Stephen King
Good days and long nights to ya, sai.Collection: Good Day
On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?Collection: Jobs
The wonder is that so many OCDs manage to live productive lives, just the same. They work, they eat (often not enough or too much, it's true), they go to the movies, they make love to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands... and all the time those birds are there, clinging to them and pecking away little bits of flesh.Collection: Girlfriend
Oh, there were all sorts of things to wonder about, but the truth was simple: here stood this door alone on an endless stretch of beach, and it was for only one of two things: opening or leaving closed.Collection: Beach
Kindle, isn’t it?” the waitress asked. “I got one for Christmas, and I love it. I’m reading my way through all of Jodi Picoult’s books.” “Oh, probably not all of them,” Wesley said. “Huh? Why not?” “She’s probably got another one done already. That’s all I meant.” “And James Patterson’s probably written one since he got up this morning!” she said, and went off chortling.Collection: Morning
I never have a thematic intention at the outset.Collection: Intention
Writing is like being in a dream state or under self-directed hypnosis. It induces a state of recall that - while not perfect - is pretty spooky.Collection: Dream
I'm not the first person to have said this - no writer ever feels that the execution of a book lives up to the idea for that book. The execution always falls short.Collection: Fall
I got letters from people that have had peculiar psychic experiences, experiences with the dead - sometimes fairly tranquil experiences and sometimes very terrifying experiences. I do believe that a lot of them are sincere. I do believe, also, that some of them may be misguided. But, I think the majority of them have experienced something.Collection: Believe
The first movie I can remember seeing was The Creature From The Black Lagoon. And, I can remember hearing a radio play of Ray Bradbury's Mars Is Heaven. And when I cut my teeth on comic books, they were not the easy ones of today like Spiderman, Superman and The Hulk. they were Tales Of The Crypt, The Vaultkeeper, and that sort of thing.Collection: Book
I don't make movies. I don't feel that I have to have artistic control. Part of this comes from the fact that the book lives on no matter what Hollywood does to your novel in terms of a film. Now, you try to be careful who you allow to do your film because nobody wants their novel to become a turkey movie. But, on the other hand, it is a crapshot anyway, because even the best people can make a bad film.Collection: Book
There are a lot of people in the field [ of horror stories] that I do read. There is a lot of stuff that is written in this field, though, that is not very good. You just have to look for the good stuff.Collection: Horror Stories
I think it is harder to write a story that appeals to the intellect. But, when you tie onto one, you can do it quite deeply. It really depends on the type of idea you have to begin with.Collection: Writing
I write about things that scare me. I've never written a snake story in my life. I myself have never written a story about snakes because they don't scare me. I write about rats because they scare the hell out of me.Collection: Writing
" Science is beginning to encroach on every level of our volition". And to me, that is a frightening social concept. It doesn't have anything to do with the right to have an abortion verses the right to life. It has to do with the ability of science to keep things alive and the ability of science to really control our lives.Collection: Abortion
It was always a pleasure to write. I can never think of a time when I just hacked something out to fulfil a contract or meet a deadline. I might have hacked things out, but it was always stuff I loved.Collection: Writing
My wife has told me since that I was hungover every mornng until about two in the afternoon, and from five until midnight I was drunk out of my mind. So she says there was this period of about three hours when she could talk to me like a rational human being.Collection: Two
I've spoken out my whole life against the idea of simply dismissing whole areas of fiction by saying it's "genre" and therefore can't be seen as literature.Collection: Ideas
Hemingway sucks. If I set out to write that way, it would have been been hollow and lifeless because it wasn't me.Collection: Writing
Bloom never pissed me off because there are critics out there, and he's one of them, who take their ignorance about popular culture as a badge of intellectual prowess.Collection: Ignorance
Cold start is a hard start.Collection: Cold
What really scares me is Alzheimer's or premature senility, losing that ability to read and enjoy and to write. And you do it, and some days maybe aren't so good, and then some days, you really catch a wave, and it's as good as it ever was.Collection: Writing
The books are always there, just the way you wrote them. The plays often don`t turn out the way you wanted them to because in the theater, you`re always involved with collaborators and they don`t always see the work the way you do.Collection: Book
I hardly ever read mainstream fiction that deals with life as it is. I like an element of fantasy, something that isn`t quite of the real world.Collection: Real
My books depend on someone in danger, putting pieces together and figuring things out. They do a lot of thinking, and that gets lost in the movie.Collection: Book
I've never seen novels as built things. I have a tendency to see them as found things so that I always feel a little bit like an archaeologist who's working to get some fragile fossil out of the ground. And the more you get out unbroken, the better you succeed.Collection: Fossils
God and the afterlife and all that is certainly a subject that's interested me, and I think it interests me more the older that I get.Collection: Thinking
It's been quite a while since I was really afraid that there was a boogeyman in my closet, although I am still very careful to keep my feet under the covers when I go to sleep, because the covers are magic, and if your feet are covered, it's like boogeyman Kryptonite.Collection: Sleep
When you ask me what I'm afraid of, I'd say I still go to see ghost movies when I get a chance or some sort of supernatural being, but it doesn't scare me as it scared me when I was a child.Collection: Children
There is a relationship between humor and fear. Think of all the gags you ever heard that have to do with dismemberment, or something that's horrible in one way or another, even if it's just horrible in the sense that somebody's being embarrassed. What do kids laugh at? Kids laugh if your fly's down. That's hilarious. But for the kid whose fly is down, it's a horrible situation.Collection: Kids
where the world ends is where you must beginCollection: World
My view is that organized religion is a very dangerous tool that's been misused by a lot of people.Collection: Views
A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures.Collection: Men
She knew with suddeness and ease that this moment would be with her always, within hand's reach of memory. She doubted if they all sensed it - they had seen the world - but even George was silent for a minute as they looked, and the scene, the smell, even the sound of the band playing a faintly recognisable movie theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace.Collection: Memories
Dreams age faster than dreamers.Collection: Dream
Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.Collection: Change
Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.Collection: Twilight
Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in. The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows. Waiting rooms were made for books— of course! But so are theater lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone’s favorite, the john. You can even read while you’re driving, thanks to the audiobook revolution. Of the books I read each year, anywhere from six to a dozen are on tape.Collection: Book
I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye. I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind. I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.Collection: Father
I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.Collection: Writing
The idea for a novel is like a little tiny fire in a dark night. And, one by one, the characters come and stand around it and warm their hands.Collection: Character
I don't mean that creative people are somehow finer, or more sensitive, and thus have finer, more sensitive nervous breakdowns - you can save that horseshit for the Sylvia Plath worshipers. It's just that creative people have creative breakdowns.Collection: Mean
There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft -- I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.Collection: Writing
He began to cry, not hysterically or screaming as people cry when concealed rage with tears, but with continuous sobs who has just discovered that he's alone and will be for long. He cried because safety and reason seemed to have left the world. Loneliness was a reality, but in this situation madness was also remotely a possibility.Collection: Loneliness
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want for nothing. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He greases up my head with oil. He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies. AmenCollection: Lying
A place is yours when you know where all the roads go.Collection: Knows
She didn't see him at first. She was watching the dancers. Her color was high, and there were deep dimples at the corners of her mouth. She looked nine miles out of place, but he had never loved her more. This was Willa on the edge of a smile.Collection: Color
But sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. [...] True sorrow is as rare as true love.Collection: Im Sorry
God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you.Collection: Noses