“You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”

—  Stephen King

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you." by Stephen King?
Stephen King photo
Stephen King 733
American author 1947

Related quotes

Ernest Hemingway photo

“I wish I could write well enough to write about aircraft. Faulkner did it very well in Pylon but you cannot do something someone else has done though you might have done it if they hadn't.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter (3 July 1956); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Bill Moyers photo
Marc Acito photo

“There are moments in your life when you see yourself through someone else’s eyes, when your only hope of believing you’re capable of doing something is because someone else believes it for you.”

Marc Acito (1966) American novelist, humorist, screenwriter

Source: How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1920s, Truth is a Pathless Land (1929)
Context: Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your churches new and old – all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying. “This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods – new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old – all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organization?

Nick Hornby photo
Steven Novella photo

“… you don't realize whether or not you completely understand a topic until you are tasked to explain it to someone else. … That really challenges your understanding of a topic.”

Steven Novella (1964) American neurologist, skepticist

SGU, Podcast #170, October 22nd, 2008 http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/170
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, Podcast, 2000s

Brad Meltzer photo
Audre Lorde photo
Edward Said photo
Ben Harper photo

“You can run away from home
But you can't run away from your pain
I sit here alone
There's always someone else to blame.”

Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician

Up to You Now.
Song lyrics, White Lies for Dark Times (2009)

Related topics