Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Stephen KingRead
For," I said, "a murdered man or woman dies not in God's time, but in Man's. He... or she... is cut short before he... or she... can atone for sin, and so all errors must be forgiven. When you think of it that way, all murderers are a gateway for heaven.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that murderers create a pathway to forgiveness for the victims by cutting their lives short before they can atone for their sins.
In this quote, Stephen King explores the profound and controversial idea that the act of murder not only affects the victim and the perpetrator but also alters the moral landscape regarding sin and redemption. He implies that since victims die before they can seek forgiveness for their own sins, their murderers inadvertently facilitate a release from earthly ties, potentially enabling the victims to ascend to heaven more quickly. This controversial perspective prompts a rethinking of morality surrounding both life and death, highlighting the complex interplay between human actions and divine judgment.
Themes
ForgivenessMurderPhilosophyRedemptionSin
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the complexities of morality in literature, this quote could be used to illustrate how authors tackle themes of sin and redemption.
More from Stephen King
All quotes →Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Stephen KingRead
Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.
Stephen KingRead
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
Stephen KingRead
That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them.
Stephen KingRead
Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door. I wanna go out, don't know if I can 'cuz I'm so afraid of the tommyknocker man.
Stephen KingRead
Similar quotes
Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.
Terry PratchettRead
The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our nature.
Abraham LincolnRead
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
Henry David ThoreauRead
[A]s it must be admitted that the remedy under the Constitution lies where it has been marked out by the Constitution; and that no appeal can be consistently made from that remedy by those who were and still profess to be parties to it, but the appeal to the parties themselves having an authority above the Constitution or to the law of nature & of nature's God.
James MadisonRead
The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity.
Henry FordRead
Winning gives birth to hostility Losing, one lies down in pain. The calmed lie down with ease, having set winning and losing aside.
Gautama BuddhaRead