Revival

by Stephen King

But sometimes a person who fits none of these categories comes into your life. This is the joker who pops out of the deck at odd intervals over the years, often during a moment of crisis. In the movies this sort of character is known as the fifth business, or the change agent.

When you want to feel better, call something a piece of shit. It usually works.

But writing is a wonderful and terrible thing. It opens deep wells of memory that were previously capped.

Sixty years before the birth of Christ, a Roman doctor named Scribonius Largus discovered that foot and leg pain could be alleviated if the sufferer stepped firmly on an electric eel.”

“Coincidence and lucky break are words people with little faith use to describe the will of God,

We never know. Any day could be the day we go down, and we never know.

“Religion is supposed to be our comfort when the hard times come. God is our rod and our staff, the Great Psalm declares; He will be with us and bear us up when we take that inevitable walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The Romans fed Christians to the lions; the Christians dismembered those they deemed to be heretics or sorcerers or witches; Hitler sacrificed the Jews in their millions to the false god of racial purity. Millions have been burned, shot, hung, racked, poisoned, electrocuted, and torn to pieces by dogs . . . all in God’s name.”

wet. “There’s no proof of these after-life destinations; no backbone of science; there is only the bald assurance, coupled with our powerful need to believe that it all makes sense.

Religion is the theological equivalent of a quick-buck insurance scam, where you pay in your premium year after year, and then, when you need the benefits you paid for so—pardon the pun—so religiously, you discover the company that took your money does not, in fact, exist.”

people always want a reason for the bad things in life. Sometimes there ain’t one.”

“Frightened people live in their own special hell. You could say they make it themselves—like Con manufactured his muteness—but they can’t help it. It’s the way they’re built. They deserve sympathy and compassion.”

One of the few things I’ve learned since then about the fundamental differences between the sexes is this: men make assumptions, but women rarely do.

I think the idea of putting people in jail for smoking the rope is ludicrous, but there’s no doubt in my mind that long-term daily use is a recipe for CRS, also known as Can’t Remember Shit.

Take your heart. It runs on microvolts. This current is provided by potassium, an electrolyte. Your body converts potassium into ions—electrically charged particles—and uses them to regulate not just your heart but your brain and EVERYTHING ELSE.

There were other truths there, as well. I think most people who have suffered great losses in their lives—great tragedies—come to a crossroads. Maybe not right then, but when the shock wears off. It may be months later; it may be years. They either expand as a result of their experience, or they contract.

I remembered a bit of old folklore—probably you’ve heard it—about how to boil a frog. You put it in cold water, then start turning up the heat. If you do it gradually, the frog is too stupid to jump out. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I decided it was an excellent metaphor for growing old.

When I was a teenager, I looked at over-fifties with pity and unease: they walked too slow, they talked too slow, they watched TV instead of going out to movies and concerts, their idea of a great party was hotpot with the neighbors and tucked into bed after the eleven o’clock news.

The three true ages of man are youth, middle age, and how the fuck did I get old so soon?

Children learn much more by mute example than by spoken rules, or so it seems to me.

Home is where they want you to stay longer.

Pgs. 309-310/82%: Check if this is real.

This is how we bring about our own damnation, you know—by ignoring the voice that begs us to stop. To stop while there’s still time.