All the King's Men Religion Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

But for the present I would lie there […] and feel the holy emptiness and blessed fatigue of a saint after the dark night of the soul. (7.179)

This is Jack's third period of the Great Sleep. It seems like this sleep is almost a religion to Jack when he experiences it. When life gets too heavy or too light, some people turn to God, and some turn to other things. Jack turns to sleep.

Quote #5

But those tracts he wrote were crazy, I thought back then. I thought God cannot be Fullness of Being. (3.421)

Ellis Burden's religious beliefs have a lot to do with Jack's general cynicism toward all things religious looking, sounding, or tasting. This lines suggest that Jack might, at the end of the story, have come to see something true in what he originally thought was "crazy."

Quote #6

You are at one with the Great Twitch. (8.14)

Jack calls this a "mystical experience" but doesn't realize he's in danger of reliving what went down between Ellis and his mother. Ellis found out about Jack's mother and Judge Irwin, and he created his own special brand of Christianity. Jack finds out about Anne and Willie and creates his own "religion" to deal with it.