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.

About 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...

More quotations from Stephen King

You must not come lightly to the blank page.

—Stephen King

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

—Stephen King

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

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

Passing time adds false memories and modifies real ones.

—Stephen King in Joyland

More quotations tagged with “shame”

There smites nothing so sharp, nor smelleth so sour as shame.

—William Langland

smell shame

Shame is always easier to handle if you have someone to share it with.

—Craig Thompson in Blankets

love friendship sharing shame

It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame. This is the tragedy of the world. For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile.

—Alice Walker

hope heroism tragedy shame heroes the world

Guys would sleep with a bicycle if it had the right color lip gloss on. They have no shame. They're like bull elks in a field. It's a scent to them, a smell.

—Tori Amos

shame

Nature soaks every evil with either fear or shame.

—Tertullian

fear nature shame

History

23 Nov 2014 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

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.