stung, wouldn’t let me go.

Having your own mind turned against you is a gilt-edged invitation to insanity.

Blindness to possibility is either a blessing or a curse.

Does that put me on the spectrum, as they say? Maybe, even probably, but who gives a shit? Storytelling has entertained me and others over a number of years, and that makes me happy.

Horror stories are best appreciated by those who are compassionate and empathetic.

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.

I have done what was given to me to do, and mostly it’s been a joy to me.

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.