And the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.

More from The Stand

• Anything with the power to make you laugh over 30 years later isn’t a waste of time.
• 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.
• Those in the grip of a strong drug—heroin, devil grass, true love—often find themselves trying to maintain a precarious balance between secrecy and ecstasy as they walk the tightrope of their lives.
• You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.