Quotes by Stephen King

When asked, How do you write? I invariably answer, one word at a time.

If you dont have the time to read, you dont have the time or the tools to write.

Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.

God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.

Its a mystery. Thats the first thing that interests me about the idea of God. If there is one, its mysterious and powerful and awesome to even consider the concept, and you have to take it seriously.

Americans are apocalyptic by nature. The reason why is that weve always had so much, so we live in deadly fear that people are going to take it away from us.

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

I love the movies, and when I go to see a movie thats been made from one of my books, I know that it isnt going to be exactly like my novel because a lot of other people have interpreted it. But I also know it has an idea that Ill like because that idea occurred to me, and I spent a year, or a year and a half of my life working on it.

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

A lot of us grow up and we grow out of the literal interpretation that we get when were children, but we bear the scars all our life. Whether theyre scars of beauty or scars of ugliness, its pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more youre forced back on your own imagination.

Weve switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics - trying to play a serious part in the world - to a culture thats really entertainment-based.

And in real life endings arent always neat, whether theyre happy endings, or whether theyre sad endings.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

Life is like a wheel. Sooner or later, it always come around to where you started again.

French is the language that turns dirt into romance.

I watched Titanic when I got back home from the hospital, and cried. I knew that my IQ had been damaged.

I never saw any of my dads stories. My mother said he had piles and piles of manuscripts.

“Eighty percent of success is just showing up.”