Stephen King - Quodid

About

Picture of Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror fiction and has also explored other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy, and mystery. In a career spanning six decades, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.

Quotes from Stephen King

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.

—Stephen King

Love isn’t soft, like those poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.

—Stephen King in The Body

I have spent a good many years . . . being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

—Stephen King

talent writing poetry fiction shame

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

—Stephen King

French is the language that turns dirt into romance.

—Stephen King

romance language French

I'm not sure anybody ever gets completely over their first love, and that still rankles. Part of me still wants to know what was wrong with me. What I was lacking.

—Stephen King in Joyland

When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time," and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: One stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope.

—Stephen King

It's hard to let go. Even when what you're holding onto is full of thorns, it's hard to let go. Maybe especially then.

—Stephen King in Joyland

Passing time adds false memories and modifies real ones.

—Stephen King in Joyland

People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. 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?

—Stephen King in Joyland

Some days are treasure. Not many, but I think in almost every life there are a few. That was one of mine, and when I'm blue—when life comes down on me and everything looks tawdry and cheap—I go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isn't always a butcher's game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes they are precious.

—Stephen King in Joyland

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

—Stephen King

You must not come lightly to the blank page.

—Stephen King

Books

Stephen King has the following books quoted on Quodid:

The Body
Joyland