The Institute

by Stephen King

“You know, Jamieson, this life we think we’re living isn’t real. It’s just a shadow play, and I for one will be glad when the lights go out on it. In the dark, all the shadows disappear.”

It came to him (and with the force of a revelation) that life was basically one long SAT test, and instead of four or five choices, you got dozens.

In June, Luke would have hated her for this, but now it was July, and he was much older.

It came to him, with the force of a revelation, that you had to have been imprisoned to fully understand what freedom was.

Seventy years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated by atomic bombs, the world is still here even though many nations have atomic weapons, even though primitive human emotions still hold sway over rational thought and superstition masquerading as religion still guides the course of human politics.