His mother called such people ignorant and superstitious, but his father only shook his head slowly and puffed his pipe and said that sometimes old stories had a grain or two of truth in them and it was best not to take chances. It was why, he said, he crossed himself whenever a black cat crossed his path.

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.

She looks like the type that might freak out. It's something in the eyes, Frannie. It says if you shoot my sacred cows, I'll shoot yours.

Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters' theses.

She nods. You're good for the ones you love. You want to be good for the ones you love, because you know that your time with them will end up being too short, no matter how long it is.

I started after him...and the clown looked back. I saw Its eyes, and all at once I understood who It was." "Who was it, Don?" Harold Gardner asked softly. "It was Derry," Don Hagarty said. "It was this town.

Our time here is brief, our risk enormous. Don't waste the one or increase the other, if you please.