Quotes from Stephen King

God grant me the SERENITY to accept what I cannot change, the TENACITY to change what I may, and the GOOD LUCK not to fuck up too often.

They found him guilty, and brother, if Maine had the death penalty, he would have done the airdance before that spring's crocuses poked their heads out of the dirt.

We're like drunks in a barroom. No one's listening because everyone is too busy thinking about what they're going to say next, and absolutely prove that the current speaker is so full of shit he squeaks.

When you came right down to it, how did anyone know they weren't a character in some writer's story, or a transient thought in some bus-riding schmoe's head, or a momentary mote in God's eye?

They must accept responsibility, recognizing that responsibility is not the same as culpability .

At night your thoughts have an unpleasant way of slipping their collars and running free.

I'm the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.

Story is something happening to someone you have been led to care about.

When in vice, say it twice.

Horace, like all dogs, heard dead-voices quite often, and sometimes saw their owners. The dead were all around, but living people saw them no more than they could smell most of the ten thousand aromas that surrounded them every minute of every day.

A broken spoon may become a fork.

But she stayed where she was a moment longer, like an animal which has been kept in a cage so long it cannot believe in freedom even when it is offered.

God always asks for a sacrifice. His hands are bloody with it. Why? I can't say. I'm not a very smart man. P'raps we brought it on ourselves.

You shine on, boy. Harder than anyone I ever met in my life. And I'm sixty years old this January." "Huh?" "You got a knack," Hallorann said, turning to him. "Me, I've always called it shining. That's what my grandmother called it, too. She had it. We used to sit in the kitchen when I was a boy no older than you and have long talks without even openin our mouths.

As it happened, all three of us turned out to be real writers--a coincidence almost too large to be termed mere coincidence in a society where literally tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of college students aspire to the writer's trade and where bare hundreds actually break through.

Look not long at what's offered, for every precious thing has wings and may fly away.

If we have free will, then you have to invite evil in.

There is no life here but the slow death of days, and so when the evil falls on the town, its coming seems almost preordained, sweet and morphic. It is almost as though the town knows the evil was coming and the shape it would take.

Three heavy blows boxed him low in the back. He saw a splash of red hit the door and had time to think, 'We should have remembered the body armor.' Then he crumpled, still holding onto the knob with one hand as the world rushed away from him. Everything he was and everything he'd ever known diminished to a single burning-bright point of light. Then it went out. His hand slipped off the knob. He died on his knees, leaning against the door.

I deal in lead! Roland called, and Eddie felt goose-bumps pebble his arms.

When things go wrong, they keep going wrong until there's tears.

I was struck to my heart and through my heart, knocked clean out of my ordinary life.

writing couldn't really be taught, only learned.

Every liberal in the country must watch Fox News for one year, and every conservative in the country must watch MSNBC for one year. (Middle-of-the-roaders could stick with CSI)