It

by Stephen King

It was easier to be brave when you were someone else.

“War is the tool of the sexist death merchants.”

We knew that the white boys let you race against them, but if it starts to look like you are getting ahead, why, somebody just breaks your legs so you can’t run as fast. We had what we wanted, and that was enough.

Yellow decals that said OPEC LOVES IT WHEN YOU WASTE ENERGY, SO SAVE A WATT! had been plastered over the switchplates.

or the first time he ever lay with a willing woman.

“Besides, it happened in Derry, not in New York or Chicago. The place makes it news as much as what happened in the place, sonny. That’s why there are bigger headlines when an earthquake kills twelve people in Los Angeles than there are when one kills three thousand in some heathen country in the Mideast.”

“Look and remember. Look upon this land, Far, far across the factories and the grass. Surely, there, surely they will let you pass. Speak then and ask the forest and the loam. What do you hear? What does the land command? The earth is taken: this is not your home.” —Karl Shapiro, “Travelogue for Exiles”

This Final Other was, perhaps, the creator of the Turtle, which only watched, and It, which only ate. This Other was a force beyond the universe, a power beyond all other power, the author of all there was.