The Stand, Part I: The Plague

General Starkey:
"Things fall apart. The center does not hold." [A] man named Yeats said that. I didn't understand that poem in college, Len. But I… must be getting smarter in my old age, because I understand it now. And one other line from that poem: "What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"

[Later, with all Army operations and the United States overall falling apart, Major Creighton returns to General Starkey's deserted headquarters. The General has shot himself, hanging a sign around his neck that reads:
"GUILTY".]

Major Len Creighton:
"You were right, Billy...the center didn't hold. It didn't..."