Stephen King Quotes

671 Sourced Quotes

Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it's like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There's plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.

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
Absence may or may not make the heart grow fonder, but it certainly freshens the eye.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stephen King
Luck was a joke. Even good luck was just bad luck with its hair combed.

Stephen King
The late afternoon sunlight, warm as oil, sweet as childhood...

Stephen King
The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.

Stephen King
I'd been raised by my parents to believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height of impoliteness...

Stephen King
Hug and kiss whoever helped get you - financially, mentally, morally, emotionally - to this day. Parents, mentors, friends, teachers. If you're too uptight to do that, at least do the old handshake thing, but I recommend a hug and a kiss. Don't let the sun go down without saying thank you to someone, and without admitting to yourself that absolutely no one gets this far alone.

Stephen King
It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.

Stephen King
That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them.

Stephen King
People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. You've heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What's so sweet about that?

Stephen King
And almost idly, in a kind of sidethought, Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.

Stephen King
Do I know what people say? Sure. I shrug it off. what else can you do? Stop people from talking? You might as well try to stop the wind from blowing.

Stephen King
I think that part of being a parent is trying to kill your kids... Because as soon as you have a kid, you know for sure that you're going to die. When you have a kid, you see your own gravestone.

Stephen King
Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side. A bell jingled overhead. The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home.

Stephen King
In the end we always wear out our worries. That's what Wireman says.

Stephen King
Until we see each other again, keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, be happy.

Stephen King
The road and the tale have both been long, would you not say so? The trip has been long and the cost has been high... but no great thing was ever attained easily. A long tale, like a tall Tower, must be built a stone at a time.

Stephen King