Stephen King is one of the greatest authors of all time. His horror, supernatural, and fantasy books have sold more than 350 billion copies worldwide. King has been writing best-selling novels for nearly five decades. And he’s earned a place in the hearts of readers across the globe.
While King writes about horror — as a writer his advice is inspirational. To honor this prolific author, we’ve compiled the ultimate list of Stephen King quotes to inspire you to live a life on the other side of fear.
50 Greatest Stephen King Quotes of All Time
Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.
Stephen King
“I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―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
“You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on. “
Stephen King
“It ain’t the blows we’re dealt that matter, but the ones we survive.”
Stephen King
“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”
Stephen King
“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.”
Stephen King
“French is the language that turns dirt into romance.”
Stephen King
“Let me say it again: You must not come lightly to the blank page.”
Stephen King
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
Stephen King
“You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. “
Stephen King
“Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once.”
Stephen King
“A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.”
Stephen King
You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
Stephen King
“Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”
Stephen King
“When asked, ‘How do you write?’ I invariably answer, ‘one word at a time.’ “
Stephen King
“Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.”
Stephen King
“We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.”
Stephen King
“I think that we’re all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better — and maybe not all that much better after all.”
Stephen King
“The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.”
Stephen King
“The world has teeth and it can bite you with them any time it wants.”
Stephen King
“Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don’t.”
Stephen King
“Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”
Stephen King
“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.’ “
Stephen King
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Stephen King
“Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”
Stephen King
“Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”
Stephen King
“Humor is almost always anger with its make-up on.”
Stephen King
“We lie best when we lie to ourselves.”
Stephen King
“Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once.”
Stephen King
“I watched Titanic when I got back home from the hospital, and cried. I knew that my IQ had been damaged.”
Stephen King
“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.”
Stephen King
“If a fear cannot be articulated, it can’t be conquered.”
Stephen King
“It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost. “
Stephen King
“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings — words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.”
Stephen King
“The devil’s voice is sweet to hear.”
Stephen King
“Just remember that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.”
Stephen King
“If being a kid is about learning how to live, then being a grown-up is about learning how to die.”
Stephen King
“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
Stephen King
“But writing is a wonderful and terrible thing. It opens deep wells of memory that were previously capped.”
Stephen King
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
Stephen King
“No great thing is created suddenly.”
Stephen King
“The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn’t real. I know that, and I also know that if I’m careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.”
Stephen King
“God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.”
Stephen King
“People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.”
Stephen King
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
Stephen King
“Children have to grow into their imaginations like a pair of oversized shoes.”
Stephen King
“That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what.”
Stephen King
“A secret needs two faces to bounce between; a secret needs to see itself in another pair of eyes.”
Stephen King
“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
Stephen King
“It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.”
Stephen King
Love Stephen King? Check out this list of the all-time best books by Stephen King!
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| Greatest Stephen King Quotes of All Time |