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Stephen King

Stephen King Quotes

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Famous Stephen King Quotes

“Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind – they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death.”

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Author:Stephen King
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“Best not to look back. Best to believe there will be happily ever afters all the way around - and so there may be; who is to say there will not be such endings? Not all boats which sail away into darkness never find the sun again, or the hand of another child; if life teaches anything at all, it teachers that there are so many happy endings that the man who believes there is no God needs his rationality called into serious question.”

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Book:It
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“Don't wait for the muse. As I've said, he's a hardheaded guy who's not susceptible to a lot of creative fluttering. This isn't the Ouija board or the spirit-world we're talking about here, but just another job like laying pipe or driving long-haul trucks. Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon. or seven 'til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he'll start showing up.”

IfsKnowsWorldLongDoeSaidJobsSpiritGuyThreeWaitingTalkingCreativeSevenDrivingNineBoardsSooner Or LaterMuseTruckPipeNoonShowing UpSusceptibleHaulFlutteringLong HaulSpirit WorldOuija Board
Book:On writing: a memoir of the craft
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“He didn’t know if that was really true or not, but he discovered something which was tremendously liberating: he didn’t care. He was very tired of thinking and thinking and still not knowing. He was also tired of being frightened, like a man who has entered a cave on a lark and now begins to suspect he is lost. Stop thinking about it, then. That’s the solution.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenStillsCareLostKnowingSolutionsTiredSuspectsFrightenedNot KnowingCavesLiberatingLarksReally True
Book:The Dark Half: A Novel
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“Guys, gals, now hear this: No one wants to take away your hunting rifles. No one wants to take away your shotguns. No one wants to take away your revolvers, and no one wants to take away your automatic pistols, as long as said pistols hold no more than ten rounds. If you can't kill a home invader (or your wife, up in the middle of the night to get a snack from the fridge) with ten shots, you need to go back to the local shooting range.”

IfsWantNeedsLongSaidHomeNightGuyWifeMiddleTenShotsRoundsLocalsShootingRangeHuntingRiflesMiddle Of The NightPistolsSnacksFridgesInvadersGalsShotgunsRevolverShooting Range
Author:Stephen King
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“A child blind from birth doesn't even know he's blind until someone tells him. Even then he has only the most academic idea of what blindness is; only the formerly sighted have a real grip on the thing. Ben Hanscom had no sense of being lonely because he had never been anything but. If the condition had been new, or more localized, he might have understood, but loneliness both encompassed his life and overreached it.”

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Book:It
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“All I can say is what you already know: some days are treasure. Not many, but I think in almost every life there are a few. That was one of mine, and when I'm blue -- when life comes down on me and everything looks tawdry and cheap, the way Joyland Avenue did on a rainy day -- I go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isn't always a butcher's game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes they are precious.”

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Author:Stephen King
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“Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar. Art consists of the persistence of memory.”

IfsWantLittlesArtRealStoriesBigsRememberHurtMemoriesAbilityNovelNiceTalentMiseryPersistenceScarRequirementsNice ThingsRemembers Everything
Author:Stephen King
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“A campaign, like a brand, is not just a number of bits put together - a claim here, a pack shot there, a reason why somewhere else. If we try to produce it by the atomistic approach, we will end up with a sort of Identikit brand. It will be a perfect description of the structure of the brand, as the Identikit can describe the contours of the face. But it won't be the same thing. The brand will never come to life.”

IfsTryingEndsReasonTogetherFacesBitsPerfectNumbersBusinessProduceApproachShotsClaimsStructureCampaignsBrandsReason WhyDescriptionPacksSomewhere Else
Author:Stephen King
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“I think that marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry. It would be wonderful for the state of Maine. There's some pretty good homegrown dope. I'm sure it would be even better if you could grow it with fertilizers and have greenhouses.”

IfsThinkingShouldStatesWould BeGrowsWonderfulIndustryPotWeedMarijuanaDopeCannabisGreenhousesCottagesMaineFertilizerFunny MarijuanaHomegrown
Book:Bare bones: conversations on terror with Stephen King
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“Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it...I have written because it fulfilled me. ... I did it for the pure joy of the things. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

IfsInspirationalMadeInspirationMotivationalJoyCan DoDealsFictionForeverWrittenPurePaperPaidFulfilledYou Can Do ItBuzzSingle WordDoughDoing What You LovePure JoyLoving What You Do
Author:Stephen King
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“If you can remember all the accessories that go with your best outfit, the contents of your purse, the starting lineup of the New York Yankees or the Houston Oilers, or what label "Hang On Sloopy" by The McCoys was on, you are capable of remembering the differences between a gerund (verb form used as a noun) and a participle (verb form used as an adjective).”

IfsWritingRememberFormUsedDifferencesNew YorkCapableStartingLabelsYankeesPursesVerbsNew York YankeesAccessoriesAdjectivesHoustonNouns
Book:On Writing
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“Must you write complete sentences each time, every time? Perish the thought. If your work consists only of fragments and floating clauses, the Grammar Police aren't going to come and take you away. Even William Strunk, that Mussolini of rhetoric, recognized the delicious pliability of language. "It is an old observation," he writes, "that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric." Yet he goes on to add this thought, which I urge you to consider: "Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the rules."”

IfsWritingWellsSometimesCertainLanguageGoes OnPoliceAddSentencesObservationUrgesRhetoricFloatingDeliciousGrammarFragmentsDisregardClauses
Book:On Writing
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“It means that no blue ribbon is forever. Someday - if the world doesn't explode itself in the meantime - someone will run a two-minute mile in the Olympics. It may take a hundred years or a thousand, but it will happen. Because there is no ultimate blue ribbon. There is zero, and there is eternity, and there is mortality, but there is no ultimate.”

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Author:Stephen King
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“He realized now that a lot of the problem had been his own mind, which was usually moving at a speed ten or twenty times that of his classmates. They had thought him strange, weird, or even suicidal, depending on the escapade in question, but maybe it had been a simple case of mental overdrive-if anything about being in constant mental overdrive was simple. Anyway, it was the sort of thing you got under control after a while-you got it under control or you found outlets for it.”

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Author:Stephen King
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“... don't let your elders and supposed betters tell you any different. Sure, you've never been to Paris. No, you never ran with the bulls at Pamploma. Yes, you're a pissant who had no hair in your armpits until three years ago - but so what? If you don't start out too big for your britches, how are you gonna fill 'em when you grow up? Let it rip regardless of what anybody tells you, that's my idea; sit down an smoke that baby.”

IfsYearsIdeasDifferentWisdomBigsThreeGrowsGrowing UpHairBabyYears AgoSmokeRanParisEmsWhat IfThree YearsEldersBullsRipArmpits
Author:Stephen King
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“He needs to be corrected, if you don't mind me saying so. He needs a good talking-to, and perhaps a bit more. My own girls, sir, didn't care for the Overlook at first. One of them actually stole a pack of my matches and tried to burn it down. I corrected them. I corrected them most harshly. And when my wife tried to stop me from doing my duty, I corrected her.”

IfsNeedsMindFirstsCareGirlBitsMy OwnTalkingWifeDutyMy WifePacks
Book:THE SHINING
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“The boat dipped and swayed and sometimes took on water, but it did not sink; the two brothers had waterproofed it well. I do not know where it finally fetched up, if it ever did; perhaps it reached the sea and sails there forever, like a magic boat in a fairytale. All I know is that it was still afloat and still running on the breast of the flood when it passed the incorporated town limits of Derry, Maine, and there it passes out of this tale forever.”

IfsKnowsWellsStillsTwoSometimesRunningWaterForeverMagicSeaBrotherLimitsTownsTalesBoatBreastsFloodSailFairytaleMaineTwo BrothersDerry
Author:Stephen King
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“If you say, Well, OK, I don't believe in God. There's no evidence of God, then you're missing the stars in the sky and you're missing the sunrises and sunsets and you're missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together. Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design.”

IfsWayBelieveWellsFactsSeemsTogetherReligionStarsAliveSkyMissingDesignEvidenceBuiltIntelligentDon't BelieveSunsetWorking TogetherBelieve In GodBeesSunriseCropsIntelligent DesignStars In The SkySunrise And SunsetEvidence Of God
Author:Stephen King
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“Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this: When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they don't. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If they don't, it's just blotto. The end.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsBelieveTwoIdeasDifferentSoulEndsHappensDiesReligiousKnowingSubjectsDyingPossibilityDon't BelieveThings HappenGreat ThingsTwo ThingsDifferent Ideas
Book:Pet Sematary: A Novel
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