quotes by Stephen King
(showing 1-50 of 473)
"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off."
— Stephen King (Storm of the Century: An Original Screenplay)
— Stephen King (Storm of the Century: An Original Screenplay)
tags:
life
821 people liked it
"Good books don't give up all their secrets at once."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
books
460 people liked it
"The road to hell is paved with adverbs."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
books
263 people liked it
"I have the heart of a small boy...and I keep it in a jar on my desk."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
bitch
173 people liked it
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
— Stephen King (The Gunslinger)
— Stephen King (The Gunslinger)
"A short story is a different thing all together - a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger. (from the introduction)"
— Stephen King (Skeleton Crew)
— Stephen King (Skeleton Crew)
"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
writing
146 people liked it
"Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that [Harry Potter author] Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and [Twilight author] Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"If you liked being a teenager, there's something really wrong with you."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a tellar but for want of an understanding ear."
— Stephen King (Different Seasons)
— Stephen King (Different Seasons)
tags:
writing
121 people liked it
"Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
writing
116 people liked it
tags:
writing
101 people liked it
"The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle."
— Stephen King (Night Shift)
— Stephen King (Night Shift)
"I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I aim with my eye.
I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I shoot with my mind.
I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.
I kill with my heart."
— Stephen King (The Gunslinger)
I aim with my eye.
I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I shoot with my mind.
I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.
I kill with my heart."
— Stephen King (The Gunslinger)
"There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
stories
83 people liked it
tags:
humor
81 people liked it
"I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"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."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s."
— Stephen King (On Writing)
— Stephen King (On Writing)
tags:
writing
66 people liked it
"I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud. "
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
art,
on-writing
62 people liked it
"Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"Running a close second [as a writing lesson] was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
on-writing
54 people liked it
"Fault always lies in the same place: with him weak enough to lay blame."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"...you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will."
— Stephen King (On Writing)
— Stephen King (On Writing)
tags:
writing
47 people liked it
"You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy."
— Stephen King (On Writing)
— Stephen King (On Writing)
tags:
writing
43 people liked it
"Schizoid behavior is a pretty common thing in children. It's accepted, because all we adults have this unspoken agreement that children are lunatics."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
tags:
children
42 people liked it
tags:
monsters
37 people liked it
"If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I'll be all right as long as there's a lending library."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"There's no bitch on earth like a mother frightened for her kids."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"[A] tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I'll take A Midsummer Night's Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh."
— Stephen King
— Stephen King
"Friends.
They aren’t any such thing as good friend or bad friend.
Maybe there are just friend.
People who stand by you when you're hurt and who helped you feel not so lonely.
Maybe there are worth being scared for and hoping for and living for.
Maybe worth dying for too.
If that what has to be.
No bad friends.
Only people you want.
Need to be with.
People who build their houses in your heart."
— Stephen King
They aren’t any such thing as good friend or bad friend.
Maybe there are just friend.
People who stand by you when you're hurt and who helped you feel not so lonely.
Maybe there are worth being scared for and hoping for and living for.
Maybe worth dying for too.
If that what has to be.
No bad friends.
Only people you want.
Need to be with.
People who build their houses in your heart."
— Stephen King

