Stephen King: Doing (page 2)

“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?”

“What if I fall?', Tim cried.

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

“Politics always change. Stories never do.”

“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?”

“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.”

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

“All I ask is that you do as well as you can, and remember that, while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.”

“When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.”

“But it's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else.

Wash the car, maybe.”

“We all do what we can, and it has to be good enough, and if it isn't good enough, it has to do.”

“I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?" She studied him, her eyes grave. "Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.”

“Pray for rain all you like, but dig a well as you do it.”

“I was being paid to do what I loved, and there's no gig on earth better than that; it's like a license to steal.”

“If God gives you something you can do, why in God's name wouldn't you do it?”

“Sometimes the only thing to do is to take the thing that you must have. Even if someone gets hurt.”

“I think that's what people most always do with the stuff they can't make out - just forget it.”

“Remember in elementary school you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file from smallest to tallest? What is the logic in that? What, do tall people burn slower?”

“There’s always a choice. That’s God’s way, always will be. Your will is still free. Do as you will. There’s no set of leg-irons on you. But… this is what God wants of you.”

“As for the end of the universe…I say let it come as it will, in ice, fire, or darkness. What did the universe ever do for me that I should mind its welfare?”