1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Stephen King

Stephen King Quotes
page 12

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, many of which have been adapted into feature films, miniseries, television series, and comic books. King has published 54 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and six non-fiction books. He has written around 200 short stories, most of which have been collected in book collections.

His novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption was the basis for the film The Shawshank Redemption which is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.

Many of his stories are set in his home state of Maine.

✵ 21. September 1947
Stephen King photo
Stephen King: 733 quotes191 likes

Stephen King Quotes

“Coincidences happen, but I've come to believe they are actually quite rare. Something is at work, okay? Somewhere in the universe (or behind it), a great machine is ticking and turning its fabulous gears.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“All you imagined, no matter how wild it might seem, was no more than a disguised version of what you already knew.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

Source: Song of Susannah

“So what, ghosts can't hurt you. That's what I thought then.”

Stephen King book Bag of Bones

Source: Bag of Bones

“See the TURTLE of enormous girth,
On his shell he holds the earth.
If you want to run and play,
Come along the BEAM today.”

Stephen King book The Gunslinger

Source: The Gunslinger

“But now the joy is gone and the sadness is back, the sadness feels like something deserved, the price of some not-quite-forgotten betrayal.”

Stephen King Dreamcatcher

Source: Dreamcatcher

“Sometimes you had to know. Sometimes you had to.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

“I do have one slightly crooked wheel upstairs, but everything else is ticking along just four-o, thank you very much.”

Stephen King book The Bachman Books

Source: The Bachman Books

“They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

“It don't matter if you believe in God Nick, he believes in you.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

“Never give a good politician time to pray.”

Stephen King book Under the Dome

Source: Under the Dome

“Some werewolves are hairy on the inside.”

Stephen King book Danse Macabre

Source: Danse Macabre

“Want to know the best thing about teaching? Seeing that moment when a kid discovers his or her gift. There's no feeling on earth like it.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“You might question a winkle - a feeling that came to you right out of the blue - but you didn’t question knowing.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

“A hurt body and mind aren't just like a dictatorship; they are a dictatorship. There is no tyrant as merciless as pain, no despot so cruel as confusion.”

Stephen King

“Good days and long nights to ya, sai.”

Stephen King book Wizard and Glass

Variant: Long days and pleasant nights.
Source: Wizard and Glass

“He walked out of nowhere toward nowhere, a man from another time who, it seemed, had reached a point of pointless ending.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Source: The Drawing of the Three

“Things come in three major degrees in the human experience, I think. There's good, bad, and terrible. And as you go down into progressive darkness towards terrible, it gets harder and harder to make subdivisions.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Source: Different Seasons

“Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon. Everything comes back, like the moon.”

Stephen King book The Talisman

Source: The Talisman

“Because the difference between seeing and not seeing can be the difference between living and dying.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Source: The Drawing of the Three

“Life sucks, then you die”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

“… when we say, 'I don't understand,' God replies, 'I don't care.' ”.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

“I know your mother lives in your head - almost everyone's mother does, I guess - but you can't let her have her way on this one”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Teddy, Vern, Chris: I don't shut up. I grow up. And when I look at you, I throw up. Aghhh!
Gordie: And then your mom goes around the corner and she licks it up.”

Stephen King book The Body

Source: The Body

“Sometimes stories cry out to be told in such loud voices that you write them just to shut them up.”

Stephen King book Just After Sunset

Source: Just After Sunset

“What's been tried once had been tried once before… and before… and before…”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

“It's a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart, so don't sweat the small stuff.”

Stephen King Insomnia

Variant: It's a long way back to Eden, Sweetheart, so don't sweat the small stuff.
Source: Insomnia

“The silence wasn't uncomfortable or hostile but exhausted--the quiet of people who have a great deal to think about but not a hell of a lot to say.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

“As always at these times when he felt really in need of God the front of his mind was serene, but the deeper part, where faith did constant battle with doubt, was terrified that there would be no answer.”

Stephen King book Desperation

Source: Desperation

“Of course when you were running with the bottom dogs, what you mostly saw were paws, claws, and assholes.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

“Now that he wanted to feel like he was having a bad dream, he wasn't. He was having a bad reality, and that was something from which you could not wake.”

Stephen King

“Home is where you dance with others, and dancing is life.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“In polite society, we call our obsessions hobbies.”

Stephen King

“Artistic talent is far more common than the talent toartistic talent. Any parent with a hard hand can crush it, but to nurture it is much more difficult.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“… I'd been raised by my parents to believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height of impoliteness…”

Stephen King book Joyland

Source: Joyland

“Wow. This makes grand central look like a bus stop in Buttfuck Nebraska.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

Source: The Waste Lands

“There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean – hell, I know that.”

Stephen King book Misery

Source: Misery

“Maybe, in the end it's the voice that tells the stories more than the stories themselves that matters.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

“Do I know what people say? Sure. I shrug it off. what else can you do? Stop people from talking? You might as well try to stop the wind from blowing.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Life's simplest answers are often the easiest to overlook.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“You say true, I say thankya.”

Stephen King

“Time-travelers lie a lot.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

11/22/63

“Use your judgement.""
""But I have so little.”

Stephen King book Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers

“The devil can quote scripture.”

Stephen King book Joyland

Joyland

“Croquet is bastardized roque.”

Stephen King book The Shining

The Shining

“Some stains don't come out.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Morality
Pet Sematary (1983)
Variant: Some things it don't pay to be curious about.