You Like It Darker

by Stephen King

Two talented bastids, as Pop put it during his brief over-the-fence conversation with Ruth Crawford.

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.

“Maybe what you wanted is something that can’t be found. Maybe creativity is supposed to remain a mystery.”

We talked about God and the Red Sox and politics and how the world might end in nuclear fire.

“You coming?” “I think I’ll wait and see if you make it across,” I said. “If the bridge goes, I’ll fish you out. And if the current takes you before I can, I’ll wave you goodbye.”

“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.”

Sometimes I’m haunted by the idea that I’m a fake.

Talent is grace made visible.

The daydreams of men and women “of a certain age” are always sad, I think, because they run so counter to the plain-vanilla futures we have to look forward to.

Dreams are like cotton candy: they just melt away.

“Don’t tell your granny how to suck eggs, Frank.”

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

“A pet is the absolute worst present you can give someone,” Lloyd said. “I read that on the Internet.” “Where everything is true, I suppose.”

They were proof that life was basically a short dream on a summer afternoon.

Some things you never put to rest.

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.

Some things you don’t get over.

Donna and I buried our son’s body in Harmony Hill Cemetery, but that was the least part of him. We found that out in the months that followed. He was still there, between us. We tried to find a way around him and back to each other and couldn’t do it.

Love and hate are also twins.

It wasn’t fair. True of the Bell twins, true of my son, true of my twice-married wife. 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.

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

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

I’m still in love with you and I hate you and I’m leaving before hate gets the upper hand.

It isn’t just grief that leaves scars. Terror does, too.

I don’t know what the universe means. I might have an idea. You might, too. Or not. All I can say to you is beware of dreams. They’re dangerous. I found out.

the young man who went to Vietnam wasn’t the same young man who came back.

People have problems enough coping with their own tragedies without taking on the tragedies of others.

The stars we see at night are just eternity’s first inch.

“Barriers are usually there for a reason.”

that dead people are heavier. They shouldn’t be but they are. Gravity is greedy for the dead and wants them in the ground.

“I shouldn’t be surprised at how unhelpful the questions of smart people can be, having been in this business for as long as I have, yet somehow I still am. It’s loose. It’s lazy. I have often wondered if smart people really understand what answers they seek in life. Perhaps they just cruise along on a magic carpet of ego, making assumptions that are often wrong. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why they ask such impotent questions.”

Smart people labor under a dual disadvantage: they don’t know the answers they need, and they don’t know what questions to ask.