Quotes from Stephen King

When asked, How do you write? I invariably answer, One word at a time, and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope.

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.

We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.

It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.

Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.

Give me just enough information so that I can lie convincingly.

If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.

People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.

Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

Just remember that Dumbo didn't need the feather; the magic was in him.

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.

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

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.

Friends don't spy; true friendship is about privacy, too.

Sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.

Time's the thief of memory

So okay? there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You've blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want.

We all float down here!