Here’s 30 Stephen King Quotes Of Wisdom to Live By. These quotes reflect Stephen King’s profound insights on writing, life, and the human condition:
- “Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “Get busy living or get busy dying.” – The Shawshank Redemption (1982)
- “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” – The Shining (1977)
- “You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.” – Danse Macabre (1981)
- “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” – Introduction to Skeleton Crew (1985)
- “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “There’s no harm in hoping for the best as long as you’re prepared for the worst.” – Different Seasons (1982)
- “The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.” – Needful Things (1991)
- “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.” – Night Shift (1978)
- “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” – Cell (2006)
- “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.” – Skeleton Crew (1985)
- “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “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 words—the language. Don’t be like the critics who don’t do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.” – Introduction to Night Shift (1978)
- “Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “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.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “When asked, ‘How do you write?’ I invariably answer, ‘one word at a time.'” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “The best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters.” – The Shining (1977)
- “A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.” – Different Seasons (1982)
- “Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.” – The Green Mile (1996)
- “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.” – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- “In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom.” – Needful Things (1991)
- “We lie best when we lie to ourselves.” – It (1986)
- “Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” – The Shawshank Redemption (1982)