Stephen King Quotes

The Dark Powers have to give before they can take.
Stephen King
Only God gets it right the first time and only a slob says, "Oh well, let it go, that's what copyeditors are for.
Stephen King
I am not the potter, nor the potter's wheel, but the potter's clay, does it depend on the value achieved intrinsic as much as the value of the clay as the wheel and master craftsmanship?
Stephen King
Shadows were too black, and when a breeze stirred the trees, the shadows changed in a disquieting way.
Stephen King
Being needed is a great thing. Maybe the great thing.
Stephen King
I looked at what he built, and to me it explained the stars.
Stephen King
Tim stared at the steel rod in the gloved hand. "Is that a magic wand?"The Covenant Man appeared to consider. "I suppose so. Although it started life as the gearshift of a Dodge Dart, America's economy car, young Tim.""What's America?""A kingdom filled with toy-loving idiots. It has no part in our palaver.
Stephen King
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
Being good is commendable, but only when it is combined with doing good is it useful
Stephen King
A woman who would steal your love when your love was really all you had to give was not much of a woman.
Stephen King
That— we seemed to have decided without saying a word— might go a long way toward spoiling something that was special, and beautiful, by virtue of its strangeness and delicacy.
Stephen King
He removed his unvaluable valuables and dumped his shirt, pants, and skivvies into a letter slot.
Stephen King
They were close to the end of the beginning . . .
Stephen King
He felt more crypts cracking open inside of him; the stench he smelled was not decayed bodies but decayed memories, and that was somehow worse.
Stephen King
Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up
Stephen King
Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a coincidence is just a coincidence.
Stephen King
Seven, Richie thought. That's the magic number. There has to be seven of us. That's the way it's supposed to be.
Stephen King
When an imaginative person gets into mental trouble, the line between seeming and being has a way of disappearing-
Stephen King
Dreams are a simple psychological emetic, and people who have them are more blessed than cursed
Stephen King
Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Stephen King
If I show up at your house ten years from now and find nothing in your living room but The Readers Digest, nothing on your bedroom night table but the newest Dan Brown novel, and nothing in your bathroom but Jokes for the John, I’ll chase you down to the end of your driveway and back, screaming ‘Where are your books? You graduated college ten years ago, so how come there are no damn books in your house? Why are you living on the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?
Stephen King
It's a hard life if you don't weaken.
Stephen King
The woman who preaches has poison religion. Let the respectable ones go
Stephen King
It seems to occur to few of the attendees [of a writing retreat] that if you have a feel you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class.
Stephen King
Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do― to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.
Stephen King