Joyland

by Stephen King

down deep I was convinced I was never going to die. Not even my mother’s death had been able to shake that core belief.

When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.

“This is a badly broken world, full of wars and cruelty and senseless tragedy. Every human being who inhabits it is served his or her portion of unhappiness and wakeful nights.

And if it seemed like the end of the world to me—first causing those suicidal ideations (silly and halfhearted though they may have been) and then a seismic shift in the previously unquestioned course of my life—you have to understand I had no scale by which to judge it. That’s called being young.

All I can say is what you already know: some days are treasure. Not many, but I think in almost every life there are a few.

I go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isn’t always a butcher’s game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes they’re precious.