Stephen King Quotes

671 Sourced Quotes

For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else.

Stephen King
Waiting rooms were made for books-of course! But so are theater lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone's favorite, the john.

Stephen King
No one can be as intellectually slothful as a really smart person

Stephen King
Whenever I publish a book, I feel like a trapper caught by the Iroquois. They're all lined up with Tomahawks, and the idea is to run through with your head down, and everybody gets to take a swing. They hit you in the head, the back, the ass, and the balls.

Stephen King
Everyone needs a hobby, he said. And everyone needs a miracle or two, just to prove life is more than just one long trudge from the cradle to the grave.

Stephen King
I think we fought Vietnam for the benefits of civilization, and certainly we fought it to oppose authority. To show our authority, to show we weren't weak. Isn't that what Nixon kept saying? "We have to show the world that we're not weak." So of course what we ended up showing the world was that we were, yep, weak. 'Cause we couldn't beat these kids in black pajamas.

Stephen King
We live in a society now where the sexual taboo for children has really passed by the wayside. Any nineyear-old can go into a 7-11 and check out the Playmate of the Month, but you don't want your kids to know about death. You don't want your kids to know about disfigurement. You don't want 'em to know about creepy things because it might warp their little minds.

Stephen King
My basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves.

Stephen King
Remember that the truth is in the details. No matter how you see the world or what style it imposes on your work as an artist, the truth is in the details. Of course the devil's there, too-everyone says so-but maybe truth and the devil are words for the same thing. It could be you know.

Stephen King
He supposed that even in Hell, people got an occasional sip of water, if only so they could appreciate the full horror of unrequited thirst when it set in again.

Stephen King
Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as 'good' and other sorts as 'bad' is fearful behavior.

Stephen King
Little by little, writers develop their own styles, each as unique as a fingerprint.

Stephen King
This is probably the single great subject of horror fiction: our need to cope with a mystery that can be understood only with the aid of a helpful imagination.

Stephen King
Teaching school is like having jumper cables hooked to your brain, draining all the juice out of you.

Stephen King
America's two great specialties are demagogues and rock and roll, and we've all heard plenty of both in our time.

Stephen King
As for the end of the universe…I say let it come as it will, in ice, fire, or darkness. What did the universe ever do for me that I should mind its welfare?

Stephen King
He looked to her like an absurd twentieth-century Hamlet, an indecisive figure so mesmerized by onrushing tragedy that he was helpless to divert its course or alter it in any way.

Stephen King
"I hold to no God," Roland said. "I hold to the Tower, and won't pray to that."

Stephen King
Fault always lies in the same place: with him weak enough to lay blame.

Stephen King
There was a beautiful feeling of calm in my groin, a sense of peace so remarkable it was almost ecstasy——anyone who' suffered bad pain and then recovered will know what I'm talking about.

Stephen King
Hurt's a reason to change, but all the hurt in the world don't change facts.

Stephen King
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 if feels like all you're managing is to shovel sh*t from a sitting position.

Stephen King
You can see the goldenrod, that most tenacious and pernicious and beauteous of all New England flora, bowing away from the wind like a great and silent congregation.

Stephen King
My wife says, and I agree with her, that what would be really great for Maine would be to legalize dope completely and set up dope stores the way that there are state-run liquor stores. You could get your Acapulco gold or your whatever it happened to be - your Augusta gold or your Bangor gold. And people would come from all the other states to buy it, and there could be a state tax on it. Then everybody in Maine could have a Cadillac.

Stephen King
The King is in his Tower, eating bread and honey. The Breakers in the basement, making all the money.

Stephen King
I work to loud music - hard-rock stuff like AC/DC, Guns 'n Roses, and Metallica have always been particular favorites - but for me the music is just another way of shutting the door.

Stephen King
There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all.

Stephen King
When the reader hears strong echoes of his or her own life and beliefs, he or she is apt to become more invested in the story.

Stephen King
If I can get it down on paper without puking all over the word processor, then as far as I'm concerned, it's fit to see the light of day.

Stephen King
I've put men to death-men with supposedly immortal souls-that looked dumber than that mouse

Stephen King