Doctor Sleep (The Shining, #2)

by Stephen King

“So what was it that got you back to a place where you like getting up in the morning? Was it luck or grace?” He’d believed that Casey wanted him to say it was grace, but during the sober years he had learned the sometimes uncomfortable habit of honesty. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay, because when your back’s against the wall, there’s no difference.”

I could use a little bit of grace right now. And a whole lot of luck.

needs must when the devil drives.

To newcomers reluctant to take this advice, Casey was wont to offer a story about the film director John Waters. In one of his early movies, Pink Flamingos, Waters’s drag-queen star, Divine, had eaten a bit of dog excrement off a suburban lawn. Years later, Waters was still being asked about that glorious moment of cinematic history. Finally he snapped. “It was just a little piece of dogshit,” he told a reporter, “and it made her a star.”

“Everything’s smaller when it’s out,” he said. “I hope you’ll pass that on to your pigeons.”

Thanks to you guys and girls who read my stuff, too. May you have long days and pleasant nights.