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Stephen King Quotes
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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

“You are the grim, goal-oriented ones who will not believe that the joy is in the journey rather than the destination no matter how many times it has been proven to you.”

Stephen King

“We are going to fight. We are going to be hurt. And in the end, we will stand.”

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

Source: The Drawing of the Three

“If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered.”

Stephen King

“Murder is like potato chips: you can't stop with just one.”

Stephen King book Under the Dome

Source: Under the Dome

“Words have weight.”

Stephen King

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Love didn't grow very well in a place where there was only fear”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

“The soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can and tends it.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Jud speaking to Louis, after the burying the cat
Source: Pet Sematary (1983)
Context: They are secret things. Women are supposed to be the ones good at keeping secrets, and I guess they do keep a few, but any woman who knows anything at all would tell you she's never really seen into any man's heart. The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis - like the soil up there in the old Micmac burying ground. Bedrock's close. A man grows what he can... and he tends it.

“The past is obdurate.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“The scholar's greatest weakness: calling procrastination research.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“If we don't have each other, we go crazy with loneliness. When we do, we go crazy with togetherness.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

“They're animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

Source: The Long Walk

“Life is fair. We all get the same nine-month shake in the box, and then the dice roll. Some people get a run of sevens. Some people, unfortunately, get snake-eyes. Its just how the world is.”

Stephen King book Full Dark, No Stars

Source: Full Dark, No Stars

“The mystery of the universe is not time but size.”

Stephen King book The Gunslinger

Variant: The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but Size.
Source: The Gunslinger

“I know life is hard, I think everyone knows that in their hearts, but why dos it have to be cruel, as well? Why does it have to bite?”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It's what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutter ball when you're bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

“Come to a book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it, and draw your own map…. A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

“Death, but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

“Sometimes, he thought, real love is silent as well as blind.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Variant: Sometimes [... ] real love is silent as well as blind.
Source: The Stand

“Weird love's better than no love at all.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

“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.”

Stephen King book Full Dark, No Stars

Source: Full Dark, No Stars

“The good thing about being old, is you don’t have to worry about dying young.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

“The turtle couldn't help us.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

“The devil's voice is sweet to hear.”

Stephen King book Needful Things

Needful Things (1991)

“If you've ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“People say that where there’s life, there’s hope, and I have no quarrel with that, but I also believe the reverse.
There is hope, therefore I live.”

Stephen King book Revival

Source: Revival

“She couldn't be on his wavelength all the time. That's all. When you could recognize that and deal with it, you were on your way to an adult relationship.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

“I wanted to say goodbye to someone, and have someone say goodbye to me. The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us we´re still alive.”

Stephen King

Source: Wolves of the Calla

“The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.”

Stephen King

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“What if I fall?', Tim cried.

Maerlyn laughed. 'Sooner or later, we all do.”

Stephen King

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

“Time heals all wounds.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Misattributed
Source: Hearts in Atlantis

“Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a story's just a story”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“He was a romantic in his own harsh way…yet he was also realist enough to know that some times love actually did conquer all.”

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

Source: The Drawing of the Three

“Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

“You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

“The scariest, most terrifying thing that I fear?"
Yes."
My Imagination."
I thought you were going to say "Fear, itself."
Then you have a small imagination."
Roland and Eddie”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

“Until we see each other again, keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, be happy.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Source: Different Seasons

“Nora Roberts is cool.”

Stephen King

“In the end, the wind takes everything, doesn't it? And why not? Why other? If the sweetness of our lives did not depart, there would be no sweetness at all.”

Stephen King

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

“When you're five and you hurt, you make a big noise in the world. At ten you whimper. But by the time you make fifteen you begin to eat the poisoned apples that grow on your own inner tree of pain.”

Stephen King book Rage

Source: Rage

“In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives….”

Stephen King The Running Man

Source: The Running Man

“Just go on dancing with me like this forever and I'll never tire. We'll scrape our shoe on the stars and hang upside down from the moon.”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

Source: The Long Walk

“I can't understand why people use religion to hurt each other when there's already so much pain in the world.”

Stephen King book Joyland

Source: Joyland

“You needn't die happy when your time comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from the beginning to the end and ka is always served.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

“where the world ends is where you must begin”

Stephen King book The Gunslinger

Source: The Gunslinger

“Politics always change. Stories never do.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

“It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written.”

Stephen King

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft