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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

“Without story books is like a person with no soul.”

Stephen King

“Humans were built to look back; that's why we have that swivel joint in our necks”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

“In spite of the problems he was having he was going on with his life. There are thousands who don’t or won’t or can’t and plenty of them aren’t in prison either.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Source: Different Seasons

“Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear.”

Stephen King

“A person’s never too old for stories. Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them. - Roland Deschain”

Stephen King

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

“Nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

“Let me say it again: You must not come lightly to the blank page.”

Stephen King

Variant: you must not come lightly to the blank page.
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“True sorrow is as rare as true love.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

“Dancing is life.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge.”

Stephen King book The Shining

Source: The Shining

“What I'm saying is that I'm trying to find rational reasons to explain irrational feelings, and that's neveer a good sign.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

“Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Sometimes quoted as "Nothing good ever dies."
Different Seasons (1982), Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
Source: The Shawshank Redemption

“Wanting more is just a recipe for heartache.”

Stephen King Dreamcatcher

Source: Dreamcatcher

“there is no gain without risk, perhaps no risk without love.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

“Animals don't know as much about jealousy as people, but they're not ignorant of it, either.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

Source: The Waste Lands

“Jesus watches from the wall,
But his face is cold as stone,
And if he loves me
As she tells me
Why do I feel so all alone?”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

“There’s always someone who knows something.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

“The medical definition ofis misdiagnosis.”

Stephen King book Just After Sunset

Source: Just After Sunset

“A woman who would steal your love when your love was really all you had to give was not much of a woman.”

Stephen King book Four Past Midnight

Source: Four Past Midnight

“And this wasn’t lying, not really. It was leaving out.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

“It was life, often unsatisfying, frequently cruel, usually boring, sometimes beautiful, once in a while exhilarating.”

Stephen King Insomnia

Source: Insomnia

“Art should be a place of hope.”

Stephen King book Duma Key

Source: Duma Key

“Mister, we deal in lead.”

Stephen King

Source: Wolves of the Calla

“Even people capable of living in the past don't really know what the future holds.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Time is a keyhole, he thought as he looked up at the stars. Yes, I think so. We sometimes bend and peer through it. And the wind we feel on our cheeks when we do - the wind that blows through the keyhole- is the breath of all the living universe.”

Stephen King

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

“Anger is the most useless emotion," Henchick intoned, "destructive to the mind and hurtful to the heart.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

Source: Song of Susannah

“The monster nevers dies.”

Stephen King book Cujo

Source: Cujo

“I believe that the combination of pencil and memory creates a kind of practical magic, and magic is dangerous.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

“The color white is the absence of memory.”

Stephen King

“You're dead, George. You just don't have the sense to lie down.”

Stephen King The Dark Half

Source: The Dark Half

“Kids, the fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.”

Stephen King book It

It (1986)

“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why. Not until the future eats the present, anyway. We know when it's too late.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand (1978), p. 1153

“Only children tell the whole truth, you know. That's what makes them children.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

“If anyone ever asks you what panic is, now you can tell them: an emotional blank spot that leaves you feeling as if you've been sucking on a mouthful of pennies.”

Stephen King book Gerald's Game

Source: Gerald's Game

“People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done.”

Stephen King

Source: Bag of Bones/the Green Mile/the Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

“Why' is a crooked letter and can't be made straight.”

Stephen King book The Gunslinger

Source: The Gunslinger

“May be she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

“Sometimes when you're young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you're living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

“And I guess you judge how well you're doing by how well you sleep at night… and what your dreams are like.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Source: Different Seasons

“Roland could not understand why anyone would want cocaine or any other illegal drug, for that matter, in a world where such a powerful one as sugar was so plentiful and cheap.”

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

Source: The Drawing of the Three