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.

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.

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

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

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

Well, I tell myself, we call it a gift and we call ourselves gifted, but gifts are never really earned, are they? Only given. Talent is grace made visible.

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.