If ever there was a list of quotes we wanted to do, this is it - Stephen King quotes. So, with slightly trembling hands and hearts filled with excitement, we’ve compiled it, tried to write an intro that’s not over-the-top exuberant, and now are leaving it to your, dear readers, judgment. Ready to take a look at the most excellent, heavily inspiring, and totally powerful quotes from Stephen King, only the most accomplished storyteller if there ever was one?
If you haven’t had the chance to read any of Stephen King’s books yet or know nothing about the King of Horror himself, here are a few cool facts about him. Mister King has written hundreds of literary pieces, with 49 novels under his name, seven more under his pen names, five non-fiction books, and around 200 short stories. And all of them are better than the last!
Stephen King was certain that his fame was completely accidental and thus started to write books under his pen name. When they got just as popular as the ones written under his real name, the writer gave up and admitted that his popularity wasn’t, after all, an accident. And lastly, once upon in 1996, King collaborated with Michael Jackson himself to create a short horror movie together. Oh, and since we’ve mentioned movies, there are at least 91 of them based on King’s works. So, if you’re not a huge fan of reading, you can experience this master’s writing through cinema. Beware, though; they are definitely spooky!
Speaking of these powerful quotes here - some of them come from interviews with the writer, while others are book quotes from his famous novels. So while they weren’t technically spoken by him, they still came from his very own head, which makes them totally count. After all, some of the best Stephen King quotes do come from his writings, rather than public speeches!
Anyhoo, we’ll never be as good as the Master of Horror at this writing gig (although quotes from Stephen King on writing do help a lot), so it’s best to end our love-filled intro to this long-awaited quotes list right about now.
Scroll down below, check out the incredible quotes from this world-famous writer, and upvote the ones that impacted you the most! And lastly, we’re pretty sure these quotes by Stephen King would benefit anyone who reads them, so why not share this article with your friends?
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“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” - Stephen King
“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.” - 11/22/63
“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” - Stephen King
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” - Stephen King
“Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.” - Stephen King
“Love didn’t grow very well in a place where there was only fear, just as plants didn’t grow very well in a place where it was always dark.” — Tom Cullen, The Stand
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” - Stephen King
“A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.” - Stephen King
“The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows.” - Stephen King
“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” - Stephen King
“Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They both are fruit, but taste completely different.” - Stephen King
“You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.” - Stephen King
“People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.” - Stephen King
That wouldn't be a surprise. I'd imagine you have a pet raven too! 😉
"When a long book succeeds, the writer and reader are not just having an affair; they are married." - The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
"Anger is the most useless emotion, destructive to the mind and hurtful to the heart." - Song of Susannah
"Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild." - Stephen King
"It’s funny how close the past is, sometimes. Sometimes it seems as if you could almost reach out and touch it. Only who really wants to?" - From a Buick 8
“Get busy living, or get busy dying.” — Andy Dufresne, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
“It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.” — Susannah Dean, Wolves of the Calla
“There are things of such darkness and horror - just, I suppose, as there are things of such great beauty—that they will not fit through the puny human doors of perception.” — Skeleton Crew, The Mist, Chapter XI. The End
“When asked, ‘How do you write?’ I invariably answer, ‘one word at a time.'” - Stephen King
“You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it’s going to happen.” - Stephen King
“Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair.” — Skeleton Crew
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” - Stephen King
“I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses.” - Stephen King
“The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.” — The Stand
“I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.” - Stephen King
“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” - Stephen King
“Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.” - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.” - Stephen King
“The mind can calculate, but the spirit yearns, and the heart knows what the heart knows.” - Stephen King
“No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves.” - Wolves of the Calla
“And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity.” - Pet Sematary
"But writing is a wonderful and terrible thing. It opens deep wells of memory that were previously capped." - Revival
"The world has teeth and it can bite you with them any time it wants." - The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
“Life is like a wheel. Sooner or later, it always comes around to where you started again.” - Stephen King
“Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” — Andy Dufresne, Rita Hayward and Shawshank Redemption
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” — Danse Macabre
“Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.” — The Gunslinger
“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.” — Full Dark, No Stars
“I thought it was great fun to scare people. I also knew it was socially acceptable because there were a lot of horror movies out there.” - Stephen King
“Frightened people live in their own special hell. You could say they make it themselves, but they can’t help it. It’s the way they’re built. They deserve sympathy and compassion.” — Revival
“When you write you tell yourself a story. When you rewrite you take out everything that is NOT the story.” - Stephen King
“Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us.” — ‘Salem’s Lot
“Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you’ll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding.” - Stephen King
“People don’t get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don’t stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.” — Carrie
“A secret needs two faces to bounce between; a secret needs to see itself in another pair of eyes.” — Christine
“When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off.” - Storm of the Century
“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.” - Stephen King
“Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't.” - Hearts in Atlantis
“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.” - Stephen King
“Sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.” - The Green Mile
“Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.” - Stephen King
“You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you.” - Night Shift
“There came a time when you realized that moving on was pointless. That you took yourself with you wherever you went.” - Doctor Sleep
“Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.” - Stephen King
“I'm one of those people who doesn't really know what he thinks until he writes it down.” - 11/22/63
“What can be done when you’re eleven can often never be done again.” - It, Chapter 22. The Ritual of Chüd
"We are going to fight. We are going to be hurt. And in the end, we will stand." - The Drawing of the Three
"If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I’ll be all right as long as there’s a lending library." - Stephen King
"Life is like a wheel. Sooner or later, it always come around to where you started again." - Stephen King
“And in real life endings aren’t always neat, whether they’re happy endings, or whether they’re sad endings.” - Stephen King
“A short story is a different thing altogether—a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.” — Skeleton Crew
Stephen King has been a favorite of mine for years. Write for as long as you can.💓
Stephen King has been a favorite of mine for years. Write for as long as you can.💓
