Stephen King (Writer)

He told himself that everything was fine — he only had to look at the sleeping dog on the floor if he doubted — but in the middle of the night it was hard to be an optimist. When the dawn was still long hours away, bad thoughts took on flesh and began to walk. In the middle of the night thoughts became zombies. ➡

Selectman Rennie's assumption that no one had seen Brenda come to his house that morning was correct. But she was seen in her morning travels, not by one person but by three, including one who also lived on on Mill Street. If Big Jim had known, would the knowledge have given him pause? Doubtful; by then he was committed to his course and it was too late to turn back. But it might have caused him to reflect (for he was a reflective man, in his own way) on murder's similarity to Lay's potato chips: it's hard to stop with just one. ➡

Denial gives way to acceptance; acceptance breeds dependence. Anyone who's ever cared for a terminal patient will tell you that, too. Sick people need someone who will bring them their pills and glasses of cold sweet juice to wash them down with. They need someone to soothe their aching joints with arnica gel. They need someone to sit with them when the night is dark and the hours stretch out. They need someone to say, Sleep now, it will be better in the morning. I'm here, so sleep. Sleep now. Sleep and let me take care of everything. ➡

America's two great specialties are demagogues and rock and roll, and we've all heard plenty of both in our time. ➡

Love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart. ➡

But I believe in love, you know; love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart. ➡

You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will. ➡

The scariest moment is always just before you start. ➡

Get busy living or get busy dying. ➡

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. ➡

Books are a uniquely portable magic. ➡

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. ➡

The trust of the innocent is the liars most useful tool. ➡

Sarcastic people tend to be marshmallows underneath the armor. ➡

If you don’t control your temper, your temper will control you. ➡

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

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ➡

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts With barest wrists and stoutest boasts He thrusts his fists against the posts But still insists he sees the ghosts. ➡

Its probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness falls - as little as one may like to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything. And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which ones sense of humor begins to reassert itself. ➡

Its offense you maybe cant live with because it opens up a crack inside your thinking, and if you look down into it you see there are evil things down there, and they have little yellow eyes that dont blink, and theres a stink down there in that dark and after a while you think maybe theres a whole other universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything, he would have told them if he could. Go to your church and listen to your stories about Jesus walking on the water, but if I saw a guy doing that Id scream and scream and scream. Because it wouldnt look like a miracle to me. It would look like an offense. ➡

Amid the moist and coldest frosts, With barest wrists and stoutest boasts, He thrusts his fists against the post, And still insists he sees the ghosts. ➡

Every religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. Thats all history is, after all: scar tissue.KISSES ON THE MIDWAY, 2 ➡

final lines I will write about all of this one day, he thinks, and knows its just a dawn thought, an after-dreaming thought. But its nice to think so for a while in the mornings clean silence, to think that childhood has its own sweet secrets and confirms mortality, and that mortality defines all courage and love. To think that what has looked forward must also look back, and that each life makes its own imitation of immortality: a wheel. Or so Bill Denbrough sometimes thinks on those early mornings after dreaming, when he almost remembers his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it. ➡

Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.Sometimes quoted as Nothing good ever dies. ➡

Son, youre probably too young to look for wisdom in anyones words but your own, but Ill tell you this: love is the enemy Yes. The poets continually and sometimes willfully mistake love. Love is the old slaughterer. Love is not blind. Love is a cannibal with extremely acute vision. Love is insectile; it is always hungry. When asked what love eats: Friendship. It eats friendship.Pt. 1, Ch. 11 ➡

Suicide proves guilt. He remembers Lieutenant Morrissey saying that, but Hodges himself has always had his doubts, and lately those doubts have been stronger than ever. What he knows now is that guilt isnt the only reason people commit suicide. Sometimes you can just get bored with afternoon TV.DET.-RET., 13 ➡

When asked, How do you write? I invariably answer, one word at a time.The Stand Uncut, Preface part 2 ➡