Mark Smith > Mark's Quotes

“A hypnotized man is easy to lead.”
― Stephen King, Bag of Bones

“it was as if he was a character in a story or a play, a character whose history is not recounted like history but created like fiction.”
― Stephen King, Misery

“the marvellous joyful nervy feeling of journey begun.”
― Stephen King, Misery

“the injustice she felt was, in spite of its childishness, completely, inarguably real.”
― Stephen King, Misery

“Before this strange experience, he had considered four pages a day to be his optimum output”
― Stephen King, Misery

“Paul remembered an essay by Edmund Wilson where Wilson had said, in typically grudging Wilson manner, that Wordsworth’s criterion for the writing of good poetry—strong emotion recalled in a time of tranquillity—would do well enough for most dramatic fiction as well. It was probably true. Paul had known writers who found it impossible to write after so much as a minor marital spat, and he himself usually found it impossible to write when upset. But there were times when a kind of reverse effect obtained—these were times when he had gone to the work not just because the work ought to be done but because it was a way to escape whatever was upsetting him.”
― Stephen King, Misery

“A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.”
― Stephen King

“Ten minutes later she came in with the syringe, the Betadine, and the electric knife. Paul began to scream at once. He was, in a way, like Pavlov’s dogs.”
― Stephen King, Misery

“Things had a way of dropping out of Annie’s mind once the immediate moment was past.”
― Stephen King, Misery

“Peter did obey, walking on legs that still felt as if they were relaying their sensory input by some form of telecommunications.”
― Stephen King, Desperation

“When you were trying to stay alive, you just saw what you had to see; the rest went by the board.”
― Stephen King, Desperation

“If there are loud and angry people on only one side of a debate, it probably means the other side simply does not have a spokesperson.”
― Tucker Max, The Scribe Method: The Best Way to Write and Publish Your Non-Fiction Book

“This is because fears often partly originate from a subconscious reaction to a poor plan or a lack of a plan (this is also where procrastination comes from).”
― Tucker Max, The Scribe Method: The Best Way to Write and Publish Your Non-Fiction Book

“It made him feel creepy. It made him feel outraged. It made him feel infuriated.”
― Stephen King, Cujo

“What do I do when people ask me how I make my living? What do I say?” “Your rich uncle died, remember? Tell them you’re piecing your windfall inheritance out a little at a time, making it last long enough for you to write a book.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“then ate a bowl of Special K, thinking it would be days before I could get the proper order of my meals reestablished”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“the connecting fibers of the corpus callosum;”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“emotional stress that produced stagnate hysteria and mental aphasia, conditions which also resulted in partial or total loss of memory. Amnesia.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“The physical and the psychological. They were related, interwoven—two strands of experience, or stimulae, that became knotted.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“The slightest alteration can cause dramatic changes. That’s what happened to you. The damage was physical. It’s as though blocks were rearranged, the physical structure no longer what it was.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“Because the physical conduits that permit and transmit those memories have been altered. Physically rearranged to the point where they no longer function as they once did. For all intents and purposes, they’ve been destroyed.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“Simple decisions—whether to heat up a frozen dinner for his evening meal or grab a sandwich at the Red Apple and go up to the picnic area by Runway 3, for example—had become difficult, almost agonizing.”
― Stephen King, Insomnia

“This was no-compromise pain, blitzkrieg agony.”
― Stephen King, Dreamcatcher

“There’s nothing you can do or say to stop it once he gets to a certain point.”
― Stephen King, Insomnia

“The concept of dreaming is known to the waking mind but to the dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only the screaming bedlam of sleep.”
― Stephen King, Rose Madder

“The phrase, not dissimilar in sound from the mantra, got tangled up with his meditating, preventing him from achieving either peace”
― Douglas Preston, The Codex

“I had a botfly bite once, on my forehead. Felt like a mosquito at first. It began to swell and turn red. Hurt like the devil. A month later it erupted, and inch-long botfly maggots started squirming out and dropping to the ground.”
― Douglas Preston, The Codex

“Chagas disease?”
― Douglas Preston, The Codex

“toothpick fish”
― Douglas Preston, The Codex

“Just ahead, half hidden among the trees, was a two-story Mission-style cabin, charmingly rusticated and yet of obviously modern construction, with a peeled-log facade and granite fieldstone foundation.”
― Lincoln Child, Full Wolf Moon