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ELIZABETH SIROIS WHARTON, 87, passed away peacefully on May 29, 2010, at Warsaw County Memorial Hospital. She was born on January 19, 1923, the son of Marcel and Catherine Sirois. She is survived by her brother, Henry Sirois, her sister, Charlotte Gibney, her niece, Holly Gibney, and her daughter, Janelle Patterson. Elizabeth was predeceased by her husband, Alvin Wharton, and her beloved daughter, Olivia. Private visitation will be held from 10 AM to 1 PM at Soames Funeral Home By Stephen King Hospital Warsaw County Memorial Sirois

The essential and defining characteristic of childhood is not the effortless merging of dream and reality, but only alienation. There are no words for childhood's dark turns and exhalations. A wise child recognizes it and submits to the necessary consequences. A child who counts the cost is a child no longer. By Stephen King Reality Alienation Childhood Child Essential

I felt comfortable as only one can on such a night, when all is miserable outside and all is warmth and comfort inside. By Stephen King Night Inside Felt Comfortable Miserable

The exhilaration was hard to explain. It was a lonely feeling - a somehow melancholy feeling. He was outside; he passed on the wings of the wind, and none of the people beyond the brightly lighted squares of their windows saw him. They were inside, inside where there was light and warmth. They didn't know he had passed them; only he knew. It was a secret thing. By Stephen King Explain Feeling Exhilaration Hard Passed

When I'm asked why I decided to write the sort of thing I do write, I always think the question is more revealing than any answer I could possibly give. Wrapped within it, like the chewy stuff in the center of a Tootsie Pop, is the assumption that the writer controls the material instead of the other way around.3 By Stephen King Write Give Asked Decided Sort

I don't want your apology, least of all for being afraid," he said. "Without fear, what would we be? Mad dogs with foam on our muzzles and shit drying on our hocks. By Stephen King Apology Afraid Fear Mad Hocks

I like to think that good people win. But even good people have other sides. Most people will slow down to get a good look at an accident, even though they won't admit it. By Stephen King Good People Win Sides Accident

And now, all these years later, it seem to him that the most horrible fact of human existence was that broken hearts mended By Stephen King Mended Years Horrible Fact Human

A woman's love is strange and cruel and nearly always clear-sighted, love that sees is always horrible love, and she knew walking away was right and so she walked, dismissing the cries as only another part of the boy's development, like smiles from gas or scraped knees. By Stephen King Love Clearsighted Walked Dismissing Development

And begin to write real fiction. Why shouldn't you? Why should you fear? Carpenters don't build monsters, after all; they build houses, stores, and banks. They build some of wood a plank at a time and some of brick a brick at a time. You will build a paragraph at a time, constructing these of your vocabulary and your knowledge of grammar and basic style. As long as you stay level-on-the-level and shave even every door, you can build whatever you like - whole mansions, if you have the energy. By Stephen King Build Fiction Time Begin Write

fags?" "I don't know - " "Do we look like we like fags?" "No, but . . ." "We're your friends, Steve-o," Morrison said solemnly. "And believe me, you and Chris and Webby need all By Stephen King Fags Steveo Morrison Chris Webby

And you, CONSTANT READER. Thank God you're still there after all these years. If you're having fun, I am, too. By Stephen King Constant Reader God Years Fun

I believe that the combination of pencil and memory creates a kind of practical magic, and magic is dangerous. By Stephen King Dangerous Magic Combination Pencil Memory

You need to get in the Baptist way of churching, son. Ours welcomes newcomers. You can take this place, and maybe some Sunday you can come with me n my wife.''Maybe so,' I agreed, reminding myself to be in a coma that Sunday. Possibly dead. By Stephen King Son Baptist Churching Sunday Newcomers

When the sun was fully up, the gunslinger moved on west. He would find another horse eventually, or a mule, but for now he was content to walk. All that day he was haunted by a ringing, singing sound in his ears, a sound like bells. Several times he stopped and looked around, sure he would see a dark following shape flowing over the ground, chasing after as the shadows of our best and worst memories chase after, but no shape was ever there. He was alone in the low hill country west of Eluria. Quite alone. By Stephen King Sun Fully Gunslinger Moved West

I'd say that what I do is like a crack in the mirror. If you go back over the books from Carrie on up, what you see is an observation of ordinary middle-class American life as it's lived at the time that particular book was written. In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that's inexplicable to you, whether it's the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we're still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts. By Stephen King Life Mirror Crack Deal Ordinary

They were nice enough people and all, but there wasn't much love in them. Because they were too busy being afraid. Love didn't grow very well in a place where there was only fear, just as plants didn't grow very well in a place where it was always dark. By Stephen King Nice People Grow Place Love

Facing a dangerous man was always a bad business, but at least one could calculate the odds in such an encounter. When you were facing the dead, however, everything changed. By Stephen King Business Encounter Facing Dangerous Man

End, aren't we? Beverly said. She had begun to cry. This sound was also magnified in the library's still emptiness; the building itself seemed to be weeping with her. Bill thought that if he had to listen to that sound for long, By Stephen King End Sound Beverly Cry Emptiness

He said, 'If the torture were to stop now, I might still recover - if never my looks, then at least my strength - '" "'My kes,'" Jake said, and although he'd never heard the word before he pronounced it correctly, almost as if it were kiss. "' - and my kes. But another week . . . or maybe five days . . . or even three . . . and it will be too late. Even if the torture stops, I'll die. And you'll die too, for when love leaves the world, all hearts are still. Tell them of my love and tell them of my pain and tell them of my hope, which still lives. For this is all I have and all I am and all I ask.' Then the boy turned and went out. The batwing door made its same sound. Skree-eek. By Stephen King Jake Kes Recover Strength Correctly

There was nothing ... and nothing ... and then the car bumped up again. There was a muffled pop, the sound of a small pumpkin exploding in a microwave oven.Morris cut the wheel to the left and there was another bump as the Biscayne went back into the parking area. He looked in the mirror and saw that Curtis's head was gone. By Stephen King Car Bumped Biscayne Curtis Pop

There was a muffled pop, the sound of a small pumpkin exploding in a microwave oven.Morris cut the wheel to the left and there was another bump as the Biscayne went back into the parking area. He looked in the mirror and saw that Curtis's head was gone.Well, no. Not exactly. It was there, but all spread out. Mooshed. No loss of talent in that mess. Morrie thought. By Stephen King Biscayne Pop Area Muffled Sound

Shut up, Willy. Mister, you gonna buy anything? Pa says we can't shut down for the day until we get thirty dollars' worth of custom." "I'll buy a pumpkin. If you can give me some decent directions." She gave a theatrical sigh. "One pumpkin. A buck-fifty. Big whoop. By Stephen King Willy Shut Pumpkin Mister Buy

He bent down until his face was before King's face, their noses nearly touching. "This time you'll sing until the song is done, write until the tale is done. Do you truly ken?" "'And they lived happily ever after until the end of their days,'" King said dreamily. "I wish I could write that." "So do I." And he did, more than anything. Despite By Stephen King Face King Touching Bent Noses

Them up when the other team had a runner on third. By the time the Yankees came to town - this was going on to the end of April - the whole stadium would flush orange when the Bombers had a runner on third, which they did often in that series. Because the Yankees kicked the living shit out of us and took over first place. It was no fault of the kid's; he hit in every game and tagged out Bill Skowron between home and third when the lug got caught in a rundown. By Stephen King Runner Yankees Team April Bombers

Now let's say you've finished your first draft. Congratulations! Good job! Have a glass of champagne, send out for pizza, do whatever it is you do when you've got something to celebrate. If you have someone who has been impatiently waiting to read your novel-a spouse, let's say, someone who has perhaps been working nine to five and helping to pay the bills while you chase your dream-then this is the time to give up the goods ... if, that is, your first reader or readers will promise not to talk to you about the book until you are ready to talk to them about it. By Stephen King Draft Finished Talk Congratulations Job

New Jersey. If there's anyone more purely foolish than a New Yorker, it's a fellow from New Jersey. By Stephen King Jersey Yorker Purely Foolish Fellow

One man may shoot himself in the forehead with a .38 and wake up in the hospital. Another may shoot himself in the forehead with a .22 and wake up in hell ... if there is such a place. It tend to believe it's here on earth, possibly in New Jersey. By Stephen King Shoot Forehead Wake Hospital Man

I believe instinct's the iron skeleton under all our ideas of free will. Unless you're willing to take the pipe or eat the gun or take a long walk off a short dock, you can't say no to some things. You can't refuse to pick up your option because there is no option. By Stephen King Instinct Iron Skeleton Ideas Free

Time, Eddie had decided during this period, was in large part created by external events. When a lot of interesting shit was happening, time seemed to go by fast. If you got stuck with nothing but the usual boring shit, it slowed down. And when everything stopped happening, time apparently quit altogether. Just packed up and went to Coney Island. Weird but true. By Stephen King Eddie Time Period Events Happening

Well then, I'm going to tell you a secret almost every newspaper man and woman who's been at it awhile knows: in real life, the number of actual stories - those with beginnings, middles, and ends - are slim and none. But if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside) and then kick in what Dave Bowie there calls a musta-been, your reader will tell himself a story. By Stephen King Middles Life Stories Beginnings Ends

The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor. By Stephen King Read Processor Apt Make Fool

There'a a phrase, "the elephant in the living room", which purports to describe what it's like to live with a drug addict, an alcoholic, an abuser. People outside such relationships will sometimes ask, "How could you let such a business go on for so many years? Didn't you see the elephant in the living room?" And it's so hard for anyone living in a more normal situation to understand the answer that comes closest to the truth; "I'm sorry, but it was there when I moved in. I didn't know it was an elephant; I thought it was part of the furniture." There comes an aha-moment for some folks - the lucky ones - when they suddenly recognize the difference. By Stephen King Elephant Living Room Therea Phrase

Now, in death, he looked to Louis like the old Church. The mouth, so small and bloody, filled with needle-sharp cat's teeth, was frozen in a shooter's snarl. The dead eyes seemed furious. It was as if, after the short and placid stupidity of his life as a neuter, Church had rediscovered his real nature in dying. 'Yeah, By Stephen King Louis Death Church Looked Yeah

And goes with it. There is a sensation first of being rocked, of a delicious spiralling sweetness which makes her begin to turn her head helplessly from side to side, and a tuneless humming comes from between her closed lips, this is flying, this, oh love, oh desire, oh this is something impossible to deny, binding, giving, making a strong circle: binding, giving ... flying. Oh Ben, oh my dear, yes, By Stephen King Binding Giving Flying Side Ben

The Tower trembles; the worlds shudder in their courses. The rose feels a chill, as of winter. By Stephen King Tower Trembles Worlds Shudder Chill

The subconscious taboo that affects all fathers when in the presence of men who are there because of their daughters rather than themselves. If you like another man and you are honest, you speak freely, discuss women over beer, shoot the shit about politics. But no matter how deep the potential liking, it is impossible to open up completely to a man who is dangling your daughter's potential defloration between his legs. By Stephen King Subconscious Taboo Affects Fathers Presence

I'm seen as somebody who writes for adults because I'm an older man myself. Some of them find me, and a lot of them don't. By Stephen King Writes Adults Older Man Find

The man in black smiled. "Shall we tell the truth then, you and I? No more lies?"I thought we had been."But the man in black persisted as if Roland hadn't spoken. "Shall there be truth between us, as two men? Not as friends, but as equals? There is an offer you will get rarely, Roland. Only equals speak the truth, that's my thought on't. Friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of regard. How tiresome! By Stephen King Man Smiled Truth Roland Black

Coming back to where you grew up is like doing some crazy yoga trick, putting your feet in your own mouth and somehow swallowing yourself so there's nothing left; it can't be done, and any sane person ought to be fucking glad it can't . . . By Stephen King Coming Trick Putting Left Back

Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is to use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colourful. If you hesitate, and cogitate, you will come up with another word...but it probably won't be as good as your first one, or as close to what you really mean. By Stephen King Remember Mind Colourful Word Basic

You may have an occasion to be traveling in southern Maine yourself one of these days. Pretty part of the countryside. You may even stop by Tookey's Bar for a drink. Nice place. They kept the name just the same. So have your drink, and then my advice to you is to keep right on moving north. Whatever you do, don't go up that road to Jerusalem's Lot. Especially not after dark. There's a little girl somewhere out there. And I think she's still waiting for her good-night kiss. By Stephen King Maine Days Occasion Traveling Southern

At night, when i go to bed i still am at pains to be sure that my legs are under the blankets after the lights go out. I am not a child anymore but .. Because if a cool hand ever reached out from under the bed and grasped my ankle, i might scream. By Stephen King Night Pains Legs Blankets Lights

I asked him. " 'I'm telling you that you aren't shooting blanks and haven't been for quite awhile now, ' he said. 'Millions of little wigglies in your sperm sample. Your days of going gaily in bareback with no questions asked have temporarily come to an By Stephen King Millions Asked Sample Telling Shooting

But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you. By Stephen King September Kicking Missed Friend Fall

Should you go on, you will surely be disappointed, perhaps even heartbroken. I have one key left on my belt, but all it opens is that final door, the one marked. What's behind it won't improve your love-life, grow hair on your bald spot, or add five years to your natural span (not even five minutes). There is no such thing as a happy ending. I never met a single one to equal "Once upon a time." Endings are heartless.Ending is just another word for goodbye. By Stephen King Disappointed Heartbroken Surely Belt Door

That rational voice was right to be frightened. There's something in us that is very much attracted to madness. Everyone who looks off the edge of a tall building has felt a faint, morbid urge to jump. By Stephen King Frightened Rational Voice Madness Faint

People always want a reason for the bad things in life. Sometimes there ain't one. By Stephen King People Life Reason Bad Things

And the purple parted before it, snapping back like skin after a slash, and what it let out wasn't blood but light: amazing orange light that filled her heart and mind with a terrible mixture of joy, terror, and sorrow. No wonder she had repressed this memory all these years. It was too much. Far too much. The light seemed to give the fading air of evening a silken texture, and the cry of a bird struck her ear like a pebble made of glass. A cap of breeze filled her nostrils with a hundred exotic perfumes: frangipani, bougainvillea, dusty roses, and oh dear God, night-blooming cereus ... And rising above one horizon came the orange mansion of the moon, bloated and burning cold, while the sun sank below the other, boiling in a crimson house of fire. She thought that mixture of furious light would kill her with its beauty. By Stephen King Terror Light Snapping Slash Amazing

He (Tom Riley) gestured toward the canvases in the main room. "What are they, really? I mean, no bullshit. Because - I wouldn't say this to very many people - they remind me of the way life was inside my head when I wasn't taking my pills." "They're just make-believe," I (Edgar) said. "Shadows." "I know about shadows," he said. "You just want to be careful they don't grow teeth. Because they can. Then, sometimes when you reach for the light-switch to make them go away, you discover the power's out. By Stephen King Tom Riley Gestured Room Canvases

The first great thriller of 2017 is almost here: Final Girls, by Riley Sager. If you liked Gone Girl, you'll like this. By Stephen King Final Sager Riley Girls Girl

You just couldn't get hold of the things you had done and turn them right again. Such power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to men and women, and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens. If you knew that past was out of reach, maybe you could forgive. By Stephen King Hold Turn Things Thing Gods

But the pistol, this Walther ... it was as if it had been made for the express purpose of shooting people. With a chill Richie realized that was why it had been made. What else could you do with a pistol? Use it to light your cigarettes? By Stephen King Walther Pistol Made Richie People

Maybe, he thought, there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends - maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart. Okay, By Stephen King Friends People Thought Lonely Good

I have seen many cases like N. during the five years I've been in practice. I sometimes picture these unfortunates as men and women being pecked to death by predatory birds. The birds are invisible - at least until a psychiatrist who is good, or lucky, or both, sprays them with his version of Luminol and shines the right light on them - but they are nevertheless very real. 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 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. By Stephen King Birds Practice Cases Years Luminol

Listen to me, maggots. Listen for your lives, for that's what it could mean some day. You never see all that you see. One of the things they send you to me for is to show you what you don't see in what you seewhat you don't see when you're scared, or fighting or running or fucking. No man sees al that he sees, but before you're gunslingerthose of you who don't go west, that is,you'll see more in one single glance than some men see in a lifetime. And some of what you don't see in that glance you'll see afterwards, in the eye of your memoryif you live long enough to remember, that is. Because the difference between seeing and not seeing can be the difference between the living and dying. By Stephen King Listen Maggots Difference Glance Day

That's how, on the second-to-last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate-factory roof in 1950 ending up sitting in a row at ten o'clock on a spring morning, drinking Black Label beer supplied by the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank Prison. That beer was piss-warm, but it was still the best I ever had in my life. We sat and drank it and felt the sun on our shoulders, and not even the expression of half-amusement, half-contempt on Hadley's face - as if he was watching apes drink beer instead of men - could spoil it. It lasted twenty minutes, that beer-break, and for those twenty minutes we felt like free men. We could have been drinking beer and tarring the roof of one of our own houses. By Stephen King Prison Black Label Shawshank Beer

GEORGE AND MARLEE UP IN A TREE! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! We stopped. There was a kid over there, standing by a hackberry bush. I'd never seen him before, not at Mary Day or anywhere else. He wasn't but four and a half feet tall, and stocky. He had on gray shorts that went down all the way to his knees, and a green sweater with orange stripes. It was rounded out up top with little boy-tits and a poochy belly underneath. He had a beanie on his head, the stupid kind with a plastic propeller. His By Stephen King George Tree Marlee Mary Day

The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied. By Stephen King Desert Deserts Huge Standing Directions

It was sort of like being in one of those love-and-horror supernatural novels, the kind Mrs. Robinson in the school library sniffily called "tweenager porn." In those books the girls dallied with werewolves, vampires - even zombies - but hardly ever became those things. It was also nice to have a grown man stand up for her, and it didn't hurt that he was handsome, in a scruffy kind of way that reminded her a little of Jax Teller on Sons of Anarchy, a show she and Emma Deane secretly watched on Em's computer. By Stephen King Mrs Robinson Supernatural Called Tweenager

I once read a very funny piece called "The Essential Gone with the Wind" that went something like this: " 'A war?' laughed Scarlett. 'Oh, fiddle-de-dee!' "Boom! Ashley went to war! Atlanta burned! Rhett walked in and then walked out! " 'Fiddle-de-dee,' said Scarlett through her tears, 'I will think about it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day.' " I By Stephen King Wind Essential Called Scarlett War

Do you know the phrase watershed moment, buddy?" I nodded. You didn't have to be an English teacher to know that one; you didn't even have to be literate. It was one of those annoying linguistic shortcuts that show up on cable TV news shows, day in and day out. Others include connect the dots and at this point in time. By Stephen King Buddy Moment Phrase Watershed Day

Just because he had underestimated them to start with didn't mean he should turn about-face and begin overestimating them now. By Stephen King Underestimated Start Turn Aboutface Begin

Then he shows up one night, drunk, and screams at Scott in a mixture of German and English, calling Scott the American Communist boiling-potter, a phrase her husband treasures to the end of his days. Scott, far from sober himself (in Germany Scott and sober rarely even exchange postcards), at one point offers the sonofabitching landlord a cigarette and tells him Goinzee on! By Stephen King Scott English German American Communist

Look - here's a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8. Do we see the same thing? We'd have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course: some receivers will see a cloth which is turkey red, some will see one that's scarlet, while others may see still other shades. (To color-blind receivers, the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ashes.) Some may see scalloped edges, some may see straight ones. Decorative souls may add a little lace, and welcome - my tablecloth is your tablecloth, knock yourself out. By Stephen King Table Covered Tablecloth Red Cage

But if you needed to HAVE AN IDEA, boredom could be to a roadblocked novel what chemotherapy was to a cancer patient. By Stephen King Idea Boredom Patient Needed Roadblocked

And all that weirdness isn't just going on outside. It's in you too, right now, growing in the dark like magic mushrooms. Call it the Thing in the Cellar. Call it the Blow Lunch Factor. Call it the Loony Tunes File. I think of it as my private dinosaur, huge, slimy, and mindless, stumbling around in the stinking swamp of my subconscious, never finding a tar pit big enough to hold it. By Stephen King Call Weirdness Cellar Thing Factor

Shit! Halvorsen thought furiously, and for a moment one hand clawed under his sport-coat where there was a .38 in a clamshell holster. Then sanity reasserted itself. This was no drug bust or armed robbery; this was a crippled black lady in a wheelchair. She was rolling it like it was some punk's drag-racer, but a crippled black lady was all she was just the same. What was he going to do, shoot her? That would be great, wouldn't it? And where was she going to go? There was nothing at the end of the aisle but two dressing rooms. By Stephen King Shit Crippled Black Lady Halvorsen

Love was over, and her man was sleeping beside her. Her man. She smiled a little in the darkness, his seed still trickling with slow warmth from between her slightly parted thighs, and her smile was both rueful and pleased, because the phrase her man summoned up a hundred feelings. Each feeling examined alone was a bewilderment. Together, in this darkness floating to sleep, they were like a distant blues tune heard in an almost deserted nightclub, melancholy but pleasing. By Stephen King Man Love Sleeping Darkness Thighs

Sometimes she'd go a whole day without thinking of him or missing him. Why not? She had quite a full life, and really, he'd often been hard to deal with and hard to live with. A project, the Yankee oldtimers like her very own Dad might have said. And then sometimes a day would come, a gray one (or a sunny one) when she missed him so fiercely she felt empty, not a woman at all anymore but just a dead tree filled with cold November blow. She felt like that now, felt like hollering his name and hollering him home, and her heart turned sick with the thought of the years ahead and she wondered what good love was if it came to this, to even ten seconds of feeling like this. By Stephen King Felt Thinking Missing Hard Day

Frankie and Carter Thibodeau would revert to what they'd been before: smalltown losers with little or no jingle in their pockets. By Stephen King Carter Thibodeau Frankie Smalltown Pockets

I don't call people for help. It's not because of the way I was raised, at least I don't think so; it's the way I was made. Johanna once said that if I was drowning at Dark Score Lake, where we have a summer home, I would die silently fifty feet out from the public beach rather than yell for help. It's not a question of love or affection. I can give those and I can take them. I feel pain like anyone else. I need to touch and be touched. But if someone asks me, 'Are you all right?' I can't answer no. I can't say help me. By Stephen King Call People Lake Dark Score

The world eventually sends out a mean-ass Patrol Boy to slow your progress and show you who's boss. You reading this have undoubtedly met yours (or will); I met mine, and I'm sure he'll be back. He's got my address. He's a mean guy, a Bad Lieutenant, the sworn enemy of goofery, fuckery, pride, ambition, loud music, and all things nineteen. By Stephen King Patrol Boy Boss World Eventually

Horror, terror, fear, panic: these are the emotions which drive wedges between us, split us off from the crowd, and make us alone. It is paradoxical that feelings and emotions we associate with the "mob instinct" should do this, but crowds are lonely places to be, we're told, a fellowship with no love in it. The melodies of the horror tale are simple and repetitive, and they are melodies of disestablishment and disintegration . . . but another paradox is that the ritual outletting of these emotions seems to bring things back to a more stable and constructive state again. By Stephen King Terror Fear Panic Emotions Split

My take on all these things is pretty simple. It's all on the table, every bit of it, and you should use anything that improves the quality of your wiring and doesn't get in the way of your story. If you like an alliterative phrases-the knights of nowhere battling the nabobs of nullity-by all means throw it in and see how it looks on paper. If it seems to work, it can stay. If it doesn't (and to me this one sounds pretty bad, like Spiro Agnew crossed with Robert Jordan), well that delete key is on your machine for a good reason. By Stephen King Simple Things Pretty Jordan Table

got to be regular if you want to be happy, By Stephen King Happy Regular

The thoughts of DIVORCE hung over the kitchen table like a cloud full of black rain, pregnant, ready to burst. By Stephen King Pregnant Divorce Rain Ready Burst

To actually make you believe that your problems were spiritual and mental but absolutely not boozical. Good Christ, just the alcohol-related loss of the REM sleep was enough to screw you up righteously, but somehow you never thought of that while you were active. Booze turned your thought-processes into something akin to that circus routine where all the clowns come piling out of the little car. By Stephen King Boozical Make Problems Spiritual Mental

Holly starts to cry. Jerome hugs her clumsily. He's black and she's white, he's seventeen and she's in her forties, but to Hodges Jerome looks like a father comforting his daughter after she came home from school and said no one invited her to the Spring Dance. By Stephen King Holly Cry Starts Jerome Dance

Speech destroys the function of love, I think-that's a hell of a thing for a writer to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of its tail. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combination of words can close those love bites. it's the other way around, that's the joke. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them. By Stephen King Speech Guess True Love Destroys

...she did remember on time when she got her period, sliding open the cupboard under the bathroom sink to get a sanitary napkin; she remembered looking at the box of Stayfree pads and thinking that the box looked almost smug, seemed almost to be saying: Hello, Patty! We are your children. We are the only children you will ever have, and we are hungry. Nurse us. Nurse us on blood. By Stephen King Patty Box Stayfree Period Sliding

But grownups were always in a turmoil, every possible action muddied over by thoughts of the consequences, by self-doubt, by selfimage, by feelings of love and responsibility. Every possible choice seemed to have drawbacks, and sometimes he didn't understand why the drawbacks were drawbacks. It was very hard. By Stephen King Turmoil Consequences Selfdoubt Selfimage Responsibility

The idea of ghosts gave his child's mind no trouble at all ... According to the Bible, God Himself was at least one-third Ghost. By Stephen King Bible God Idea Gave Child

Cancer is the pitbull of diseases, and it had her in its jaws, biting and rending. It would not stop until it had torn her to pieces. By Stephen King Cancer Diseases Jaws Biting Rending

But of course it had hurt. It had hurt before, in the worst, rupturing way, knowing there would be no more you but the universe would roll on just the same, unharmed and unhampered. By Stephen King Hurt Worst Rupturing Knowing Unharmed

There was a momentary added weight in my stomach, almost like a sickness. There's a name for that sort of sickness. I think it's called falling in love with your best friend's girl. "You've By Stephen King Sickness Stomach Momentary Added Weight

A lot of us grow up and we grow out of the literal interpretation that we get when we're children, but we bear the scars all our life. Whether they're scars of beauty or scars of ugliness, it's pretty much in the eye of the beholder. By Stephen King Grow Scars Children Life Lot

A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures ... By Stephen King God Creatures Man Good Wife

A lot of folks, they got a little bit of shine to them. They don't even know it. But they always seem to show up with flowers when their wives are feelin blue with the monthlies, they do good on school tests they don't even study for, they got a good idea how people are feelin as soon as they walk into a room. By Stephen King Folks Lot Bit Shine Feelin

I want to write about spiders. To me, this is the one theme that cuts right across and scares just about everybody. Spiders, to me, are just about the most horrible, awful things that I can think about. I think everyone is afraid of spiders. By Stephen King Spiders Write Theme Cuts Scares

Los Zapatos, which means "the shoes" ... was a small village not far from the ocean. It was fairly free of tourists. There was no good road, no ocean view ... and no historical points of interest. Also, the local cantina was infested with cockroaches and the only whore was a fifty-year-old grandmother. By Stephen King Zapatos Los Shoes Small Village

Besides, it happened in Derry, not in New York or Chicago. The place makes it news as much as what happened in the place, sonny. That's why there are bigger headlines when an earthquake kills twelve people in Los Angeles than there are when one kills three thousand in some heathen country in the Mideast. Besides it happened in Derry. I've heard it before, and I suppose if I continue to pursue this I'll hear it again...and again...and again. They say it as if speaking patiently to a mental defective. They say it the way they would say 'Because of gravity' if you asked them how come you stick to the ground when you walk. They say it as if it were a natural law any natural man should understand. And of course, the worst of that is I do understand. By Stephen King Chicago York Happened Derry Place

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. That's from the original Godfather, By Stephen King Leave Gun Godfather Cannoli Original

He summoned all his willpower and reined it in, promising himself he would drink just as much as he goddam wanted once he had his forty in - a pretty amazing number, when fifty percent of city cops retired after twenty-five and seventy percent after thirty. Only now that he has his forty, alcohol no longer interests him much. He forced himself to get drunk a few times, just to see if he could still do it, and he could, but being drunk turned out to be no better than being sober. Actually it was a little worse. By Stephen King Percent Forty Promising Number Thirty

The gotta, as in: "I think I'll stay up another fifteen-twenty minutes, honey, I gotta see how this chapter comes out." Even though the guy who says it spent the day at work thinking about getting laid and knows the odds are good his wife is going to be asleep when he finally gets up to the bedroom. The gotta, as in: "I know I should be starting supper now - he'll be mad if it's TV dinners again - but I gotta see how this ends." I gotta know will she live. I gotta know will he catch the shitheel who killed his father. I gotta know if she finds out her best friend's screwing her husband. The gotta. Nasty as a hand-job in a sleazy bar, fine as a fuck from the world's most talented call-girl. Oh boy it was bad and oh boy it was good and oh boy in the end it didn't matter how rude it was or how crude it was because in the end it was just like the Jacksons said on that record - don't stop til you get enough. By Stephen King Gotta Honey Boy Minutes Stay

And George saw the clown's face change. What he saw then was terrible enough to make his worst imaginings of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams; what he saw destroyed his sanity in one clawing stroke. "They By Stephen King George Change Clown Face Dreams

Before drifting away entirely, he found himself reflectingnot for the first timeon the peculiarity of adults. Thet took laxatives, liquor, or sleeping pills to drive away their terrors so that sleep would come, and their terrors were so tame and domestic: the job, the money, what the teacher will think if I can't get Jennie nicer clothes, does my wife still love me, who are my friends. They were pallid compared to the fears every child lies cheek and jowl with in his dark bed, with no one to confess to in hope of perfect understanding but another child. There is no group therapy or psychiatry or community social services for the child who must cope with the thing under the bed or in the cellar every night, the thing which leers and capers and threatens just beyond the point where vision will reach. The same lonely battle must be fought night after night and the only cure is the eventual ossification of the imaginary faculties, and this is called adulthood. By Stephen King Child Adults Night Terrors Drifting

By Annie Wilkes ... If you can get into that chair all by yourself, Paul, she said at last, then I think you can fill in your f******* n's.She then closed the door and locked it again. Paul sat looking at it for a long time, almost as if there was something to see. He was too flabberghasted to do anything else. By Stephen King Wilkes Annie Paul Time Chair

I always drank, from when it was legal for me to drink. And there was never a time for me when the goal wasn't to get as hammered as I could possibly afford to. I never understood social drinking, that's always seemed to me like kissing your sister. By Stephen King Drank Drink Legal Time Goal

But nothing. Accept what's done, Louis, and follow your heart. We did what was right this time . . . at least, I hope to Christ it was right. Another time it could be wrong - wrong as hell. By Stephen King Louis Time Wrong Accept Heart

Ladies and gentlemen, attention, please! Come in close where everyone can see! I got a tale to tell, it isn't gonna cost a dime! (And if you believe that, we're gonna get along just fine.) By Stephen King Attention Ladies Gentlemen Gonna Dime

The world's a hard place, Danny. It don't care. It don't hate you and me, but it don't love us, either. Terrible things happen in the world, and they're things no one can explain. Good people die in bad, painful ways and leave the folks that love them all alone. Sometimes it seems like it's only the bad people who stay healthy and prosper. The world don't love you, but your momma does and so do I. By Stephen King Danny World Place Love Hard

There's three things ye can do in any situation, girl," her father had told her once. "Ye can decide to do a thing, ye can decide not to do a thing ... or ye can decide not to decide." That last, her da had never quite come out and said (he hadn't needed to) was the choice of weaklings and fools. By Stephen King Decide Girl Situation Thing Father

What mattered was they were never getting out. He was safe.That was what he thought then. Of course, he also thought he would never have a drink, not after seeing what it had done to his father.Sometimes we just get it wrong. By Stephen King Mattered Thought Safethat Drink Wrong

Eventual, as Pug used to say. When he wanted to say something was really good, he's never say it was awesome, like most people do; he'd say it was eventual. How funny is that? The old Pugmeister. I wonder how he's doing. By Stephen King Pug Eventual Pugmeister Good Awesome

The one thing about kids is that you never really know exactly what they're thinking or how they're seeing. After writing about kids, which is a little bit like putting the experience under a magnifying glass, you realize you have no idea how you thought as a kid. I've come to the conclusion that most of the things that we remember about our childhood are lies. We all have memories that stand out from when we were kids, but they're really just snapshots. You can't remember how you reacted because your whole head is different when you stand aside. By Stephen King Kids Thinking Remember Stand Kid

You need to take out the stuff that's just sitting there and doing nothing. No slackers allowed! All meat, no filler! By Stephen King Stuff Sitting Allowed Meat Filler

death of a child or a brother or a sister, one may half-waken, thinking of that person with that same lost emptiness, that feeling of places which may never be filled . . . perhaps not even in death? By Stephen King Sister Halfwaken Thinking Emptiness Filled

I felt tired and grainy and not able to tell how much damage had been done to me. I had a leaden feeling that it was more than I really needed. By Stephen King Felt Tired Grainy Damage Needed

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." By Stephen King Time Complete Sentences Rhetoric Thought

There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story ... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the wordsthe language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book. By Stephen King Read Stories Good Full Great

Guess there's no way to convince a person of that, but it's true. Stuttering's funny, Audra. Spooky. On one level you're not even aware it's happening. But ... it's also something you can hear in your mind. It's like part of your head is working an instant ahead of the rest. Or one of those reverb systems kids used to put in their jalopies back in the fifties, when the sound in the rear speaker would come just a split second a-after By Stephen King Guess True Audra Convince Person

For a moment his rage was so great that he literally could not speak. The blood beat loudly in his ears. It was like getting a call from some twentieth-century Medici prince ... no portraits of my family with their warts showing, please, or back to the rabble you'll go. I subsidize no pictures but pretty pictures. By Stephen King Speak Moment Rage Great Literally

The workman cut to the left, still laying on his horn, and roared around the drunkenly weaving limousine. He invited the driver of the limo to perform an illegal sex act on himself. To engage in oral congress with various rodents and birds. He articulated his own proposal that all persons of Negro blood return to their native continent. He expressed his sincere belief in the position the limo driver's soul would occupy in the afterlife. He finished by saying that he believed he had met the limodriver's mother in a New Orleans house of prostitution. By Stephen King Left Horn Limousine Workman Cut

Not everyone believes in ghost's, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?" She had shaken her head slowly. "Men and women who can't get over the past," Aunt Evie said. "That's what ghost's are. Not them." She flapped her arm toward the coffin which stood on its bands beside the coincidentally fresh grave. "The dead are dead. We bury them, and buried they stay. By Stephen King Trisha Ghost Men Aunt Dead

She's looking at him with something like wonder. "Why do you weep, Jack?" "The past," he says. "Isn't that always what does it?" And thinks of his mother, sitting by the window, smoking a cigarette, and listening while the radio plays "Crazy Arms." Yes, it's always the past. That's where the hurt is, all you can't get over. By Stephen King Jack Past Crazy Arms Weep

It the myth-pool; sometimes the word-pool. He says that every time you call someone a good egg or a bad apple you're drinking from the pool or catching tadpoles at its edge; that every time you send a child off to war and danger of death because you love the flag and have taught the child to love it, too, you are swimming in that pool . . . out deep, where the big ones with the hungry teeth also swim. By Stephen King Mythpool Wordpool Time Pool Child

Andy Dufresne: 'That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you ... haven't you ever felt that way about music?'Red: 'I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.'Andy: 'Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.' Red: 'Forget?'Andy: 'Forget that ... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside ... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.'Red: 'What're you talking about?'Andy: 'Hope. By Stephen King Dufresne Andy Red Forget Music

Sometimes home is where the heart is, Eddie thought randomly. I believe that. Old Bobby Frost said home's the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Unfortunately, it's also the place where, once you're in there, they don't ever want to let you out. By Stephen King Eddie Randomly Heart Thought Place

I feel better in my mind because I'm doing what God made me to do. He said, 'Go write books, Steve, and you'll be happy.' I'm happy now, and that has had an effect on my life and my relationship with my wife and kids and even my friends. I've always wanted to be a writer. By Stephen King God Steve Feel Mind Made

If you promise to be good Paul you can have a piece of birthday cake but you won't have to eat any of the special candle so he promised to be good because he didn't want to be forced to eat any of the special candle but also because mostly because surely because Annie was great Annie was good let us thank her for our food including that we don't have to eat girls just wanna have fun but something wicked this way comes please don't make me eat my thumb Annie the mom Annie the goddess when Annie's around you better stay honest she knows when you've been sleeping she knows when you're awake she knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goddess' sake you better not cry you better not pout but most of all you better not scream don't scream don't scream don't scream don't He By Stephen King Annie Scream Good Eat Special

In the old tongue which had once been his world's lingua franca, most words, like khef and ka, had many meanings. The word char, however - char as in Charlie the Choo-Choo - had only one. Char meant death. By Stephen King Franca Meanings Char Tongue World

Calling it a simple schoolgirl crush was like saying a Rolls-Royce was a vehicle with four wheels, something like a hay-wagon. She did not giggle wildly and blush when she saw him, nor did she chalk his name on trees or write it on the walls of the Kissing Bridge. She simply lived with his face in her heart all the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache. She would have died for him.. By Stephen King Calling Wheels Haywagon Simple Schoolgirl

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. By Stephen King Love Magic Uniquely Portable Calls

Thank you, Men, for the railroads. Thank you, Men, for inventing the automobile and killing the red Indians who thought it might be nice to hold on to America for a while longer, since they were here first. Thank you, Men, for the hospitals, the police, the schools. Now I'd like to vote, please, and have the right to set my own course and make my own destiny. Ince I was chattel, but now that is obsolete. My days of slavery must be over; I need to be a slave no more than I need to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a tiny boat with sails. Jet planes are safer and quicker than little boats with sails and freedom makes more sense than slavery. I am not afraid of flying. Thank you, Men. By Stephen King Men Railroads Indians America Sails

They understood that. They all understood it. This is not the same as comprehension, but it was good enough. When you stop to think, the whole idea of comprehension has a faintly archaic taste, like the sound of forgotten tongues or a look into a Victorian camera obscura. We Americans are much higher on simple understanding. It makes it easier to read the billboards when you're heading into town on the expressway at plus-fifty. To comprehend, the mental jaws have to gape wide enough to make the tendons creak. Understanding, however, can be purchased on every paperback-book rack in America. By Stephen King Understood Understanding Comprehension Victorian Americans

He looked so strange without his guns.So wrong.'Okay? Now that the numb-fuck apprentices have the guns and the master's unarmed, can we please go? If something big comes out of the bush at us, Roland, you can always throw your knife at it.''Oh, that,' he murmured. 'I almost forgot.' He took the knife from his purse and held it out, hilt first, to Eddie.'This is ridiculous!' Eddie shouted.'Life is ridiculous.''Yeah, put it on a postcard and send it to the fucking Reader's Digest.' Eddie jammed the knife into his belt and then looked defiantly at Roland. 'Now can we go?''There is one more thing,' Roland said.'Weeping, creeping Jesus!'The smile touched Roland's mouth again. 'Just joking,' he said.Eddie's mouth dropped open. Beside him, Susannah began to laugh again. The sound rose, as musical as bells, in the morning stillness. By Stephen King Roland Knife Wrong Strange Gunsso

I buy the same ground chuck week after week. I've fed it to hundreds or thousands of people, in spite of those stupid catburger rumors, and it always renews itself. By Stephen King Week Buy Ground Chuck People

In the matter of learned skills, memory comes to a fork in the road. Down one branch are the it's-like-riding-a-bicycle skills; things which, once learned, are almost never forgotten. But the creative, ever-changing forebrain skills have to be practiced almost daily, and they are easily damaged or destroyed. By Stephen King Memory Road Skills Learned Matter

Two pages of the passive voice - just about any business document ever written, in other words, not to mention reams of bad fiction - make me want to scream. It's weak, it's circuitous, and it's frequently tortuous, as well. How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun. Oh, man - who farted, right? A simpler way to express this idea - sweeter and more forceful, as well - might be this: My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I'll never forget it. I'm not in love with this because it uses with twice in four words, but at least we're out of that awful passive voice. By Stephen King Written Fiction Make Scream Shayna

I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie. I told them that because if you agree to an interview you have to say something, and it plays better if it's something at least half-clever. Also, I didn't want to sound like a workaholic dweeb (just a workaholic, I guess). The truth is that when I'm writing, I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday (at my age you try to ignore your goddam birthday anyway). And when I'm not working, I'm not working at all, although during those periods of full stop I usually feel at loose ends with myself and have trouble sleeping. For me, not working is the real work. By Stephen King July Christmas Fourth Workaholic Birthday

UR LOCAL's under construction. Better watch out, traffic fines double. By Stephen King Local Construction Traffic Double Watch

Barbie did so, and poured his own cup of coffee. It was the bottom of the pot and tasted like diesel . . . but of course the bottom of the pot was where the caffeine motherlode was. Julia By Stephen King Barbie Coffee Bottom Poured Cup

A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men. By Stephen King Men Cowardly Leader Dangerous

She dreamed of going into the dining room and finding a woman bound with chains to the long Ethan Allen table there. The woman was naked except for a black leather hood that covered the top half of her face. I don't know that woman, that woman is a stranger to me, she thought in her dream, and then from beneath the hood Petra said: 'Mama, is that you? By Stephen King Ethan Allen Woman Dreamed Dining

You reading this have undoubtedly met yours (or will); I met mine, and I'm sure he'll be back. He's got my address. He's a mean guy, a Bad Lieutenant, the sworn enemy of goofery, fuckery, pride, ambition, loud music, and all things nineteen. But By Stephen King Met Mine Back Reading Undoubtedly

Is this a case of "Do as I say, not as I do?" The reader has a perfect right to ask the question, and I have a duty to provide an honest answer. Yes. It is. You need only look back through some of my own fiction to know that I'm just another ordinary sinner. I've been pretty good about avoiding the passive tense, but I've spilled out my share of adverbs in my time, including some (it shames me to say it) in dialogue attribution. (I have never fallen so low as "he grated" or "Bill jerked out," though.) When I do it, it's usually for the same reason any writer does it: because I am afraid the reader won't understand me if I don't. I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. By Stephen King Case Reader Question Answer Bill

Trust, a sense of humor, and don't let the sun go down on an argument without trying to make it up. That's all I know about good marriage. I've been married a long time - it seems to be working. By Stephen King Trust Humor Sense Sun Argument

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. By Stephen King Back Endings God Happily Child

I feel like a man standing at the mouth of an old mine-shaft that is full of cave-ins waiting to happen, standing there and saying goodbye to the daylight. By Stephen King Happen Daylight Standing Feel Man

Something in the fog!" he screamed, and Billy shrank against me-whether because of the man's bloody nose or what he was saying, I don't know. "Something in the fog took John Lee! Something-" He staggered back against a display of lawn food stacked by the window and sat down there."Something in the fog took John Lee and I heard him screaming! By Stephen King Fog Billy John Lee Screamed

Like I didn't know what getting a girl pregnant meant: sex. Boys lay down on top of girls and wiggled around until they got the feeling. When that happened, a mysterious something called jizz came from the boy's dink. It sank into the girl's belly, and nine months later it was time for diapers and a baby carriage. By Stephen King Sex Meant Pregnant Girl Feeling

Guess the question is, how paranoid do you want to be? How many guns does it take to make you feel safe? And how do you simultaneously keep them loaded and close at hand, but still out of reach of your inquisitive children or grandchildren? Are you sure you wouldn't do better with a really good burglar alarm? It's true you have to remember to set the darn thing before you go to bed, but think of this - if you happened to mistake your wife or live-in partner for a crazed drug addict, you couldn't shoot her with a burglar alarm. By Stephen King Guess Question Paranoid Alarm Burglar

In North Carolina, I stopped to gas up at a Humble Oil station, then walked around the corner to use the toilet. There were two doors and three signs. MEN was neatly stenciled over one door, LADIES over the other. The third sign was an arrow on a stick. It pointed toward the brush-covered slope behind the station. It said COLORED. Curious, I walked down the path, being careful to sidle at a couple of points where the oily, green-shading-to-maroon leaves of poison ivy were unmistakable ... There was no facility. What I found at the end of the path was a narrow stream with a board laid across it on a couple of crumbling concrete posts ... If I ever give you the idea that 1958's all Andy-n-Opie, remember the path, okay? The one lined with poison ivy. And the board over the stream. By Stephen King Carolina North Humble Oil Path

About halfway through I broke down crying, which I hadn't expected. I was a little ashamed, but only a little;it was her, you see, and she never taxed me with the times that I slipped from the way I thought a man should be ... the way I thought I should be, at any rate. A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures, and one without must be among the most miserable, I think, the only true blessing of their lives that they don't know how poorly off they are. By Stephen King Crying Expected Halfway Broke Thought

He smiled. "Did you know that the staff involved in the Manhattan Project shrank steadily before the first A-bomb test at White Sands?" I shook my head. "By the time the bomb went off, several of the prefab dormitories built to house the workers were empty. Here's a little-known rule about scientific research: as one progresses toward one's ultimate goal, support requirements tend to shrink. By Stephen King Smiled Sands Manhattan Project Abomb

Gordie: Alright, alright, Mickey's a mouse, Donald's a duck, Pluto's a dog. What's Goofy?Vern: If I could only have one food for the rest of my life? That's easy-Pez. Cherry-flavored Pez. No question about it.Teddy: Goofy's a dog. He's definitely a dog.Gordie: I knew the $64,000 question was fixed. There's no way anybody could know that much about opera!Chris: He can't be a dog. He drives a car and wears a hat.Gordie: Wagon Train's a really cool show, but did you notice they never get anywhere? They just keep wagon training.Vern: Oh, God. That's weird. What the hell is Goofy? By Stephen King Alright Mickey Donald Pluto Dog

Sometimes when you're young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you're living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two. By Stephen King Atlantis Young Happiness Magical Moments

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. By Stephen King Elders Supposed Paris Pamploma Ago

This is how we go on: one day at a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root-canal at a time; boat-builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps behind us as something comes up the hall; we say yes, I agree that clouds often look like other things - fish and unicorns and men on horseback - but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightening flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on. By Stephen King Time Turn Clouds Day Meal

I can love you if you're a man, and I can love you if you're a hero- I guess, although for some reason that seems a lot harder- but I don't think I can love a vigilante. By Stephen King Love Man Hero Guess Harder

I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't. By Stephen King Tired Boss Bein Rightly Hear

Hug and kiss whoever helped get you - financially, mentally, morally, emotionally - to this day. Parents, mentors, friends, teachers. If you're too uptight to do that, at least do the old handshake thing, but I recommend a hug and a kiss. Don't let the sun go down without saying thank you to someone, and without admitting to yourself that absolutely no one gets this far alone. By Stephen King Financially Mentally Morally Emotionally Day

Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire. By Stephen King Cats World Living Gangsters Animal

In my land, they tell legends of range-wars between the ranchers and the sheep-farmers," he said. "Because, it was told, the sheep ate the grass too close. Took even the roots, you ken, so it wouldn't grow back again." "That's plain silly, beg your pardon," Overholser said. "Sheep do crop grass close, aye, but then we send the cows over it to water. The manure they drop is full of seed." "Ah," Eddie said. He couldn't think of anything else. Put that way, the whole idea of range-wars seemed exquisitely stupid. By Stephen King Land Sheepfarmers Legends Ranchers Sheep

The center had frayed like a rag rug that had been washed and walked on and shaken and hung and dried. The lines and nets of mesh which held the last jewel at the breast of the world were unraveling. Things were not holding together. The earth drew in its breath in the summer of the coming eclipse.The boy idled along the upper corridor of this stone place which was home, sensing these things, not understanding. By Stephen King Dried Center Frayed Rag Rug

She suddenly realized she was sitting in an apartment by herself late at night, eating an apple and watching a movie on TV that she cared nothing about, and doing it all because it was easier than thinking, thinking was so boring really, when all you had to think about was yourself and your lost love. By Stephen King Thinking Night Eating Love Suddenly

But more important than any of these was the vast, accretive weight of small things, from planes which hadn't crashed to men and women who had come to the correct place at the perfect time and thus founded generations. He saw kisses exchanged in doorways and wallets returned and men who had come to a splitting of the way and had chosen the right fork. He saw a thousand random meetings that weren't random, ten thousand right decisions, a hundred thousand right answers, a million acts of unacknowledged kindness ... For every brick that landed on the ground instead of some little kid's head, for every tornado that missed the trailer park, for every missile that didn't fly, for every hand stayed from violence, there was the Tower. By Stephen King Men Vast Accretive Things Generations

All I wanted was eighteen holes of golf on Saturday afternoon, and instead I turned into Snow White with hair on my chest. By Stephen King Saturday Snow White Afternoon Chest

I went on a Saturday afternoon, once more cutting through Dorrance Marstellar's cornfield By Stephen King Saturday Dorrance Marstellar Afternoon Cornfield

You haven't finished the key, but not because you are afraid to finish. You're afraid of finding you can't finish. You're afraid to go down to where the stones stand, but not because you're afraid of what may come once you enter the circle. You're afraid of what may not come. You're not afraid of the great world, Eddie, but of the small one inside yourself. By Stephen King Afraid Finish Key Finished Eddie

And in real life endings aren't always neat, whether they're happy endings, or whether they're sad endings. By Stephen King Endings Neat Real Life Happy

You have the right to remain silent,' the big cop said in his robot's voice. 'If you do not choose to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. I'm going to kill you. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you? By Stephen King Silent Remain Voice Big Cop

Only people you want, need to be with, people who build houses in your heart. By Stephen King Heart People Build Houses

There is a muse, but he's not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer. He lives in the ground. He's a basement kind of guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think it's fair? I think it's fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist, but he's got inspiration. It's right that you should do all the work and burn all the mid-night oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There's stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know. By Stephen King Computer Fluttering Writing Room Scatter

I remember that I wanted to kill It,' Bill said, and for the first time (and ever after) he heard the pronoun gain proper-noun status in his own voice. By Stephen King Bill Time Voice Remember Wanted

A wave is a pretty thing to look at when it breaks on the beach, but too many only make you seasick. By Stephen King Beach Seasick Wave Pretty Thing

America is a living body, the highways are its arteries, and the True Knot slips along them like a silent virus. By Stephen King True Knot America Body Arteries

I drink a lot of beer, and that's the drug of choice. You find the drug that works for you. I know, for instance, this guy named Harlan Ellison - and he's not alone - who's very proud of the fact that he doesn't put dope into his body. He tries not to put additives into his body, or anything like that. But he can afford to do that because Harlan's drug of choice is Harlan. By Stephen King Drug Harlan Beer Body Drink

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? By Stephen King Jesus Wall Stone Watches Face

And so will the world end, I think, a victim of love rather than hate. For love's ever been the more destructive weapon, sure. By Stephen King End Hate Love World Victim

Okay, the question is, 'What enormously popular novel by William Peter Blatty, set in the posh Washington D.C. suburb of Georgetown, concerned the demonic possesion of a young girl?' ''Johnny Cash', Henry replied.'Jesus Christ!' Tricks Postino yelled. 'That's what you say to everythin! Johnny Cash, that's what you say to fuckin everythin!' 'Johnny Cash is everything,' Heny replied gravely... By Stephen King Blatty Washington Georgetown Johnny William

The terror, which would not end for another 28 years-if it ever did end-began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain. By Stephen King Terror Yearsif Endbegan Rain End

And in the bug, which moved upward more surely on the gentler grade, he kept looking out between them as the road unwound, affording occasional glimpses of the Overlook Hotel, its massive bank of westward-looking windows reflecting back the sun. It was the place he had seen in the midst of the blizzard, the dark and booming place where some hideously familiar figure sought him down long corridors carpeted with jungle. By Stephen King Hotel Overlook Bug Grade Unwound

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 buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever. By Stephen King Fiction Made Great Deal Dough

Last reason for reading horror: it's a rehearsal for death. It's a way to get ready. People say there's nothing sure but death and taxes. But that's not really true. There's really only death, you know. Death is the biggie. Two hundred years from now, none of us are going to be here. We're all going to be someplace else. Maybe a better place, maybe a worse place; it may be sort of like New Jersey, but someplace else. The same thing can be said of rabbits and mice and dogs, but we're in a very uncomfortable position: we're the only creatures - at least as far as we know, though it may be true of dolphins and whales and a few other mammals that have very big brains - who are able to contemplate our own end. We know it's going to happen. The electric train goes around and around and it goes under and around the tunnels and over the scenic mountains, but in the end it always goes off the end of the table. Crash. By Stephen King Death Horror Reason Reading Rehearsal

The most important thing, are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that were in your head to more than living size when they are brought out. But, it's more than that isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure that your enemies would love to steal away. And you make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all or, why you thought that it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst I think. When a secret stays locked in not for want of teller but for want of understanding ear. By Stephen King Things Important Hardest Words Secret

The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear. By Stephen King Things Important Hardest Words Secret

How to Draw a Picture (XII)Know when you're finished, and when you are, put your pencil or your paintbrush down. All the rest is only life. By Stephen King Xii Picture Draw Finished Put

These self-appointed deacons in the Church of Latter-Day American Literature seem to regard generosity (of words) with suspicion, texture with dislike, and any broad literary stroke with outright hate. The result is a strange and arid literary climate where a meaningless little fingernail paring like Nicholson Baker's Vox becomes an object of fascinated debate and dissection, and a truly ambitious American novel like Matthew's Heart of the Country is all but ignored. By Stephen King Church Literature American Generosity Words

The gunslinger is the truth. Roland is the truth. The Prisoner is the truth. The Lady of Shadows is the truth. The Prisoner and the Lady are married. That is the truth. The way station is the truth. The Speaking Demon is the truth. We went under the mountains and that is the truth. There were monsters under the mountain. That is the truth. One of them had an Amoco gas pump between his legs and was pretending it was his penis. That is the truth. Roland let me die. That is the truth. I still love him. That is the truth. By Stephen King Truth Prisoner Lady Gunslinger Roland

Come back anytime, son. I'm thinking about lowering the price on the large." "To a dime?" He grinned. Like his son's, it was easy and open. "Now you're cooking with gas. By Stephen King Anytime Son Back Large Dime

A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it. You prime a pump with your own water, you work the handle with your own strength. You do this because you expect to get back more than you give. By Stephen King Pump Book Water Strength Prime

Flip-flop, hippety-hop, offa your rocker and over the top, life's a fiction and the world's a lie, so put on some Creedence and let's get high. By Stephen King Flipflop Hippetyhop Creedence Offa Top

You may wonder about long-term solutions. I assure you, there are none. All wounds are mortal. Take what's given. You sometimes get a little slack in the rope but the rope always has an end. So what? Bless the slack and don't waste your breath cursing the drop. A grateful heart knows that in the end we all swing. By Stephen King Solutions Longterm Rope Slack End

You, my dear ... have been wondering why she stuck with him. Although you haven't said as much, it's been on your mind. Am I right?'She nodded.'Yes. And I'm not going to offer a long motivational thesis - the convenient thing about stories that are true is that you need only say this is what happened and let people worry for themselves about why. Generally, nobody ever knows why things happen anyway ... particularly the ones who say they do. (Ballad of the Flexible Bullet) By Stephen King Dear Ballad Bullet Generally Flexible

In small towns people scent the wind with noses of uncommon keenness. By Stephen King Keenness Small Towns People Scent

Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand. By Stephen King Drive Smiling Stand Muster Rock

Doubters will doubt to the end. By Stephen King Doubters End Doubt

There's a saying - "Write what you know." It's bad advice if you take it as an unbreakable rule, but good advice if you use it as a foundation. By Stephen King Write Advice Rule Foundation Bad

As far as I'm concerned, high school sucked when I went, and probably sucks now. I tend to regard people who remember it as the best four years of their lives with caution and a degree of pity. By Stephen King Concerned High School Sucked Sucks

CHAPTER NINETEEN OUTSIDE 217 Danny was remembering the words of someone else who had worked at the Overlook during the season: Her saying she'd seen something in one of the rooms where ... a bad thing happened. That was in Room 217 and I want you to promise me you won't go in there, Danny ... steer right clear ... By Stephen King Chapter Nineteen Overlook Danny Season

During that reading, the top part of my mind is concentrating on story and toolbox concerns: knocking out pronouns with unclear antecedents (I hate and mistrust pronouns, every one of them as slippery as a fly-by-night personal-injury lawyer), adding clarifying phrases where they seem necessary, and of course, deleting all the adverbs I can bear to part with (never all of them; never enough). Underneath, By Stephen King Part Pronouns Reading Concerns Knocking

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings. By Stephen King Kill Darlings Heart Breaks Egocentric

Time is not a river, as Einstein theorized - it's a big fucking buffalo herd that runs us down and eventually mashes us into the ground, dead and bleeding, with a hearing aid plugged into one ear and a colostomy bag instead of a .44 clapped on one leg. By Stephen King Einstein Time River Theorized Ground

We'll do our business in the East Room. It's my favorite at this time of day. If you and I didn't know God is a profitable and self-sustaining construct of the worlds' churches, the morning light would be almost enough to make us believers again. By Stephen King Room East Business Day God

I've always believed in God. I also think that's the sort of thing that either comes as part of the equipment, the capacity to believe, or at some point in your life, when you're in a position where you actually need help from a power greater than yourself, you simply make an agreement. By Stephen King God Believed Equipment Life Agreement

Everybody wants to psychoanalyze horror. They don't want to psychoanalyze a book like Gay Talese's "Sex with Your Neighbor" or something like that. It's pretty much accepted that Americans should be interested in who they're diddling and how they're doing it. By Stephen King Horror Psychoanalyze Talese Sex Neighbor

If something is accessible to a lot of people, it's got to be dumb because most people are dumb. By Stephen King People Dumb Accessible Lot

Sometimes, Dolores, sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive. Sometimes, being a bitch is all a woman has to hang onto. By Stephen King Dolores Survive Bitch Highriding Woman

I don't understand this at all. I don't understand any of this. Why does a story have to be socio-anything? Politics ... culture ... history ... aren't those natural ingredients in any story, if it's told well? I mean ... ' He looks around, sees hostile eyes, and realizes dimly that they see this as some sort of attack. Maybe it even is. They are thinking, he realizes, that maybe there is a sexist death merchant in their midst. 'I mean ... can't you guys just let a story be a story? By Stephen King Story Understand Realizes Politics Culture

Some stuff has to be done even if there is a risk. That's the first important thing I ever found out I didn't find out from my mother. By Stephen King Risk Stuff Mother Important Thing

My childhood was pretty ordinary, except from a very early age, I wanted to be scared. I just did. I was scared afterwards. I wanted a light on, because I was scared that there was something in the closet. My imagination was very active, even at a young age. By Stephen King Scared Ordinary Age Childhood Pretty

There's an old saying: peek not through a knothole, lest ye be vexed. Was there ever a bigger knothole in human history than the internet? By Stephen King Peek Vexed Knothole Internet Bigger

I'm not much of a believer in the so-called character story; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss. By Stephen King Story End Boss Believer Socalled

He smiles a lot. But I think there might be worms inside him making him smile. By Stephen King Lot Smiles Smile Worms Inside

Theres a constant struggle going on about how much will be illegal and how much you will be free to take. Can we open the pharmacies? Can we put Valium and Percodan and those sorts of things out on the shelves? I wouldn't take it. I don't know. By Stephen King Constant Struggle Illegal Free Valium

Relationship and connection happen in an indefinable space between people, a space that will never be fully known or understood by us. By Stephen King Relationship People Space Connection Happen

When it was done and I went to sleep, I lay awake and listened to the clock on your nightstand and the wind outside and understood that I was really home, that in bed with you was home, and something that had been getting close in the dark was suddenly gone. It could not stay. It had been banished. It knew how to come back, I was sure of that, but it could not stay and I could really go to sleep. My heart cracked with gratitude. I think it was the first gratitude I've ever really known. I lay there beside you and the tears rolled down the sides of my face and onto the pillow. I loved you then and I love you now and I have loved you every second in between. I don't care if you understand me. Understanding is vastly overrated, but nobody ever gets enough safety. I've never forgotten how safe I felt with that thing gone out of the darkness. By Stephen King Home Sleep Awake Listened Clock

Kids absolutely not reading. I think it's because they're so screen-oriented [TVs, computers, smartphones]. They do read - girls in particular read a lot. They have a tendency to go toward the paranormal, romances, Twilight and stuff like that. And then it starts to taper off because other things take precedence, like the Kardashian sisters. By Stephen King Kids Reading Absolutely Tvs Computers

The multiple choices and possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to. They are like strings on a guitar. Strum them and you create a pleasing sound. A harmonic. But then start adding strings. Ten strings, a hundred strings, a thousand, a million. Because they multiply! By Stephen King Strings Multiple Choices Possibilities Daily

And her face was white as a sheet despite the burning glory of the Lord's sunshine. Padre! By Stephen King Lord Sunshine Padre Face White

You can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. By Stephen King Start Brave

Any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead. Having been given so much, we reason, how could we expect not to be brought as low as Lucifer for the staggering presumption of our love? So Eddie didn't expect her to answer until she did - from another world, and through a single thickness of wood. "Eddie? Sugar, is it you?" Eddie's head, which had seemed perfectly normal only seconds before, was suddenly too heavy to hold up. He leaned it against the door. His eyes were similarly too heavy to hold open and so he closed them. The weight must have By Stephen King Eddie Dreams Minutes Errands Expect

How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends. Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon. You have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white. A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic. Or so I've come to believe. By Stephen King Remember Horizon Key Hours Duma

As the light swayed above him and the shadows danced and flapped, he began to swing the cane, bringing it down again and again, his arm rising and falling like a machine. By Stephen King Flapped Cane Bringing Machine Light

I love you too much to lie to you, Lisey. I love you with all that passes for my heart. I suspect that kind of all-out love becomes a burden to a woman in time, but it's the only kind I have to give. I think we're going to be quite a wealthy couple in terms of money, but I'll almost certainly be an emotional pauper all my life. I've got the money coming, but as for the rest I've got just enough for you, and I won't ever dirty or dilute it with lies. Not with the words I say, not with the ones I hold back. By Stephen King Lisey Love Kind Money Heart

If it were possible to go back in a time machine and change the stupid things some of us did in grammar school and junior high, Soups old buddy, that gadget would be booked up right into the twenty-third century. By Stephen King Soups High Buddy Century Back

When traitors are called heroes (or heroes traitors, he supposed in his frowning way), dark times must have fallen. By Stephen King Dark Fallen Traitors Heroes Called

Castle Rock Middle School was a frowning pile of red brick standing between the Post Office and the Library, a holdover from the time when the town elders didn't feel entirely comfortable with a school unless it looked like a reformatory. By Stephen King School Library Rock Middle Post

A secret needs two faces to bounce between; a secret needs to see itself in another pair of eyes. By Stephen King Secret Eyes Faces Bounce Pair

beyond it the sun was poised directly between two sawtoothed peaks, casting golden light across the rock faces and the sugared snow on the high tips. The clouds around and behind this picture-postcard view were also tinted gold, and a sunbeam glinted duskily down into the darkly pooled firs below the timberline. By Stephen King Peaks Casting Tips Sun Poised

As far as where I go when I die, the concept that I am simple going to flick out, like a light bulb, to me is not only spiritually impossible to believe, but logically it is laughable - the idea that we simply die and nothing happens. By Stephen King Die Bulb Laughable Concept Simple

some birds aren't ment to be caged... their feathers are just to bright.... By Stephen King Caged Birds Ment Bright Feathers

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure. By Stephen King Caged Birds Meant Place Bright

I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. By Stephen King Caged Remind Birds Meant Bright

If,' Roland said. 'An old teacher of mine used to call it the only word a thousand letters long. By Stephen King Roland Long Teacher Mine Call

There were no horror movies or horror books to speak of in the '40s. I picked the '50s because that pretty well spans my life as an appreciator - as somebody who's been involved with this mass cult of horror, from radio and movies and Saturday matinees and books. In the '40s there really wasn't that much. People don't want to read about horrible things in horrible times. So, in the '40s, there was Val Lutin with The Cat People and The Curse of the Cat People and there wasn't much else. By Stephen King Horror People Movies Books Cat

Butterfly effect." "Right. It means small events can have large, whatchamadingit, ramifications. The idea is that if some guy kills a butterfly in China, maybe forty years later - or four hundred - there's an earthquake in Peru. That sound as crazy to you as it does to me?" It did, but I remembered a hoary old time-travel paradox and pulled it out. "Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?" He stared at me, baffled. "Why the fuck would you do that?" That was a good question, so I just told him to go on. By Stephen King Effect Butterfly Yeah China Peru

You'll float down here with your friends, Beverly, we all float down here, tell Bill that Georgie says hello, tell Bill that Georgie misses him but he'll see him soon, tell him Georgie will be in the closet some night with a piece of piano wire to stick in his eye, tell him - By Stephen King Georgie Bill Beverly Float Friends

People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. You've heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What's so sweet about that? By Stephen King People Snaps Love Sweeter Bond

Glimpse of him. Once things got hot, I tended pretty much to my own knittin. I glanced around just once and saw him upstreet beyond them Swedes under the Bijou's marquee, " Mr. Keene said. "He wasn't wearing a clown suit or nothing like that. He was dressed in a pair of farmer's biballs and a cotton shirt underneath. But his face was covered with that white greasepaint they use, and he had a big red clown smile painted on. Also had these tufts of fake hair, you know. Orange. Sorta comical. By Stephen King Glimpse Clown Swedes Bijou Keene

As always, the blessed relief of starting, a feeling that was like falling into a hole filled with bright light.As always, the glum knowledge that he would not write as well as he wanted to write. As always the terror of not being able to finish, of accelerating into a brick wall. As always, the marvelous joyful nervy feeling of journey begun. By Stephen King Write Starting Blessed Relief Falling

Did they all live happily ever after?They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing that they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their God had meant them to stand. All I'm trying to say is that they lived as well as they could, each and every one of them; some lived longer than others, but all lived well, and bravely, and I love them all, and am not ashamed of my love. By Stephen King Live Happily Lived Days Times

Bill looked up, wiping his eyes. They were all soaked to the skin and looked like a litter of pups that had just forded a river. "Ih-It's scuh-scuh-hared of u-u-us, you know, " he said. "I can fuh-feel th-that. I swear to Guh-God I c-c-can. " Bev nodded soberly. "I think you're right. " "H-H-Help m-m-me, " Bill said. "P-P-Pl-Please. H-H-Help m-m-me. By Stephen King Wiping Eyes Bill Looked Bev

As his mouth flooded with that horrible sweet purple taste, he could actually see those grapes dull, dusty, obese and nasty, crawling up a dirty stucco wall in a thick, syrupy sunlight that was silent except for the stupid buzz of many flies By Stephen King Dusty Taste Dull Obese Nasty

It's about how some people carelessly squander what others would sell their souls to have: a healthy, pain-free body. And why? Because they're too blind, too emotionally scarred, or too self-involved to see past the earth's dark curve to the next sunrise. Which always comes, if one continues to draw breath. By Stephen King Healthy Painfree Body People Carelessly

So in that sense, I and my fellow horror writers are absorbing and defusing all your fears and anxieties and insecurities and taking them upon ourselves. We're sitting in the darkness beyond the flickering warmth of your fire, cackling into our caldrons and spitting out spider webs of words, all the time sucking the sickness from your minds and spewing it out into the night. By Stephen King Sense Fellow Horror Writers Absorbing

You know what talent is? The curse of expectation. As a kid you have to deal with that, beat it somehow. If you can write, you think God put you on earth to blow Shakespeare away. Or if you can paint, maybe you thinkI didthat God put you on earth to blow your father away. By Stephen King God Talent Put Earth Blow

When someone says they're going to be honest with you, they are in most cases preparing to lie faster than a horse can trot. By Stephen King Trot Honest Cases Preparing Lie

When it comes to rock music, I'm not much of a player, but I do have entry-level chops. I'm more knowledgeable as a listener, and Revival gave me a way to write about rock and roll without being preachy or boring. By Stephen King Music Player Chops Rock Entrylevel

I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible. It's best that I be as clear about this as I can - I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course). If you can see things this way (or at least try to), we can work together comfortably. If, on the other hand, you decide I'm crazy, that's fine. You won't be the first. By Stephen King Reasons Plotless Planning Compatible Distrust

Carrie was a terrific piece of work. At the end of the movie comes, when Amy Irving kneels down to put the flowers on Carrie's grave, a hand comes up through the grave and seizes her by the arm. The audience went to the roof, totally to the roof. It was just the most amazing reaction. And I thought, 'We have a monster hit on our hands. Brian De Palma has done something new. He's actually created a shock ending that shocks an audience that was ready for a horror film.' And there were several people who did it after that. By Stephen King Carrie Work Roof Terrific Piece

Kojak drifted down deeper, now into real sleep, now into a dream, a good dream of chasing rabbits through the clover and timothy grass that was belly-high and wet with soothing dew. His name was Big Steve. This was the north forty. And oh the rabbits are everywhere this gray and endless morning - As he dreamed, his paws twitched. By Stephen King Dream Kojak Deeper Sleep Dew

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. By Stephen King Corrected Mind Overlook Sir Talkingto

The mystery of the universe is not time but size. By Stephen King Size Mystery Universe Time

It's all of a piece, I thought. It's an echo so close to perfect you can't tell which one is the living voice and which is the ghost-voice returning. For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark. Mike By Stephen King Men Piece Thought Returning Echo

It is the laugh of a man in the grip of fond recall- the sight of a sunset, the firm feel of a woman's breast through a thin silk shirt (not that Barry has, in Henry's estimation, ever felt such a thing), or the packed warmth of beach sand. By Stephen King Barry Henry Recall Sunset Shirt

Roland had taught him that self-deception was nothing but pride in disguise, an indulgence to be denied. By Stephen King Roland Disguise Denied Taught Selfdeception

Stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when if feels like all you're managing is to shovel sh*t from a sitting position. By Stephen King Stopping Hard Imaginatively Idea Work

Surely they had passed the worst. All the luck had been against them, but sooner or later even the worst luck changes. By Stephen King Surely Worst Passed Luck Sooner

As I believe I have said, everyone in prison is an innocent man. Oh, they read the scripture the way those holy rollers on TV read the Book of Revelations. They were the victims of judges with hearts of stone and balls to match, or incompetent lawyers, or police frame-ups, or bad luck. They read the scripture, but you can see a different scripture in their faces. Most cons are a low sort, no good to themselves or anyone else, and their worst luck was that their mothers carried them to term. By Stephen King Read Man Scripture Prison Innocent

Poetry is not a lost art. Poetry is better than ever. Of course you've got the usual gang of idiots (as the Mad magazine staff writers used to call themselves) hiding in the thickets, folks who have gotten pretension and genius all confused, but there are also many brilliant practitioners of the art out there. Check the literary magazines at your local bookstore, if you don't believe me. For every six crappy poems you read, you'll actually find one or two good ones. And that, believe me, is a very acceptable ratio of trash to treasure. The By Stephen King Poetry Lost Art Mad Idiots

The lessons which I remember the longest are always the ones that are self-taught By Stephen King Selftaught Lessons Remember Longest

Here's what vampires shouldn't be: pallid detectives that drink Bloody Marys and work only at night; lovelorn southern gentlemen; anorexic teenage girls; boy-toys with big dewy eyes. What should they be? Killers, honey. Stone killers that can't get enough of that tasty Type-A. Bad boys and girls. Hunters. In other words, Midnight America. Red, white and blue, accent on the red. Those vamps got hijacked by a lot of soft-focus romance. By Stephen King Bloody Marys Pallid Night Lovelorn

Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be: partisans but never zealots, respectors of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely unable to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered ... or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power. By Stephen King Men Find Late Facts Partisans

Jake stood on the corner of Second and Forty-sixth, looking at a board fence about five feet high. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. From the darkness beyond the fence cam a strong harmonic humming. The sound of many voices, all singing together. Singing one vast open note. 'Here is yes,' the voices said. 'Here is you may. Here is the good turn, the fortunate meeting, the fever that broke just before dawn and left your blood calm. Here is the wish that came true and the understanding eye. Here is the kindness you were given and thus learned to pass on. Here is the sanity and clarity you thought were lost. Here, everything is all right. By Stephen King Fortysixth Jake High Fence Stood

Grab onto my arm now. Hold tight. We are going into a number of dark places, but I think I know the way. Just don't let go of my arm. And if I should kiss you in the dark, it's no big deal; it's only because you are my love. By Stephen King Grab Arm Dark Hold Tight

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud. By Stephen King Reader Find Horrify Recognize Terror

When I was a kid, my mother said, 'Stephen if you were a girl, you'd always be pregnant. By Stephen King Stephen Kid Girl Pregnant Mother

If this expansion is something you want, I invite you to come along with me just a little farther. I have lots to tell you, and I think we can talk better around the corner. In the dark. PART By Stephen King Farther Expansion Invite Part Corner

He didn't like the way things were going.There were bad omens in the wind, evil portents like bats fluttering in the dark loft of a deserted barn. By Stephen King Wind Evil Barn Things Goingthere

All that profligate investment of energy to effect a splendid, momentary reversal of natural law. That such a reversal should demand so much and last such a short time was terrible; that people would go for it anyway was both terrible and wonderful. ... A game, or maybe even not thatmaybe it was only practice for a game, the way that all the sweat and trembling exhaustion in the Wilshire loft that day had just been practice. Practice for a show that only a few people would probably care to attend and which would probably close quickly. By Stephen King Reversal Splendid Momentary Law Practice

Come in and see, that something seemed to whisper in my head. Never mind all the rest of it, Jake - come in and see. Come in and visit. Time doesn't matter in here; in here, time just floats away. You know you want to, you know you're curious. Maybe it's even another rabbit-hole. Another portal. Maybe it was, but I don't think so. I think it was Derry in there - everything that was wrong with it, everything that was askew, hiding in that pipe. Hibernating. Letting people believe the bad times were over, waiting for them to relax and forget there had ever been bad times at all. By Stephen King Head Jake Whisper Time Times

Mind over matter in any form is a terrific drain on the body's resources. By Stephen King Mind Resources Matter Form Terrific

He would have been perfectly at home living in a cave and dragging his woman around by the hair when he wasn't busy throwing rocks at his enemies. He was the sort of man whose response is only completely predictable when he is confronted with superior strength and authority. Confrontations of this kind didn't happen often, but when they did, he bowed to the superior force almost at once. Although he did not know it, it was this characteristic which had kept him from simply running away from the Flying Corson Brothers in the first place. In men like Ace Merrill, the only urge stronger than the urge to dominate is the need to roll over and humbly expose the undefended neck when the real leader of the pack puts in an appearance. By Stephen King Enemies Perfectly Home Living Cave

Do you think we could live the rest of our lives on this road? That's what I meant. The part we could have had if we hadn't ... you know." McVries fumbled in his pocket and came up with a package of Mellow cigarettes. "Smoke?" "I don't." "Neither do I," McVries said, and then put a cigarette into his mouth. He found a book of matches with a tomato sauce recipe on it. He lit the cigarette, drew smoke in, and coughed it out. [ ... ] "I thought I'd learn," McVries said defiantly. "It's crap, isn't it?" Garraty said sadly. McVries looked at him, surprised, and then threw the cigarette away. "Yeah," he said. "I think it is. By Stephen King Mcvries Road Live Lives Cigarette

If you have given up your heart for the Tower, Roland, you have already lost. A heartless creature is a loveless creature, and a loveless creature is a beast. To be a beast is perhaps bearable, although the man who has become one will surely pay hell's own price in the end, but if you should gain your object? What if you should, heartless, storm the Dark Tower and win it? What could you do except degenerate from beast to monster? To gain one's object as a beast would only be bitterly comic, like giving a magnifying glass to an elephant. But to gain one's object as a monster ... To pay hell is one thing. But do you want to own it? By Stephen King Roland Creature Beast Tower Object

This Land is mostly white space on the map ... which is how it should be; I'll leave more detailed map making to those graduate students and English teachers who feel that every goose which lays gold must be dissected so that all of its quite ordinary guts can be labelled; to those figurative engineers of the imagination who cannot feel comfortable with the comfortably overgrown (and possible dangerous) literary wilderness until they have built a freeway composed of Cliff's Notes through it - and listen to me, you people: every English teacher who ever did a Monarch or Cliff's Notes ought to be dragged out to his or her quad, drawn and quartered, then cut up into tiny pieces, said pieces to be dried and shrunk in the sun and then sold in the college bookstore as bookmarks. By Stephen King Land English Cliff Notes Map

The arts are obsessional, and obsession is dangerous. It's like a knife in the mind. In some cases - Dylan Thomas comes to mind, and Ross Lockridge and Hart Crane and Sylvia Plath - the knife can turn savagely upon the person wielding it. Art is a localized illness, usually benign - creative people tend to live a long time - sometimes terribly malignant. You use the knife carefully, because you know it doesn't care who it cuts. And if you are wise you sift the sludge carefully ... because some of that stuff may not be dead. By Stephen King Knife Obsessional Dangerous Mind Obsession

I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds. By Stephen King Gratitude Desert Odds Grow Real

The road to recovery led through the Land of Pain, that was all. By Stephen King Pain Land Road Recovery Led

You doom yourselves, Susannah. You seem positively bent on it, and the root is always the same: your faith fails you, and you replace it with rational thought. But there is no love in thought, nothing that lasts in deduction, only death in rationalism. By Stephen King Susannah Thought Doom Positively Bent

You see, Noah got drunk this one time on the Ark, and he was a-layin on his bed, naked as a jaybird. Two of his sons wouldn't look at him, they just turned the other way and put a blanket over him. I don't know, it might've been a sheet. But Ham - he was the coon of the family - looked on his father in his nakedness, and God cursed him and all his race to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. So there it is. That's what's behind it. Genesis, chapter nine. You go on and look it up, Mr. Amberson. By Stephen King Noah Ark Bed Naked Jaybird

There's nothing like stories on a windy night when folks have found a warm place in a cold world. By Stephen King World Stories Windy Night Folks

I never think of stories as made things; I think of them as found things. As if you pull them out of the ground, and you just pick them up. Someone once told me that that was me low-balling my own creativity. That might or might not be the case. But still, on the story I am working on now, I do have some unresolved problem. It doesn't keep me awake at nights. I feel like when it comes down, it will be there ... By Stephen King Things Stories Made Found Ground

It's offense you maybe can't 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 don't blink, and there's a stink down there in that dark and after a while you think maybe there's 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 I'd scream and scream and scream. Because it wouldn't look like a miracle to me. It would look like an offense. By Stephen King Sides Universe Scream Thinking Blink

In here I'm the guy who can get things for you ... outside all you need is the Yellow Pages. I don't think I could make it. By Stephen King Guy Things Pages Yellow Make

In conclusion, I would like to point out the grave risk authorities are taking by burying the Carrie White affair under the bureaucratic mat - and I am speaking specifically of the so-called White Commission. The desire among politicians to regard TK as a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon seems very strong, and while this may be understandable it is not acceptable. The possibility of a recurrence, genetically speaking, is 99 per cent. It's time we planned now for what may be ... By Stephen King White Commission Carrie Conclusion Mat

Do you see how little it all matters? How quickly and easily I can take it all away, should I choose to do so? Beware, gunslinger! Beware, shaman! The abyss is all around you. You float or fall into it at my whim. By Stephen King Beware Matters Gunslinger Shaman Quickly

Too aware, even as he says this very proper thank-you, that most people become customers sooner or later, here or at one of the city's four other fine and not-so-fine sickbays. No one rides for free, and in the end, even the most seaworthy ship goes down, blub-blub-blub. The only way to balance that off, in Hodges's opinion, is to make the most of every day afloat. But if that's true, what By Stephen King Sickbays Aware Thankyou Proper People

Disquiet and desire. What you want and what you're scared to try for. Where you've been and where you want to go. Something in a rock-and-roll song about wanting the girl, the car, the place to stand and be. Oh please God can you dig it. By Stephen King Disquiet Desire God Scared Song

So when his tractor came to a smash-halt, the potato-digger rising up behind and then crashing back down, Bob was flung forward over the engine block and directly into the Dome. His iPod exploded in the wide front pocket of his bib overalls, but he never felt it. He broke his neck and fractured his skull on the nothing he collided with and died in the dirt shortly thereafter, by one tall wheel of his tractor, which was still idling. Nothing, you know, runs like a Deere. By Stephen King Bob Dome Smashhalt Tractor Potatodigger

Even a zombie lurching through the night can seem pretty cheerful compared to the existential comedy/horror of the ozone layer dissolving under the combined assault of a million fluorocarbon spray cans of deodorant. By Stephen King Comedy Horror Deodorant Zombie Lurching

I read more than I had in years-novels, short stories, three long nonfiction books about how we had stumbled into the Iraq mess (the short answer appeared to have W for a middle initial and a dick for a Vice President). By Stephen King President Iraq Vice Short Yearsnovels

The world had moved on and all that was over, done before fairly begun. By Stephen King Begun World Moved Fairly

She was smiling the way you do when you see an old friend. Or, perhaps, something good to eat. By Stephen King Friend Smiling Eat Good

In the fifties ... when they had their summer parties - there were always different colored lanterns on the lawn ... and I get the funniest chill. In the end the bright colors always go out of life, have you noticed that? In the end, things always look gray, like a dress that's been washed too many times. By Stephen King Fifties End Parties Lawn Chill

Lover, she whispers, and closes her eyes.It falls upon her.Love is like dying. By Stephen King Lover Whispers Dying Closes Eyesit

I've spent my whole life doing some things because they were logical and not doing others because they were not. I've seen what happens when people act on intuition, or for illogical reasons. Sometimes the results are ludicrous and embarrassing; more often they are simply horrible. But here I am, just the same, behaving like a crackbrained crystal gazer. By Stephen King Spent Life Things Logical Intuition

... it would matter ... to the tens of thousands of young Americans ... who would ... be invited to put on uniforms, fly to the other side of the world, spread their nether cheeks, and sit down on the big green dildo that was Vietnam. By Stephen King Americans Vietnam Matter Uniforms Fly

Oh my fadder and I are one, " she said, "just me, just him, and dear, if you are wise you will run, run back to where you came from, run quickly, because to stay will mean worse than your death. No one who dies in Derry really dies. You knew that before; believe it now. By Stephen King Run Dear Quickly Death Fadder

Teddy, Vern, Chris: I don't shut up. I grow up. And when I look at you, I throw up. Aghhh!Gordie: And then your mom goes around the corner and she licks it up. By Stephen King Vern Chris Teddy Shut Gordie

For every mother who ever cursed God for her child dead in the road, for every father who ever cursed the man who sent him away from the factory with no job, for every child who was ever born to pain and asked why, this is the answer. Our lives are like these things I build. Sometimes they fall down for a reason, sometimes they fall down for no reason at all. By Stephen King Cursed God Child Road Job

Garraty wondered how it would be, to lie in the biggest, dustiest library silence of all, dreaming endless, thoughtless dreams behind your gummed-down eyelids, dressed forever in your Sunday suit. No worries about money, success, fear, joy, pain, sorrow, sex, or love. Absolute zero. No father, mother, girlfriend, lover. The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth's wing. An end to the agony of movement, to the long nightmare of going down the road. The body in peace, stillness, and order. The perfect darkness of death.How would that be? Just how would that be? By Stephen King Sunday Garraty Biggest Dustiest Dreaming

A kid of your age - any kid - could get hold of matches if she wanted to, burn up the house or whatever. But not many do. Why would they want to? By Stephen King Kid Age Burn Hold Matches

Other players and at least one great composer - Beethoven - had lived with deafness, but hearing loss wasn't where Hugh's woes ended. There was the vertigo, the trembling, the periodic loss of vision. There was nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, galloping pulse. Worst of all was the almost constant tinnitus. He had always thought deafness meant silence. This was not true, at least not in his case. Hugh Yates had a constantly braying burglar alarm in the middle of his head. By Stephen King Beethoven Composer Ended Loss Players

What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did? There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, but because you think I should be. I look back on the way I was. A young, stupid kid that committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him. Tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left. By Stephen King Talk Kid Regret Day Feel

When I'd come in one day in the late winter and asked him why he was working the grill with a kid's birthday hat on, he'd said Because today I'm fifty-seven, buddy. Which makes me an official Heinz. By Stephen King Buddy Fiftyseven Heinz Day Late

Every city has a neighborhood like this one, where you can buy sex or marijuana or a parrot that talks dirty, where the men sit talking on stoops like those men across the street, where the women always seem to be yelling for their kids to come in unless they want a whipping, and where the wine always comes in a paper sack. By Stephen King Men Dirty Street Whipping Sack

If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through that shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them? By Stephen King Dead Find End Fell Outward

I know I'm being a pain in the neck, sir - not to mention an ache in the ass and a milky drip from the tip of a sore dick - but if it's all the same to you, my dear friend, I'd like to give my chance to the young fellow on his knees before you. Let him apologize, let him polish your boots with his clout until you are entirely satisfied, and let him go on living his life. By Stephen King Sir Neck Dick Friend Pain

Speech destroys the functions of love, I think - that's a hell of a thing for a writer to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of its tail. The word is the harm. Love isn't what these asshole poets like McKuen want you to think it is. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combination of words, can close those lovebites. It's the other way around, that's the joke. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them. Take it from me. I've made my life from the words, and I know that is so. By Stephen King Love Speech Guess True Words

Those in the grip of a strong drug - heroin, devil grass, true love - often find themselves trying to maintain a precarious balance between secrecy and ecstasy as they walk the tightrope of their lives. Keeping one's balance on a tightrope is difficult under the soberest of circumstances; doing so while in a state of delirium is all but impossible. By Stephen King Heroin Drug Devil Grass True

Uncle Henry can call cremation pagan if he wants to, but this open-coffin shit is the real pagan rite. She doesn't look like my mother, she looks like a stuffed rabbit. By Stephen King Henry Uncle Rite Pagan Call

Animals. Let them burn, then. Let the streets be filled with the smell of their sacrifice. Let this place be called racca, ichabod, wormwood.FlexAnd power transformers atop lightpoles bloomed into nacreous purple light, spitting catherine-wheel sparks. High-tension wires fell into the streets in pick-up-sticks tangles ... By Stephen King Animals Streets Burn Ichabod Tangles

...some of it's how he acts like he's King Shit of Turd Mountain, but mostly it's that he's sneaky, and he likes to hurt By Stephen King Mountain King Shit Turd Sneaky

Strong delusions travel like cold germs on a sneeze. By Stephen King Strong Sneeze Delusions Travel Cold

It was that kind of story. The kind that's like a sneeze which threatens but never quite arrives. By Stephen King Story Kind Arrives Sneeze Threatens

Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. By Stephen King Time

Came farther into the room, hating the tentative, almost timid feeling inside her, distrusting it because she had never felt tentative or timid around Eddie before. She felt anger as well, although that was still nascent. What right did he have to make her feel that way, after all she had done for him, after all she had sacrificed for him? By Stephen King Eddie Tentative Timid Room Hating

The lobby of the Nelson Hotel always smells of the river it's in the pores of the place but this evening the smell is heavier than usual. It's a smell that makes us think of bad ideas, blown investments, forged checks, deteriorating health, stolen office supplies, unpaid alimony, empty promises, skin tumors, lost ambition, abandoned sample cases filled with cheap novelties, dead hope, dead skin, and fallen arches.This is the kind of place you don't come to unless you've been here before and all your other options are pretty much foreclosed. It's a place where men who left their families two decades before now lie on narrow beds with pee-stained mattresses, coughing and smoking cigarettes. By Stephen King Nelson Hotel Place Usual Smell

As with all other aspects of fiction, the key to writing good dialogue is honesty. By Stephen King Fiction Honesty Aspects Key Writing

The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story ... Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. By Stephen King Story Seduction Object Fiction Grammatical

Most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do - not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad. By Stephen King Bullshit Books Writing Filled Fiction

Who can remember the pangs and sweetness of those early years? We remember our first real love no more clearly than the illusions that caused us to rave during a high fever. By Stephen King Years Remember Pangs Sweetness Early

He was one of those quite rare adults who communicate with small children fairly well and who love them all impartiallynot in a sugary way but in a businesslike fashion that may sometimes entail a hug, in the same way that closing a big business deal may call for a handshake. By Stephen King Hug Handshake Rare Adults Communicate

For a moment he felt a wild hope: perhaps this really was a nightmare. Perhaps he would awake in his own bed, bathed in sweat, shaking, maybe even crying ... but alive. Safe. Then he pushed the thought away. Its charm was deadly, its comfort fatal. By Stephen King Hope Nightmare Moment Felt Wild

In the end you always crashed against the unspoken barricades of their love, like the walls of a padded cell. The truth of their love rendered further meaningful discussion impossible and made what had gone before empty of meaning. By Stephen King Cell Love End Crashed Unspoken

The shuddering would not stop. The pain was like the end of the world. He thought: There comes a point when the very discussion of pain becomes redundant. No one knows there is pain the size of this in the world. No one. It is like being possessed by demons. By Stephen King Pain Stop World Shuddering End

There's nothing I like better than a good book discussion with someone who can hold up his end of the argument. By Stephen King Argument Good Book Discussion Hold

There were times ... when it occurred to me that I was repeating my mother's life. Usually this thought struck me as funny. But if I happened to be tired, or if there were extra bills to pay and no money to pay them with, it seemed awful. I'd think 'This isn't the way our lives are supposed to be going.' Then I'd think 'Half the world has the same idea. By Stephen King Times Pay Half Life Occurred

Can the future hsitory of the world be so fragile that it will not allow two high school teachers to meet and fall in love? To marry, to dance to Beatles tunes like "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and live unremarkable lives? By Stephen King Love Future Hsitory World Fragile

If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose),someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that'sall. I'm not editorializing, just trying to give you the facts asI see them. By Stephen King Thatsall Write Sing Suppose Paint

Your job during or just after the first draft is to decide what something or somethings yours is about. Your job in the second draft - one of them, anyway - is to make that something even more clear. This may necessitate some big changes and revisions. The benefits to you and your reader will be clearer focus and a more unified story. It hardly ever fails. By Stephen King Job Draft Decide Clear Make

I, Georgie, am Mr. Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise, meet George Denbrough. George, meet Pennywise. And now we know each other. I'm not a stranger to you, and you're not a stranger to me. Kee-rect? " George By Stephen King Georgie Gray Clown Bob Dancing

My father, " she said, pronouncing it fadder, and Beverly saw that her dress had also changed. It had become a scabrous, peeling black. The cameo was a skull, its jaw hung in a diseased gape. "His name was Robert Gray, better known as Bob Gray, better known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Although that was not his name, either. But he did love his joke, my fadder. By Stephen King Beverly Gray Father Pronouncing Changed

Rivers of wrinkles flowing down from the corners of this eyes and mouth. By Stephen King Rivers Mouth Wrinkles Flowing Corners

There is really nothing so comforting to the beaten of spirit or the broken of skull than a good strong dose of 'Thy will be done. By Stephen King Thy Comforting Beaten Spirit Broken

How life did imitate art sometimes. And the cruder the art, the closer the imitation. By Stephen King Art Life Imitate Imitation Cruder

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. 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. By Stephen King God Unquestioningly Humor Reverently Politically

They had become a fixed star in the shifting firmament of the high school's relationships, the acknowledged Romeo and Juliet. And she knew with sudden hatefulness that there was one couple like them in every white suburban high school in America. By Stephen King Juliet Romeo Relationships High School

I think it was the first real pain I ever felt in my life...It wasn't what I thought it would be at all. It didn't put an end to me as a person. I think...it gave me a basis for comparison, finding out you could still exist inside the pain, in SPITE of the pain. By Stephen King Pain Life Real Felt Thought

When I gave up dope and alcohol, my immediate feeling was 'I've saved my life, but there'll be a price because I'll have nothing that buzzes me any more'. But I enjoyed my kids. My wife loved me and I loved her. And eventually the writing came back and I discovered that the writing was enough. Stupid thing is that probably it always had been. By Stephen King Alcohol Life Gave Dope Feeling

Sometimes I think life is a sad, sad business, Doc. I really do. By Stephen King Doc Business Sad Life

Sometimes I think life is a sad, bad business, Doc I really do. By Stephen King Doc Sad Bad Business Life

I always felt that organized religion was just basically a theological insurance scam where they're saying if you spend time with us, guess what, you're going to live forever, you're going to go to some other plain where you're going to be so happy, you'll just be happy all the time, which is also kind of a scary idea to me. By Stephen King Time Happy Guess Forever Felt

You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despairthe sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page. By Stephen King Excitement Hopefulness Act Nervousness Heart

The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God's name would you want to make things words by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use? By Stephen King Meaning Writing Representation Falls Short

There is a skull in every man, and I tell you there is a skull in the lives of all men. They saw it that day, those men. They saw what sometimes grins behind the smile. By Stephen King Skull Men Man Lives Day

When I was a teenager, I looked at over-fifties with pity and unease: they walked too slow, they talked too slow, they watched TV instead of going out to movies and concerts, their idea of a great party was hotpot with the neighbors and tucked into bed after the eleven o'clock news. But - like most other fifty-, sixty-, and seventysomethings who are in relative good health - I didn't mind it so much when my turn came. Because the brain doesn't age, although its ideas about the world may harden and there's a greater tendency to run off at the mouth about how things were in the good old days. By Stephen King Slow Teenager Unease Concerts Looked

Of course they had more chains on him than Scrooge saw on Marley's ghost, but he could have kicked up dickens if he'd wanted. That's a pun, son. By Stephen King Scrooge Marley Ghost Wanted Son

she sees them, again and again, all lighting at once, filling up the winter-naked trees, shockwave riders on the moving edge of nature's most violent season, she sees them take wing again and again, the flutter of their wings like the snap of many sheets on the line, and she thinks: A month from now every kid in Derry Park will have a kite, they'll run to keep the strings from getting tangled with each other. She thinks again: This is what flying is like. By Stephen King Derry Park Filling Trees Shockwave

And what about those [writers' workshop] critiques, by the way? How valuable are they? Not very, in my experience, sorry. A lot of them are maddeningly vague. I love the feeling of Peter's story, someone may say. It had something ... a sense of I don't know ... there's a loving kind of you know ... I can't exactly describe it ... It seems to occur to few of the attendees that if you have a feeling you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class. By Stephen King Critiques Writers Workshop Sense Kind

The spectacular incident of the stones serves as a kind of red herring in this respect. Many researchers have adopted the erroneous belief that where there has been one incident, there must be others. To offer another analogy, this is like dispatching a crew of meteor watchers to Crater National Park because a huge asteroid struck there two million years ago. By Stephen King Respect Incident Spectacular Stones Serves

Horace, like all dogs, heard dead-voices quite often, and sometimes saw their owners. The dead were all around, but living people saw them no more than they could smell most of the ten thousand aromas that surrounded them every minute of every day. By Stephen King Horace Dogs Heard Owners Deadvoices

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off. By Stephen King Job Ruined Killed Destroyed Heavens

The terror ran endlessly on in his mind, making him feel like a rat trapped on an exercise wheel. And when he tried to look ahead to some better, brighter time, he could see only darkness. By Stephen King Mind Making Wheel Terror Ran

when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another. By Stephen King Thing Binds Union Rationality Place

I stood for almost an hour in a line of shuffling, bitter - eyed late mailers (Christmas is such a carefree, low - pressure time - that's one of the things I love about it), ... By Stephen King Bitter Low Christmas Shuffling Eyed

You're eating a bitter meal. You don't know that because someone told you it was sweet and your own tastebuds are numb. By Stephen King Meal Eating Bitter Numb Told

I hated high school. I don't trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there's something wrong with you. By Stephen King School Hated High Enjoyment Teenager

They seemed as unreal as actors when you saw them on a movie screen. They were big up there - often beautiful, too - but they were still only shadows thrown by light. By Stephen King Screen Unreal Actors Movie Beautiful

There were movies to go see at the Gem, which has long since been torn down; science fiction movies like Gog with Richard Egan and westerns with Audie Murphy (Teddy saw every movie Audie Murphy made at least three times; he believed Murphy was almost a god) and war movies with John Wayne. There were games and endless bolted meals, lawns to mow, places to run to, walls to pitch pennies against, people to clap you on the back. And now I sit here trying to look through an IBM keyboard and see that time, trying to recall the best and the worst of that green and brown summer, and I can almost feel the skinny, scabbed boy still buried in this advancing body and hear those sounds. But By Stephen King Murphy Audie Movies Gem Teddy

Billy was walking up the hall, buckling his belt. His tanned face was now sallow and wet with sweat. He says there's a bulge in my aorta. Like a bubble in a car tire. Only car tires don't yell when you poke em. By Stephen King Billy Hall Buckling Belt Walking

When you write, you want to get rid of the world, do you not? Of coarse you do. When you're writing, you're creating your own worlds. By Stephen King Write Rid World Worlds Coarse

With six weeks' worth of recuperation time, you'll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development. And listenif you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or to beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us. By Stephen King Time Development Holes Weeks Worth

How infinite was love, twining in and out of hope and memory like a braid with three strong strands, so much the Bright Tower of every human's life and soul. By Stephen King Bright Tower Love Twining Strands

The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one By Stephen King Good Make Writer Vocabulary Grammar

while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one. I By Stephen King Make Writer Impossible Good Competent

Which leads us to discuss if, deep down, Edgar Freemantle has decided that when the time comes, he's just going to - in the words of my misspent youth - cry fuck it and crawl in the bucket. By Stephen King Edgar Freemantle Deep Youth Cry

The only problem with him and Henry was they were like Charlie Brown and Lucy. The only difference was once in a while Henry would hold onto the football so Eddie could kick itnot often, but once in a while. Eddie had even thought, when in one of his heroin dazes, that he ought to write Charles Schultz a letter. Dear Mr. Schultz, he would say. You're missing a bet by ALWAYS having Lucy pull the football up at the last second. She ought to hold it down there once in a while. Nothing Charlie Brown could ever predict, you understand.Sometimes she'd maybe hold it down for him to kick three, even four times in a row, then nothing for a month, then once, and then nothing for three or four days, and then, you know, you get the idea. That would REALLY fuck the kid up, you know? By Stephen King Henry Lucy Charlie Brown Schultz

Religion is the theological equivalent of a quick-buck insurance scam, where you pay in your premium year after year, and then, when you need the benefits you paid for so - pardon the pun - so religiously, you discover the company that took your money does not, in fact, exist. By Stephen King Exist Year Religion Scam Pardon

There is a folk tale that before birth, every human soul knows all the secrets of life and death and the universe. But then, just before birth, an angel leans down, puts his finger to the new baby's lips, and whispers "Shhh."' Harris touches his philtrum. 'According to the story, this is the mark left by the angel's finger. Every human being has one. By Stephen King Birth Universe Shhh Folk Tale

He had scorned her, and didn't they say that hell hath no fury? A scorned woman might well traffic with the devil ... or his henchman. By Stephen King Fury Scorned Hell Hath Devil

None of us want to see portents and omens, no matter how much we like our ghost stories and the spooky films. None of us want to really see a Star in the East or a pillar of fire by night. We want peace and rationality and routine. If we have to see God in the black face of an old woman, it's bound to remind us that there's a devil for every god - and our devil may be closer than we like to think. By Stephen King Omens Films Portents Matter Ghost

There are people who need people to need them. The reason you don't understand is because you're not one of those people. You'd use me and then toss me away like a paper bag if that's what it came down to. God fucked you, my friend. You're just smart enough so it would hurt you to do that, and just hard enough so you'd go ahead and do it anyway. You wouldn't be able to help yourself. By Stephen King People Reason Understand God Friend

Look- here's a table covered with red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. [ ... ] On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8. [ ... ] The most interesting thing here isn't even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not nineteen-point-five. It's an eight. This is what we're looking at, and we all see it. I didn't tell you. You didn't ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We're not even in the same year together, let alone the same room ... except we are together. We are close. We're having a meeting of the minds. [ ... ] We've engaged in an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy. By Stephen King Cage Cloth Table Covered Red

The real challenge is getting into the damned thing, and I believe that's why so many would-be writers with great ideas never actually pick-up the pen or start tapping away at the keys. All too often, it's like trying to start a car on a cold day. At first the motor doesn't even crank, it only groans. But if you keep at it (and the battery doesn't die), the engine starts...runs rough...and then smooths out. By Stephen King Thing Keys Real Challenge Damned

Sure. Knock yourself out." "I don't understand you." "Do what you want." "Ah." The gunslinger nodded and lay back. Knock myself out, he thought. Knock. Myself out. By Stephen King Knock Back Understand Thought Gunslinger

for the first time in months or years the gunslinger could see real, living green. By Stephen King Real Living Green Time Months

I know how bad you boys feel, but the sun will still come up tomorrow. And when it does, you 'll feel better. When the sun comes up the day after tomorrow, a little better still. This is just a part of your life, and it's over. It would have been better to win, but either way, it's over. Life will go on. By Stephen King Tomorrow Feel Sun Bad Boys

Ricky Lee's father had once told him that if a man was in his right mind, you brought him what he paid for, be it piss or poison. Ricky Lee didn't know if that was good advice or bad, but he knew that if you tended bar for a living, it went a fair piece toward saving you from being chomped into gator-bait by your own conscience. By Stephen King Ricky Lee Mind Poison Father

At the end of almost every AA meeting, someone read the Promises. One of these was 'We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it'. Dan thought he would always regret the past, but he had quit trying to shut the door. Why bother, when it would just come open again? The fucking had no latch, let alone a lock. By Stephen King Promises Meeting Shut End Read

Once, in a kingdom called Delain, there was a King with two sons. Delain was a very old kingdom and it had had hundreds of Kings, perhaps even thousands; when time goes on long enough, not even historians can remember everything. By Stephen King Delain Sons Kingdom Called King

He did it now, holding it up before his eyes as he had as a boy, and it did its old, old trick. Through the floating snow you could see a little gingerbread house with a path leading up to it. The gingerbread shutters were closed, but as an imaginative boy you could fancy that one of the shutters was being folded back (as indeed, one of them seemed to be folding back now) by a long white hand, and then a pallid face would be looking out at you, grinning with long teeth, inviting you into this house beyond the world in its slow and endless fantasy-land of false snow, where time was a myth. The face was looking out at him now, pallid and hungry, a face that would never look on daylight or blue skies again. It was his own face.He threw the paperweight into the corner and it shattered. He left without waiting to see what might leak out of it. By Stephen King Holding Trick Face Eyes Boy

She saw a man standing on her back porch stoop. And it was a man, not a lawnmower or a vacuum cleaner but an actual man. Luckily, she had time to register the fact that, although he wasn't Deputy Boeckman, he was also dressed in Castle County khaki. This saved her the embarrassment of screaming like Jamie Lee Curtis in a Halloween movie. By Stephen King Man Stoop Standing Back Porch

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. By Stephen King God Missing Evidence Stars Sky

Henry said, and sat up. His hands clawed at the air, as if for holds which only Henry could see. His gouged eye leaked and dribbled; its bottom arc now bulged pregnantly down onto his cheek. He looked around, saw Eddie shrinking back against the wall, and tried By Stephen King Henry Sat Air Eddie Dribbled

The Disney parks are scripted, and I hate that. Hate it. I think what they are doing down there in Orlando is fun-pimping ... By Stephen King Disney Scripted Hate Parks Orlando

I believe in evil, but all my life I've gone back and forth about whether or not there's an outside evil, whether or not there's a force in the world that really wants to destroy us, from the inside out, individually and collectively. By Stephen King Evil Individually Collectively Life Back

I don't want to just mess with your head. I want to mess with your life ... I want you to miss appointments, burn dinner, skip your homework. I want you to tell your wife to take that moonlight stroll on the beach at Waikiki with the resort tennis pro while you read a few more chapters. By Stephen King Mess Head Life Waikiki Appointments

wiped his chin with his handkerchief while Eddie used his aspirator again. 'I want to go now,' Eddie said. 'Let me finish, please.' 'No! I want to go, you've got your money and I want to go!' 'Let me finish,' Mr Keene said, so forbiddingly that Eddie sat back in his chair. Grownups could be so hateful in their power sometimes. So hateful. By Stephen King Eddie Wiped Finish Chin Handkerchief

He was a poet who sometimes taught Free University classes or travelled in the western states of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, speaking to high school English classes, stunning middle-class boys and girls (he hoped) with the news that poetry was alive - narcoleptic, to be sure, but still possessed of a certain hideous vitality. By Stephen King Nevada Narcoleptic Utah Arizona Free

Faint and not so pleasant. "Okay," I said. "It's the pantry. Neat and fully stocked. You get an A in supply management, if there is such a thing." "What do you smell?" "Spices, mostly. Coffee. Maybe air freshener, too, I'm not sure. By Stephen King Faint Pleasant Spices Coffee Pantry

Why, then you go on to Death Row at state prison and justenjoy all that good food until it's time to ride the lightning. It won't belong. By Stephen King Death Row Lightning State Prison

I'm a situational writer. You give me a situation, like a writer gets in a car crash, breaks his leg, is kidnapped by his number-one fan, and is kept in a cabin and forced to write a bookeverything else springs from there. You really don't have to work once you've had the idea. All you have to do is kind of take dictation from something inside. (from Parade Magazine interview, 5/26/13) By Stephen King Writer Situational Situation Crash Breaks

Once my cares were far away,Yes, once my cares were far away,Now my love has gone from meAnd misery is in my heart to stay. By Stephen King Cares Awayyes Stay Awaynow Love

Abruptly he started the car and put it in gear and drove away, trying not to look back. And of course he did, and of course the porch was empty. They had gone back inside. It was as if the Overlook had swallowed them. By Stephen King Abruptly Started Car Put Gear

This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain. And the electric chair was there, too, of course. By Stephen King Mountain Cold Happened State Penitentiary

Paul McCartney, the ex-Beatle Brady's mom used to call Old Spaniel Eyes, is getting a medal at the White House. Why is it, Brady sometimes wonders, that people with only a little talent get so much of everything? It's just another proof that the world is crazy. By Stephen King