Quotes from book

The Stand

“The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance… logic can be happily tossed out the window.”

“A person can't change all at once.”

“The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.”

“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.

Or you don't.”

“It's hard enough for a person to keep their own socks pulled up, let alone someone else's.”

“Superstition, like true love, needs time to grow and reflect upon itself.”

“Even the company of the mad was better than the company of the dead.”

“Above, the stars shone hard and bright, sparks struck off the dark skin of the universe.”

“It don't matter if you believe in God Nick, he believes in you.”

“Love didn't grow very well in a place where there was only fear”

“That wasn't any act of God. That was an act of pure human fuckery.”

“Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.”

“Nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up.”

“He smiles a lot. But I think there might be worms inside him making him smile.”

“She couldn't be on his wavelength all the time. That's all. When you could recognize that and deal with it, you were on your way to an adult relationship.”

“And when there are enough outsiders together in one place, a mystic osmosis takes place and you're inside.”

“Sometimes, he thought, real love is silent as well as blind.”

“God doesn't bribe, child. He just makes a sign and lets people take it as they will.”

“Silent white light filled the world. And the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.”