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
As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Human nature often leads to conflict and division, prompting the creation of politics and religion.
This quote by Stephen King reflects on the inherent nature of humanity, suggesting that when individuals gather in groups, they tend to form factions and create justifications for conflict. It implies that such divisions are so deeply rooted in our psyche that they necessitate systems like politics and religion, which serve as frameworks for understanding and managing these conflicts, albeit often exacerbating them.
Themes
Human NatureConflictPoliticsReligionDivision
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the nature of politics, one might quote Stephen King to highlight how our instinct for division drives societal structures.
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
The certainty that everything has already been written annuls us, or renders us phantasmal.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
What is right is not always the same as what is legal
Edward SnowdenRead
Drugs. If they did not exist our governors would have invented them in order to prohibit them and so make much of the population vulnerable to arrest, imprisonment, seizure of property, and so on.
Gore VidalRead
The mirror is not you. The mirror is you looking at yourself.
George BalanchineRead
Oh, how great is the goodness of God, greater than we can understand. There are moments and there are mysteries of the divine mercy over which the heavens are astounded. Let our judgment of souls cease, for God's mercy upon them is extraordinary.
Mary Faustina KowalskaRead
Goodness is about character - integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.
Dennis PragerRead