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But You Don't Do It. Because Guys Like Us, Red, We Know There's A Third Choice. An Alternative To Staying Simon-pure Or Bathing In The Filth And The Slime. It's The Alternative That Grown-ups All Over The World Pick. You Balance Off Your Walk Through The Hog-wallow Against What It Gains You. You Choose The Lesser Of Two Evils And Try To Keep Your Good Intentions In Front Of You. And I Guess You Judge How Well You're Doing By How Well You Sleep At Night... And What Your Dreams Are Like.

-Stephen King

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But You Don't Do

Stephen King

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But You Don't Do It. Because Guys Like Us, Red, We Know There's A Third Choice. An Alternative To Staying Simon-pure Or Bathing In The Filth And The Slime. It's The Alternative That Grown-ups All Over The World Pick. You Balance Off Your Walk Through The Hog-wallow Against What It Gains You. You Choose The Lesser Of Two Evils And Try To Keep Your Good Intentions In Front Of You. And I Guess You Judge How Well You're Doing By How Well You Sleep At Night... And What Your Dreams Are Like.

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I've Spoken Out My Whole Life Against The Idea Of Simply Dismissing Whole Areas Of Fiction By Saying It's "genre" And Therefore Can't Be Seen As Literature.

I Still Think That Of All The People Doing Top Fiction Today, John D. Macdonald Is The Best.he Was My Model As A Kid. If There Are People Out There That Want To Write, All You Need To Do Is Read 20 Of His Stories To Get An Idea What It Takes To Make A Story Kick Over.

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Was It Pretty? Your Country. . .your Land?" "it Was Beautiful," The Gunslinger Said. "there Were Fields And Forests And Rivers And Mists In The Morning. But That's Only Pretty. My Mother Used To Say That The Only Real Beauty Is Order And Love And Light.

He Had A Massive Stroke. He Died With His Tie On. Do You Think That Could Be Our Generation's Equivalent Of That Old Saying About Dying With Your Boots On?

I Have The World's Best Job. I Get Paid To Hang Out In My Imagination All Day.

The Turtle Couldn't Help Us.

If There Is Love, Smallpox Scars Are As Pretty As Dimples. I'll Love Your Face No Matter What It Looks Like. Because It's Yours.

A Person's Memory Is Everything, Really. Memory Is Identity. It's You.

Money Talks, Bullshit Walks.

Death, But Not For You, Gunslinger. Never For You. You Darkle. You Tinct. May I Be Brutally Frank? You Go On.

The Act Of Writing Itself Is Done In Secret, Like Masturbation.

I Did Spend Years As An Addict, So I Know That World, Although I Wish I Didn't.

Dreams Age Faster Than Dreamers.

I Understand That Each One Of Us Works At A Different Speed, And Has A Slightly Different Process. I Understand That These Writers Are Painstaking, Wanting Each Sentence-each Word-to Carry Weight... I Know It’s Not Laziness, But Respect For The Work, And I Understand From My Own Work That Haste Makes Waste. But I Also Understand That Life Is Short, And That In The End, None Of Us Is Prolific. The Creative Spark Dims, And Then Death Puts It Out. William Shakespeare, For Instance, Hasn’t Produced A New Play For 400 Years. That, My Friends, Is A Long Dry Spell.

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I Hold To No God," Roland Said. "i Hold To The Tower, And Won't Pray To That.

But Who Can Foresee Such Things? None Of Us Can Predict The Final Outcomes Of Our Actions, And Few Of Us Even Try; Most Of Us Just Do What We Do To Prolong A Moment's Pleasure Or To Stop The Pain. And Even When We Act For The Noblest Reasons, The Last Link Of The Chain All Too Often Drips With Someone's Blood.

How To Draw A Picture (xii) Know When You're Finished, And When You Are, Put Your Pencil Or Your Paintbrush Down. All The Rest Is Only Life.

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Tracking Account Planning Is Rather Like Counting A Mixed Batch Of Tropical Fish. You Think You See Patterns, But They've All Changed By The Time You've Finished Counting.

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Description Is What Makes The Reader A Sensory Participant In The Story.

If I Cannot Horrify, I'll Go For The Gross Out. I'm Not Proud.

Everything That Goes Around Comes Around, They Say, And Although I've Never Been Able To Figure Out Who The Mysteriously Wise Sages Known As "they" Might Be, They're Certainly Right When It Comes To Time-travel.

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He Was A Romantic In His Own Harsh Way…yet He Was Also Realist Enough To Know That Some Times Love Actually Did Conquer All.

He Did It (listened) As The World's Most Charming And Magnetic People Do, Always Asking The Right Question At The Right Time, Never Fidgeting Or Taking His Eyes From The Speaker's Face, Making The Other Guy Feel Like The Most Knowledgeable, Brilliant, And Intellectually Savvy Person On The Planet.

Cut Him. Cut Him While I Stand Here And Watch. I Want To See The Blood Flow. Don't Make Me Tell You Twice.

And In The Gunslinger's Mind, Those Words Echoed: You Dare Not.

At Nineteen, It Seems To Me, One Has A Right To Be Arrogant; Time Has Usually Not Begun Its Stealthy And Rotten Subtractions. It Takes Away Your Hair And Your Jump-shot, According To A Popular Country Song, But In Truth It Takes Away A Lot More Than That.

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Writing Is Seduction.

Terror?often Arises From A Pervasive Sense Of Disestablishment; That Things Are In The Unmaking.

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Every Liberal In The Country Must Watch Fox News For One Year, And Every Conservative In The Country Must Watch Msnbc For One Year. (middle-of-the-roaders Could Stick With Csi)

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Fools Are The Only Folk On The Earth Who Can Absolutely Count On Getting What They Deserve.

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Like Some Dogs: Kick Them Once And They Never Trust You Again, No Matter How Nice You Are To Them.

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Good Luck Is Just Bad Luck With Its Hair Combed.

In Polite Society, We Call Our Obsessions Hobbies.

They Had Discovered One Could Grow As Hungry For Light As For Food.

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Kids Know They Can't Make It Alone, Yet At The Same Time, Built Into Each One Of Us, Is A Survival Ethic. It Says, "nobody Cares And You Have To Look Out For Yourself And If You Don't, You'll Die." These Two Things Work Against Each Other. I Think Most Kids Are Very Frightened Of Their Parents, And That's What All Fairy Tales Reflect: Parents Will Fail You And You'll Be Left On Your Own. But, Of Course, Everything Comes Out Right In The End And The Parents Take You Back.

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I Don't Take Notes; I Don't Outline, I Don't Do Anything Like That. I Just Flail Away At The Goddamn Thing. I'm A Salami Writer. I Try To Write Good Salami, But Salami Is Salami. You Can't Sell It As Caviar.

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Bloom Never Pissed Me Off Because There Are Critics Out There, And He's One Of Them, Who Take Their Ignorance About Popular Culture As A Badge Of Intellectual Prowess.

Even When Love Isn't Enough...somehow It Is.

And As A Writer, One Of The Things That I've Always Been Interested In Doing Is Actually Invading Your Comfort Space. Because That's What We're Supposed To Do. Get Under Your Skin, And Make You React.

Good Description Is A Learned Skill, One Of The Prime Reasons Why You Cannot Succeed Unless You Read A Lot And Write A Lot. It’s Not Just A Question Of How-to, You See; It’s Also A Question Of How Much To. Reading Will Help You Answer How Much, And Only Reams Of Writing Will Help You With The How. You Can Learn Only By Doing.

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The First Draft Of A Book—even A Long One—should Take No More Than Three Months, The Length Of A Season.

I Think The Best Writers Are Voracious Readers Who Pick Up The Cadences And The Feel Of Narration Through A Number Of Different Books. And You Begin By Maybe Copying The Style Of Writers That Really Knocked You Out.

A Writer's Notebook Is The Best Way In The World To Immortalize Bad Ideas. My Idea About A Good Idea Is One That Sticks Around And Sticks Around And Sticks Around.

This Is A Short Book Because Most Books About Writing Are Filled With Bullshit.

She Can't Help It,' He Said. 'she's Got The Soul Of A Poet And The Emotional Makeup Of A Junkyard Dog.

Any Game Looks Straight If Everyone Is Being Cheated At Once.

Your Plan And The Stuff That Comes Out Of My Asshole Bear A Suspicious Resemblance To Each Other.

I Think That Friendship Always Makes Us Feel Such Sweet Gratitude, Because The World Almost Always Seems Like A Very Hard Desert, And The Flowers That Grow There Seem To Grow Against Such High Odds.

There Are Lots Of Guys Out There Who Write A Better Prose Line Than I Do And Who Have A Better Understanding Of What People Are Really Like And What Humanity Is Supposed To Mean - Hell, I Know That.

Life Turns On A Dime.

Life Isn't A Support System For Art. It's The Other Way Around.

Support Systems

Grammar Is...the Pole You Grab To Get Your Thoughts Up On Their Feet And Walking.

Feet And Walking

If God Gives You Something You Can Do, Why In God's Name Wouldn't You Do It?

Zombies Are The New Vampire.

You’d Be Surprised What A Person Can Live With,” Dan Said.

God Wiped Snot Out Of His Nose And That Was You.

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New Experiences

All I Ask Is That You Do As Well As You Can, And Remember That, While To Write Adverbs Is Human, To Write He Said Or She Said Is Divine.

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True Sorrow Is As Rare As True Love.

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There’s Always A Choice. That’s God’s Way, Always Will Be. Your Will Is Still Free. Do As You Will. There’s No Set Of Leg-irons On You. But... This Is What God Wants Of You.

The Most Important Things Are The Hardest Things To Say. They Are The Things You Get Ashamed Of, Because Words Diminish Them - Words Shrink Things That Seemed Limitless When They Were In Your Head To No More Than Living Size When They're Brought Out.

I Choose To Believe In God, But I Have Serious Doubts.

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Incomprehension

And Didn't They Say That, Although Curiosity Killed The Cat, Satisfaction Brought The Beast Back?

Where You Think I’m Goan?’ ‘well,’ Eddie Said, ‘what Was Behind Door Number One Wasn’t So Hot, And What Was Behind Door Number Two Was Even Worse, So Now, Instead Of Quitting Like Sane People, We’re Going To Go Right On Ahead And Check Out Door Number Three. The Way Things Have Been Going, I Think It’s Likely To Be Something Like Godzilla Or Ghidra The Three-headed Monster, But I’m An Optimist. I’m Still Hoping For The Stainless Steel Cookware.

The Terror, Which Would Not End For Another 28 Years-if It Ever Did End-began, So Far As I Know Or Can Tell, With A Boat Made From A Sheet Of Newspaper Floating Down A Gutter Swollen With Rain.

He Was A Clot Looking For A Place To Happen, A Splinter Of Bone Hunting A Soft Organ To Puncture, A Lonely Lunatic Cell Looking For A Mate - They Would Set Up Housekeeping And Raise Themselves A Cozy Little Malignant Tumor.

I Think The Best Stories Always End Up Being About The People Rather Than The Event, Which Is To Say Character-driven.

In The End We Always Wear Out Our Worries. That’s What Wireman Says.

Things Were Going Very Fast Now. Too Fast To Suit Him. Fantasy And Reality Had Merged.

Fantasy And Reality

As A Kid, Death Seemed Boring To Me. As An Adult, I Think That It Seems More Like A Waste Of Everything. Somebody Once Said Every Time A Professor Dies, A Library Burns.

Language Does Not Always Have To Wear A Tie And Lace-up Shoes. The Object Of Fiction Isn't Grammatical Correctness But To Make The Reader Welcome And Then Tell A Story... To Make Him/her Forget, Whenever Possible, That He/she Is Reading A Story At All.

Late Last Night And The Night Before, Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers Knocking On My Door. I Wanna Go Out, Don't Know If I Can 'cuz I'm So Afraid Of The Tommyknocker Man.

Roland Could Not Understand Why Anyone Would Want Cocaine Or Any Other Illegal Drug, For That Matter, In A World Where Such A Powerful One As Sugar Was So Plentiful And Cheap.

A Dimwit Thinks Nothing Is Funny Unless It's Mean.

It Was The Kiss By Which All The Others Of His Life Would Be Judged And Found Wanting.

Silent White Light Filled The World. And The Righteous And Unrighteous Alike Were Consumed In That Holy Fire.

It's A Long Way Back To Eden, Sweetheart, So Don't Sweat The Small Stuff.

A Kid Of Your Age---any Kid---could Get Hold Of Matches If She Wanted To, Burn Up The House Or Whatever. But Not Many Do. Why Would They Want To?

Little Kids' Minds Are Very, Very Strong. They Bend. There's A Lot Of Tensile Strength And They Don't Break. We Start Our Kids Off On Things Like "hansel And Gretel," Which Features Child Abandonment, Kidnapping, Attempted Murder, Forcible Detention, Cannibalism, And Finally Murder By Cremation. And The Kids Love It.

God Pisses Down The Back Of Your Neck Every Day But Only Drowns You Once.

Dark Tower Series

I'd Been Raised By My Parents To Believe Barfing Your Feelings On Other People Was The Height Of Impoliteness.

Everyone Needs A Hobby, He Said. And Everyone Needs A Miracle Or Two, Just To Prove Life Is More Than Just One Long Trudge From The Cradle To The Grave.

I Think You're A Taker. You've Always Been One. It's Like God Left Some Part Of You Out When He Built You Inside Of Me.

The Low Bird Is Not Picked Tenderly Out Of The Dust By Its Fellows; Rather, It Is Dispatched Quickly And Without Mercy.

I Like To Write Short Stories More Because I Never Met A Writer Who Wasn't Lazy. And A Short Story Is, By Its Very Definition, Short. It Is Something That Generally You Can Turn Out In A Week To Two Weeks Depending On How Well It Goes For You. But, At The Same Time, It Gives The Same Satisfaction Of Creating A Complete World.

I Like To End Stories Where The Readers Have A Little Room To Run. They Can Resolve Things As They Like In Their Own Mind.

Give Me Just Enough Information So That I Can Lie Convincingly.

And All That Weirdness Isn't Just Going On Outside. It's In You Too, Right Now, Growing In The Dark Like Magic Mushrooms. Call It The Thing In The Cellar. Call It The Blow Lunch Factor. Call It The Loony Tunes File. I Think Of It As My Private Dinosaur, Huge, Slimy, And Mindless, Stumbling Around In The Stinking Swamp Of My Subconscious, Never Finding A Tar Pit Big Enough To Hold It.

God Always Punishes Us For What We Can't Imagine.

If Something Is Accessible To A Lot Of People, It's Got To Be Dumb Because Most People Are Dumb.

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.

The Writer's Original Perception Of A Character Or Characters May Be As Erroneous As The Reader's.

I Write To Find Out What I Think.

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There's A Mr. Hyde For Every Happy Jekyll Face, A Dark Face On The Other Side Of The Mirror. The Brain Behind That Face Never Heard Of Razors, Prayers, Or The Logic Of The Universe. You Turn The Mirror Sideways And See Your Face Reflected With A Sinister Left-hand Twist, Half Mad And Half Sane.

Fear Stands For Face Everything And Recover – Old Aa Saying

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If You Want To Play, You Gotta Pay.

Writing Is Magic, As Much The Water Of Life As Any Other Creative Art. The Water Is Free. So Drink. Drink And Be Filled Up.

It's A Poorboy Sanditch,' Roland Said. 'with Lots Of Mayo, Whatever That Is. I'd Want A Sauce That Didn't Look Quite So Much Like Come, Myself, But May It Do Ya Fine.

The Only Leverage The Manufacturer Can Apply To The Retailer Is His Relationship With The Consumer. And The Main Element In Profit Growth Is Going To Have To Lie In Making His Brand More Valuable To The Retailer, Through Its Being More Valuable To The Consumer. And That Means His Brand Must Be Unique, It Must Have No Adequate Direct Substitutes - Because It Is In This, After All, That Value Lies.

Hearts Can Break. Yes, Hearts Can Break. Sometimes I Think It Would Be Better If We Died When They Did, But We Don't.

The Good Folks Mostly Win, Courage Usually Triumphs Over Fear, The Family Dog Hardly Ever Contracts Rabies: These Are Things I Knew At Twenty-five, And Things I Still Know Now, At The Age Of 25 X 2. But I Know Something Else As Well: There's A Place In Most Of Us Where The Rain Is Pretty Much Constant, The Shadows Are Always Long, And The Woods Are Full Of Monsters. It Is Good To Have A Voice In Which The Terrors Of Such A Place Can Be Articulated And Its Geography Partially Described, Without Denying The Sunshine And Clarity That Fill So Much Of Our Ordinary Lives. (viii)

Eddie Discovered One Of His Childhood's Great Truths. Grownups Are The Real Monsters, He Thought.

The Sun Was A Molten Coin Burning A Circle In The Low-hanging Overcast, Surrounded By A Fairy-ring Of Moisture.

In A Brilliant Fusion Of Fact And Fiction, Jayne Anne Phillips Has Written The Novel Of The Year. It's The Story Of A Serial Killer's Crimes And Capture, Yes, But It's Also A Compulsively Readable Story Of How One Brave Woman Faces Up To Acts Of Terrible Violence In Order To Create Something Good And Strong In The Aftermath. Quiet Dell Will Be Compared To In Cold Blood, But Phillips Offers Something Capote Could Not: A Heroine Who Lights Up The Dark Places And Gives Us Hope In Our Humanity.

When You Put On A Clown Suit And A Rubber Nose, Nobody Has Any Idea What You Look Like Inside.

Because Who Would Ever Want To Get Close To Another Person If They Knew How Hard The Letting-go Part Was? In Your Heart They Only Die A Little At A Time, Don't They? Like A Plant When You Go Away On A Trip And Forget To Ask A Neighbor To Poke In Once In Awhile With The Old Watering-can, And Its So Sad—

...book-buyers Aren't Attracted, By And Large, By The Literary Merits Of A Novel: Book-buyers Want A Good Story...something That Will First Fascinate Them, Then Pull Them In And Keep Them Turning The Pages.

All You Imagined, No Matter How Wild It Might Seem, Was No More Than A Disguised Version Of What You Already Knew.

There Will Be Water If God Wills It.

I’m So Afraid That All I Can Reach Will Lead Me To All I Dare Not See.

True Love, Like Any Other Strong And Addicting Drug, Is Boring — Once The Tale Of Encounter And Discovery Is Told, Kisses Quickly Grow Stale And Caresses Tiresome… Except, Of Course, To Those Who Share The Kisses, Who Give And Take The Caresses While Every Sound And Color Of The World Seems To Deepen And Brighten Around Them. As With Any Other Strong Drug, True First Love Is Really Only Interesting To Those Who Have Become Its Prisoners. And, As Is True Of Any Other Strong And Addicting Drug, True First Love Is Dangerous.

No, It's Not A Very Good Story - Its Author Was Too Busy Listening To Other Voices To Listen As Closely As He Should Have To The One Coming From Inside.

Listening To Others

I Am Religious In The Sense That I Believe In God And I Believe That There Is An Abiding Logical Spirit That Controls What Goes On To A Certain Extent.

The Writer Must Have A Good Imagination To Begin With, But The Imagination Has To Be Muscular, Which Means It Must Be Exercised In A Disciplined Way, Day In And Day Out, By Writing, Failing, Succeeding And Revising.

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