Stephen King quotes

„It's hard to make strangers care about the good things in your life.“

—  Stephen King, book The Body

Source: The Body

„We have once again succeeded in destroying what we could not create.“

—  Stephen King, book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

„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.“

—  Stephen King, Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary (1983)
Context: It's probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness falls - as little as one may like to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything. 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. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which one's sense of humor begins to reassert itself.

„I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It's you I'm not entirely sure of.“

—  Stephen King, book Full Dark, No Stars

Source: Full Dark, No Stars

„I hope you liked them, Reader; that they did for you what any good story should do--make you forget the real stuff weighing on your mind for a little while and take you away to a place you've never been. It's the most amiable sort of magic I know.“

—  Stephen King

„The most important things are the hardest to say“

—  Stephen King

„Sarcastic people tend to be marshmallows underneath the armor“

—  Stephen King, book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

„But sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. […] True sorrow is as rare as true love.“

—  Stephen King, book Carrie

Source: Carrie

„Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don't have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough.“

—  Stephen King

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

„As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?“

—  Stephen King

„Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality.“

—  Stephen King, book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

„It’s hard to let go. Even when what you’re holding onto is full of thorns, it’s hard to let go. Maybe especially then.“

—  Stephen King, book Joyland

Source: Joyland

„A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them.“

—  Stephen King, The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

„I'm one of those people who doesn't really know what he thinks until he writes it down.“

—  Stephen King, book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

„Don't ask me silly questions
I won't play silly games
I'm just a simple choo choo train
And I'll always be the same.

I only want to race along
Beneath the bright blue sky
And be a happy choo choo train
Until the day I die.“

—  Stephen King, book The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

Source: The Waste Lands

„It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.“

—  Stephen King

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

„And people who don’t dream, who don’t have any kind of imaginative life, they must… they must go nuts. I can’t imagine that.“

—  Stephen King

„The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows.“

—  Stephen King

„The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.“

—  Stephen King

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft