Duma Key

by Stephen King

Wireman says when it comes to the past, we all stack the deck.

I still think that’s the perfect name for a picture drawn by a man who was trying his best not to be sad anymore—who was trying to remember how it felt to be happy.

Wireman would tell me God always punishes us for what we can’t imagine.

A hurt body and mind aren’t just like a dictatorship; they are a dictatorship. There is no tyrant as merciless as pain, no despot so cruel as confusion.

And clear communication between selves—the surface self and the deep self is what I mean—is the enemy of self-doubt. It slays confusion.

I’m not sure we ever believe the simplest emotions in our art, although we see them all around us, every day.

life is like Friday on a soap opera. It gives you the illusion that everything is going to wrap up, and then the same old shit starts up on Monday.

when memory takes its strongest hold, our own bodies become ghosts, haunting us with the gestures of our younger selves.

I knew what un cadeau was, of course; the real revelation was the exotic lilt his accent gave to my daughter’s nickname. It made me understand in a way nothing else could that she was now more his than mine.

‘Speak, memory, that I may not forget the taste of roses nor the sound of ashes in the wind; That I may once more taste the green cup of the sea.’

the only way to go on is to go on. To say I can do this even when you know you can’t.

life is a wheel, and if you wait long enough, it always comes back around to where it started.

Ka is a wheel.

I settled for another Pepsi and a few cucumber strips dipped in ranch dressing, which to me has always looked and tasted like slightly sweetened snot.

Will i ever eat cukes and ranch again? I cant unread this lol

I thought there would be time, but we always think stuff like that, don’t we? We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living.