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Clear Communication Between Selves - The Surface Self And The Deep Self - Is The Enemy Of Self-doubt. It Slays Confusion.

-Stephen King

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Clear Communication Between Selves

Stephen King

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Clear Communication Between Selves - The Surface Self And The Deep Self - Is The Enemy Of Self-doubt. It Slays Confusion.

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And If You Are Honest About The Words Coming Out Of Your Characters' Mouths, You'll Find That You've Let Yourself In For A Fair Amount Of Criticism.

I've Always Thought It Would Be Fun To Update "hansel And Gretel." I'd Have These White Parents In The Suburbs With An Income Of Fifty Or Sixty Thousand Dollars. Daddy Loses His Job, And The Wicked Stepmother Says, "we Could Get Along, We Could Keep Our Mastercharge, If You'd Just Get Rid Of Those Shitty Kids." Finally The Father Hires A Limo And Tells The Driver, "drop 'em Off On Lenox Avenue In Harlem At Two In The Morning." These Two Little White Kids Land There. They're Menaced. And This Supposedly Nice Black Lady Says, "would You Like Some Candy?"

Belief In The Supernatural Or Belief In Wild Talents Like Precognition And Telepathy And Telekinesis And Things Like That, It Seems To Me That Belief In Those Things Is Just Very, Very Freeing.

Remember In Elementary School You Were Told That In Case Of Fire You Have To Line Up Quietly In A Single File From Smallest To Tallest? What Is The Logic In That? What, Do Tall People Burn Slower?

No One Likes To See A Government Folder With His Name On It.

The Only [working] Ritual Is Making Tea. I Use The Loose Leaves And Drink It By The Gallon.

Writers Remember Everything...especially The Hurts. Strip A Writer To The Buff, Point To The Scars, And He'll Tell You The Story Of Each Small One. From The Big Ones You Get Novels. A Little Talent Is A Nice Thing To Have If You Want To Be A Writer, But The Only Real Requirement Is The Ability To Remember The Story Of Every Scar. Art Consists Of The Persistence Of Memory.

You Can Go Through Your Whole Life Telling Yourself That Life Is Logical, Life Is Prosaic, Life Is Sane. Above All Sane. And I Think It Is. I've Had A Lot Of Time To Think About That. And What I Keep Coming Back To Is [her] Dying Declaration: 'so You Understand That When We Increase The Number Of Variables, The Axioms Themselves Never Change.'

Like Anything Else That Happens On Its Own, The Act Of Writing Is Beyond Currency. Money Is Great Stuff To Have, But When It Comes To The Act Of Creation, The Best Thing Is Not To Think Of Money Too Much. It Constipates The Whole Process.

Lightning Flashed Dully Inside The Clouds On The Horizon Making Them Look As If They Had Fireflies Of Their Own, Monster Fireflies The Size Of Dinosaurs.

He Was One Of Those Quite Rare Adults Who Communicate With Small Children Fairly Well And Who Love Them All Impartially--not In A Sugary Way But In A Businesslike Fashion That May Sometimes Entail A Hug, In The Same Way That Closing A Big Business Deal May Call For A Handshake.

Read A Lot, Write A Lot Is The Great Commandment.

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.

Love, The Simplest, Strongest, And Most Unforgiving Of All Emotions.

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.

I Am, When You Stop To Think Of It, A Member Of A Fairly Select Group: The Final Handful Of American Novelists Who Learned To Read And Write Before They Learned To Eat A Daily Helping Of Video Bullshit.

...you Need Openness And Inability To Do Anything Other Than Get To The Point.

What Jack Didn't Understand Was That No Matter Where He Went, The Same Asshole Got Off The Plane.

I Started Writing Seriously When I Was About 12. I Am Always In The Mood.

He Would Write It For The Reason He Felt That All Great Literature, Fiction And Nonfiction, Was Written: Truth Comes Out, In The End It Always Comes Out. He Would Write It Because He Felt He Had To.

Close Your Eyes And Click Your Heals Three Times...because There's No Place Like Dome.

Wendy? Darling? Light, Of My Life. I'm Not Gonna Hurt Ya. I'm Just Going To Bash Your Brains In.

It's Only A Little Secret, But Having A Secret Makes Me Feel Better. Like A Human Being Again.

The Great Thing About Writing Is That...you Can Do All These Antisocial Things And You Get Paid For Them And Nobody Ever Arrests You Because They're All Make-believe. Then That Way If You Were Actually Ever Driven To Do Any Of Those Things, The Pressure's Off Because You'd Have Already Written Them Down. It's Therapy.

What Is Writing? Writing Is Telepathy.

Writing Is Not Life, But I Think That Sometimes It Can Be A Way Back To Life.

...maybe The World Needs A Cadre Of Smartasses To Liven Things Up, Who Knows?

Long Days And Pleasant Nights

A Coward Judges All He Sees By What He Is.

You See Something, Then It Clicks With Something Else, And It Will Make A Story. But You Never Know When It's Going To Happen.

What I'm Saying Is That I'm Trying To Find Rational Reasons To Explain Irrational Feelings, And That's Neveer A Good Sign.

A Broken Spoon May Be A Fork In Disguise.

I Spend A Lot Of Time Parenting Because I'm Home. A Friend Of Mine Told Me That The Average Father Sees Each Kid An Average Of Twenty-two Minutes A Week, Which I Found Almost Unbelievable. Mine Are In My Hip Pocket All The Time. And I Like It That Way.

Writers Must Be Fair And Remember Even Bad Guys (most Of Them, Anyway) See Themselves As Good—they Are The Heroes Of Their Own Lives. Giving Them A Fair Chance As Characters Can Create Some Interesting Shades Of Gray—and Shades Of Gray Are Also A Part Of Life.

We Have Once Again Succeeded In Destroying What We Could Not Create.

Carrie Was A Terrific Piece Of Work. At The End Of The Movie Comes, When Amy Irving Kneels Down To Put The Flowers On Carrie's Grave, A Hand Comes Up Through The Grave And Seizes Her By The Arm. The Audience Went To The Roof, Totally To The Roof. It Was Just The Most Amazing Reaction. And I Thought, 'we Have A Monster Hit On Our Hands. Brian De Palma Has Done Something New. He's Actually Created A Shock Ending That Shocks An Audience That Was Ready For A Horror Film.' And There Were Several People Who Did It After That.

Time Apparently Did Nothing But Blunt Grief’s Sharpest Edge So That It Hacked Rather Than Sliced.

You Can't Be Careful On A Skateboard.

Horror Movies Often Work Better When We Have A Stake In The Game. The More We Care About The Characters, The More Human They Are To Us, The More Appealing They Are To Us And The More Effective The Horror Tends To Be.

Sorry Is The Kool-aid Of Human Emotions. It's What You Say When You Spill A Cup Of Coffee Or Throw A Gutter Ball When You're Bowling With The Girls In The League. True Sorrow Is As Rare As True Love.

I Do Not Aim With My Hand; He Who Aims With His Hand Has Forgotten The Face Of His Father. I Aim With My Eye. I Do Not Shoot With My Hand; He Who Shoots With His Hand Has Forgotten The Face Of His Father. I Shoot With My Mind. I Do Not Kill With My Gun; He Who Kills With His Gun Has Forgotten The Face Of His Father. I Kill With My Heart.

Did-a-chick? Dum-a-chum? Dad-a-cham? Ded-a-chek?

He Remembered Waking Up Once, Listening To The Wind, Thinking Of All The Dark And Rushing Cold Outside And All The Warmth Of This Bed, Filled With Their Peaceful Heat Under Two Quilts, And Wishing It Could Be Like This Forever.

Description Begins In The Writer’s Imagination, But Should Finish In The Reader’s.

Teddy, Vern, Chris: I Don't Shut Up. I Grow Up. And When I Look At You, I Throw Up. Aghhh! Gordie: And Then Your Mom Goes Around The Corner And She Licks It Up.

By The Time I Was Fourteen The Nail In My Wall Would No Longer Support The Weight Of The Rejection Slips Impaled Upon It. I Replaced The Nail With A Spike And Went On Writing.

The World Was The Overlook Hotel, Where The Party Never Ended. Where The Dead Were Alive Forever.

Monsters Are Real, And Ghosts Are Real Too. They Live Inside Us, And Sometimes, They Win.

If You Can't Laugh When Things Go Bad--laugh And Put On A Little Carnival--then You're Either Dead Or Wishing You Were.

The Glory Of A Good Tale Is That It Is Limitless And Fluid; A Good Tale Belongs To Each Reader In Its Own Particular Way.

Death Was No Less A Miracle Than Birth.

Humans Were Built To Look Back; That's Why We Have That Swivel Joint In Our Necks

A Change Is As Good As A Rest.

His Name Is Legion. He Is The King Of Nowhere.

He Found Himself Still With Too Many Questions And Not Enough Answers.

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

Don't Let The Sun Go Down Without Saying Thank You To Someone, And Without Admitting To Yourself That Absolutely No One Gets This Far Alone.

Art Should Be A Place Of Hope.

I Think That's What People Most Always Do With The Stuff They Can't Make Out - Just Forget It.

I Enjoy Going Back And Forth Between Plays And Novels. It`s Like Having A Wife And A Mistress. Books Are The Wife; Plays, The Mistress.

Everybody Wants To Psychoanalyze Horror. They Don't Want To Psychoanalyze A Book Like Gay Talese's "sex With Your Neighbor" [sic] Or Something Like That. It's Pretty Much Accepted That Americans Should Be Interested In Who They're Diddling And How They're Doing It.

It Was Always A Pleasure To Write. I Can Never Think Of A Time When I Just Hacked Something Out To Fulfil A Contract Or Meet A Deadline. I Might Have Hacked Things Out, But It Was Always Stuff I Loved.

They Were Nice Enough People And All, But There Wasn't Much Love In Them. Because They Were Too Busy Being Afraid. Love Didn't Grow Very Well In A Place Where There Was Only Fear, Just As Plants Didn't Grow Very Well In A Place Where It Was Always Dark.

I Wasn't A Social Drinker. I Used To Say That I Didn't Want To Go To Bars Because They Were Full Of Assholes Like Me.

What You Don’t Know, You Can’t Tell. Or Made To Tell.

My Friend Wants To Get Moving And So Do I,' Eddie Said. 'we've Got Miles To Go Yet.' I Know That. It's On Your Face, Son. Like A Scar.' Eddie Was Fascinated By The Idea Of Duty And Ka As Something That Left A Mark, Something That Might Look Like Decoration To One Eye And Disfigurement To Another. Outside, Thunder Cracked And Lightning Flashed.

It Was As Hysterical As A Woman Having A Hot Flash.

Anything With The Power To Make You Laugh Over Thirty Years Later Isn’t A Waste Of Time. I Think Something Like That Is Very Close To Immortality.

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

There Is A Story In The Book Night Shift, Called 'the Mangler,' About A Laundry Machine That Takes On A Sort Of Malignant Life. I Worked In A Laundry For About A Year And A Half After I Got Out Of College. It Was The Only Job I Could Find To Support My Wife And Our First Child. There Was A Fellow There That Had No Hands Or Forearms. He Simply Had Hooks. This Is One Of The Things That They Don't Tell You About When You Become Management. You Have To Wear A Tie. It Was This Fellow's Tie That Did Him In.

I Think Most Of Us Are Fascinated By The Macabre And By The Weird And Even The Nastiness That Comes Along.

Some Things It Don't Pay To Be Curious About.

Wow. This Makes Grand Central Look Like A Bus Stop In Buttfuck Nebraska.

Well, I'm Like A Drug Addict, I'm Always Saying I'm Going To Stop, And Then I Don't, What I've Said Consistently Is That I Hope I Know When To Stop: When It Starts To Get Repetitive.

Sure, We Need The Gypsies. We Always Have. Because If You Don't Have Someone To Run Out Of Town Once In A While, How Are You Going To Know You Yourself Belong There?

Lying In The Bed That Had Once Held Two, Lisey Thought Alone Never Felt More Lonely Than When You Woke Up And Discovered You Still Had The House To Yourself. That You And The Mice In The Walls Were The Only Ones Still Breathing.

It Didn´t Occur To Me Until Later That There´s Another Truth, Very Simple: Greed In A Good Cause Is Still Greed.

He Removed His Unvaluable Valuables And Dumped His Shirt, Pants, And Skivvies Into A Letter Slot.

He Had Come To Believe That Life Was A Series Of Ironic Ambushes. - Doctor Sleep

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

I Believe There Is An Unseen World All Around Us.

The Battle Between Good And Evil Is Endlessly Fascinating Because We Are Participants Every Day.

The Death Of The Music Business Was Insane, But Audio Recordings Have Been Around Now For Maybe 120 Years. Books Have Been Around For, What, Nine Centuries? So They're More Entrenched Than Music.

It Is, After All, The Dab Of Grit That Seeps Into An Oyster's Shell That Makes The Pearl, Not Pearl-making Seminars With Other Oysters.

Sometimes Life Coughs Up Coincidences No Writer Of Fiction Would Dare Copy.

Oh, There Were All Sorts Of Things To Wonder About, But The Truth Was Simple: Here Stood This Door Alone On An Endless Stretch Of Beach, And It Was For Only One Of Two Things: Opening Or Leaving Closed.

Do Any Men Grow Up Or Do They Only Come Of Age?

Man May Have Been Made In The Image Of God, But Human Society Was Made In The Image Of His Opposite Number, And Is Always Trying To Get Back Home.

Only Enemies Speak The Truth; Friends And Lovers Lie Endlessly, Caught In The Web Of Duty.

I Identify With The Characters Very Closely. At The Same Time That I`m Outside, Writing, I`m Also Inside, Experiencing, And It Can Be Very Unsettling.

I Have An Idea Of How The Book Will Finish Up, But It Very Rarely Finishes Up The Way That I Think It's Going To.

For Me, Good Description Usually Consists Of A Few Well-chosen Details That Will Stand For Everything Else.

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

The Boat Dipped And Swayed And Sometimes Took On Water, But It Did Not Sink; The Two Brothers Had Waterproofed It Well. I Do Not Know Where It Finally Fetched Up, If It Ever Did; Perhaps It Reached The Sea And Sails There Forever, Like A Magic Boat In A Fairytale. All I Know Is That It Was Still Afloat And Still Running On The Breast Of The Flood When It Passed The Incorporated Town Limits Of Derry, Maine, And There It Passes Out Of This Tale Forever.

True Sorrow Is As Rare As True Love.

The Redness Was Going Out Of The Light Now, The Remains Of The Day Were A Fading Pink, The Color Of Wild Roses.

Small Towns Harbor Small Imaginations.

Ka Works And The World Moves On.

You Learn Best By Reading A Lot And Writing A Lot, And The Most Valuable Lessons Of All Are The Ones You Teach Yourself.

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.

The Late Afternoon Sunlight, Warm As Oil, Sweet As Childhood.

No Knowledge Obtained Without Risk

I Am In Trouble Here. This Woman Is Not Right.

Life's Simplest Answers Are Often The Easiest To Overlook.

Most People Are Optimists, Although They May Claim They Are Not. People Who Call Themselves Realists Are Often The Biggest Optimists Of All.

The Rope By Which The Great Blocks Of Taxes Are Attached To Any Citizenry Is Simple Loyalty.

It's Strange How Pain Marks Our Faces, And Makes Us Look Like Family.

It's Not The Pain I'm Afraid Of; I Know About The Pain. What I'm Afraid Of Is The End Of This Small, Sweet Dream.

In The End We Are All Caught In Devices Of Our Own Making. I Believe That. In The End We Are All Caught.

Superstition, Like True Love, Needs Time To Grow And Reflect Upon Itself.

Invitation To Dance- It’s A Dance. And Sometimes They Turn The Lights Off In This Ballroom. But We’ll Dance Anyway, You And I. Even In The Dark. Especially In The Dark. May I Have The Pleasure?

Being Sorry For Myself Is A Luxury I Can't Afford.

When You Start, It's Very Cold, An Impossible Task. But Then Maybe The Characters Start To Take On A Little Bit Of Life, Or The Story Takes A Turn That You Don't Expect ... With Me That Happens A Lot Because I Don't Outline, I Just Have A Vague Notion. So It's Always Felt Like Less Of A Made Thing And More Of A Found Thing. That's Exciting. That's A Thrill.

He Understood Well Enough How A Man With A Choice Between Pride And Responsibility Will Almost Always Choose Pride--if Responsibility Robs Him Of His Manhood.

I See Things, That's All. Write Enough Stories And Every Shadow On The Floor Looks Like A Footprint; Every Line In The Dirt Like A Secret Message.

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

Hearts Are Tough, Most Times They Don't Break. Most Times They Are Only Bend

He Smiles A Lot. But I Think There Might Be Worms Inside Him Making Him Smile.

Do You Believe In An Afterlife?" The Gunslinger Asked Him As Brown Dropped Three Ears Of Hot Corn Onto His Plate. Brown Nodded. "i Think This Is It.

First Comes Smiles, Then Lies. Last Is Gunfire.-roland Deschain, Of Gilead

The Situation Comes First...the Characters...come Next...[then] Begin To Narrate.

It Wasn't Just Love That Held People Together. There Was Secrets, And The Price You Paid To Keep Them.

It's The Pool Where We All Go Down To Drink, To Swim, To Catch A Little Fish From The Edge Of The Shore; It's Also The Pool Where Some Hardy Souls Go Out In Their Flimsy Wooden Boats After The Big Ones. It Is The Pool Of Life, The Cup Of Imagination, And She Has An Idea That Different People See Different Versions Of It, But With Two Things Ever In Common: It's Always About A Mile Deep In The Fairy Forest, And It's Always Sad. Because Imagination Isn't The Only Thing This Place Is About.

Kids, Fiction Is The Truth Inside The Lie, And The Truth Of This Fiction Is Simple Enough: The Magic Exists.

Show Me A Man Or A Woman Alone And I'll Show You A Saint. Give Me Two And They'll Fall In Love. Give Me Three And They'll Invent The Charming Thing We Call 'society'. Give Me Four And They'll Build A Pyramid. Give Me Five And They'll Make One An Outcast. Give Me Six And They'll Reinvent Prejudice. Give Me Seven And In Seven Years They'll Reinvent Warfare. Man May Have Been Made In The Image Of God, But Human Society Was Made In The Image Of His Opposite Number, And Is Always Trying To Get Back Home.

Falling In Love

I Can See Your Dirtypillows.

The Most Important Things Are The Hardest To Say

If You Intend To Write As Truthfully As You Can, Your Days As A Member Of Polite Society Are Numbered.

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

You Pay For What You Get, You Own What You Pay For... And Sooner Or Later Whatever You Own Comes Back Home To You.

We Are Going To Fight. We Are Going To Be Hurt. And In The End, We Will Stand.

I'll See You.' He Grinned. 'not If I See You First.

It Was Really Amazing The Number Of Hard Hits From Which A Mind Could Recover.

I Drink A Lot Of Beer, And That's The Drug Of Choice. You Find The Drug That Works For You. I Know, For Instance, This Guy Named Harlan Ellison - And He's Not Alone - Who's Very Proud Of The Fact That He Doesn't Put Dope Into His Body. He Tries Not To Put Additives Into His Body, Or Anything Like That. But He Can Afford To Do That Because Harlan's Drug Of Choice Is Harlan.

Words Create Sentences; Sentences Create Paragraphs; Sometimes Paragraphs Quicken And Begin To Breathe.

Sometimes The Embers Are Better Than The Campfire.

The Man In Black Fled Across The Desert, And The Gunslinger Followed.

Of Course They Had More Chains On Him Than Scrooge Saw On Marley's Ghost, But He Could Have Kicked Up Dickens If He'd Wanted. That's A Pun, Son.

If You Can Remember All The Accessories That Go With Your Best Outfit, The Contents Of Your Purse, The Starting Lineup Of The New York Yankees Or The Houston Oilers, Or What Label "hang On Sloopy" By The Mccoys Was On, You Are Capable Of Remembering The Differences Between A Gerund (verb Form Used As A Noun) And A Participle (verb Form Used As An Adjective).

As We Get Older, Our Fears, In Some Way, Sharpen And Become More Personal, Because We Can No Longer - Let's Say Take A Book Like "it" Or Maybe "christine," And Say These Are Make-believe Fears.

Writing Is A Lonely Job. Having Someone Who Believes In You Makes A Lot If Difference. They Don't Have To Makes Speeches. Just Believing Is Usually Enough.

Dead Fields Under A November Sky, Scattered Rose Petals Brown And Turning Up At The Edges, Empty Pools Scummed With Algae, Rot, Decomposition, Dust.

She Nods. You're Good For The Ones You Love. You Want To Be Good For The Ones You Love, Because You Know That Your Time With Them Will End Up Being Too Short, No Matter How Long It Is.

I Don't Want To Speak Too Disparagingly Of My Generation (actually I Do, We Had A Chance To Change The World But Opted For The Home Shopping Network Instead).

The First Movie I Ever Saw Was A Horror Movie. It Was Bambi. When That Little Deer Gets Caught In A Forest Fire, I Was Terrified, But I Was Also Exhilarated.

I Can Remember As A College Student Writing Stories And Novels, Some Of Which Ended Up Getting Published And Some That Didn't. It Was Like My Head Was Going To Burst - There Were So Many Things I Wanted To Write All At Once. I Had So Many Ideas, Jammed Up. It Was Like They Just Needed Permission To Come Out.

Sometimes Stories Cry Out To Be Told In Such Loud Voices That You Write Them Just To Shut Them Up.

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.

In Polite Society, We Call Our Obsessions Hobbies.

Only God Gets Things Right The First Time.

And Poets, In My View, And I Think The View Of Most People, Do Speak God's Language - It's Better, It's Finer, It's Language On A Higher Plane Than Ordinary People Speak In Their Daily Lives.

I Think There Ought To Be Some Serious Discussion By Smart People, Really Smart People, About Whether Or Not Proliferation Of Things Like The Smoking Gun And Tmz And Youtube And The Whole Celebrity Culture Is Healthy. We've Switched From A Culture That Was Interested In Manufacturing, Economics, Politics - Trying To Play A Serious Part In The World - To A Culture That's Really Entertainment-based. I Mean, I Know People Who Can Tell You Who Won The Last Four Seasons On American Idol And They Don't Know Who Their [bleeping] Representatives Are.

People Seem To Think There's A Magic Formula To Writing, I Just Write 1 Word At A Time.

He Who Speaks Without An Attentive Ear Is Mute.

Animals Don't Know As Much About Jealousy As People, But They're Not Ignorant Of It, Either.

At The Time We’re Stuck In It, Like Hostages Locked In A Turkish Bath, High School Seems The Most Serious Business In The World To Just About All Of Us. It’s Not Until The Second Or Third Class Reunion That We Start Realizing How Absurd The Whole Thing Was.

Nobody Lives Forever, But We All Shine On.

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.

Life Was A Wheel, Its Only Job Was To Turn, And It Always Came Back To Where It Started.

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

Laughter... Is Like A Hurricane: Once It Reaches A Certain Point, It Becomes Self-feeding, Self-supporting. You Laugh Not Because The Jokes Are Funny But Because Your Own Condition Is Funny.

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.

Dead Was The Gift That Kept On Giving. Dead, Like Diamonds, Was Forever.

In The Stutter-flashes Of Light, The Clouds Look Like Huge Transparent Brains Filled With Bad Thoughts.

Not Everybody Believes In Ghosts, But I Do. Do You Know What They Are, Trisha? She Had Shaken Her Head Slowly. Men And Women Who Can't Get Over Their Past . . . That's What Ghosts Are.

Love Among The Ruins... I'll Tell You Something, My Friend: Weird Love's Better Than No Love At All.

I've Said It Before, And I'll Say It Again. When You Find Something At Which You Have Talent, You Do That Thing (what Ever It Is) Until Your Fingers Bleed Or Your Eyes Pop Out Of Your Head.

If You Expect To Succeed As A Writer, Rudeness Should Be The Second-to-least Of Your Concerns. The Least Of All Should Be Polite Society And What It Expects. If You Intend To Write As Truthfully As You Can, Your Days As A Member Of Polite Society Are Numbered, Anyway.

Don't Look Back, Never Look Back. How Often Do People Tell Themselves That After An Experience That Is Exceptionally Good (or Exceptionally Bad?)? Often, I Suppose. And The Advice Usually Goes Unheeded. Humans Were Built To Look Back; That's Why We Have Tat Swivel Joint In Our Necks.

I Don't Ask Myself, "well, Does God Exist Or Does God Not Exist?" I Choose To Believe That God Exists, And Therefore I Can Say, "god, I Can't Do This By Myself. Help Me Not To Take A Drink Today. Help Me Not To Take A Drug Today." And That Works Fine For Me.

Why' Is A Crooked Letter And Can't Be Made Straight.

Too Often, In Novels That Are Speculative, God Is A Kind Of Kryptonite, And That's About All That It Is, And It Goes Back To Dracula, Where Someone Dumps A Crucifix In Count Dracula's Face, And He Pulls Away And Runs Back Into His House. That's Not Religion. That's Some Kind Of Juju, Like A Talisman.

Don't Wait For The Muse. As I've Said, He's A Hardheaded Guy Who's Not Susceptible To A Lot Of Creative Fluttering. This Isn't The Ouija Board Or The Spirit-world We're Talking About Here, But Just Another Job Like Laying Pipe Or Driving Long-haul Trucks. Your Job Is To Make Sure The Muse Knows Where You're Going To Be Every Day From Nine 'til Noon. Or Seven 'til Three. If He Does Know, I Assure You That Sooner Or Later He'll Start Showing Up.

On The Day Of My Judgment, When I Stand Before God, And He Asks Me Why Did I Kill One Of His True Miracles, What Am I Gonna Say? That It Was My Job? My Job?

I Start Work Around 8 A.m. And Usually Finish Around Noon. If There's More To Do, I Do It In The Late Afternoon, Although That Isn't Prime Time For Me.

Successful Rebellions Always Begin In Secret.

The Book Is Not The Important Part. The Book Is The Delivery System. The Important Part Is The Story And The Talent.

You Want To Remember That While You're Judging The Book, The Book Is Also Judging You.

Life Is A Wheel, And If You Wait Long Enough, It Always Comes Back Around To Where It Started.

I Think There Ought To Be Some Serious Discussion By Smart People, Really Smart People, About Whether Or Not Proliferation Of Things Like The Smoking Gun And Tmz And Youtube And The Whole Celebrity Culture Is Healthy.

If God Rewards Us On Earth For Good Deeds—the Old Testament Suggests It’s So, And The Puritans Certainly Believed It—then Maybe Satan Rewards Us For Evil Ones.

Sooner Or Later Even The Fastest Runners Have To Stand And Fight.

I'm Afraid Of All Kinds Of Things. I'm Afraid Of Failing At Whatever Story I'm Writing - That It Won't Come Up For Me, Or That I Won't Be Able To Finish It.

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

Do You Know How Cruel Your God Can Be, David. How Fantastically Cruel?...sometimes He Makes Us Live.

You Can See The Goldenrod, That Most Tenacious And Pernicious And Beauteous Of All New England Flora, Bowing Away From The Wind Like A Great And Silent Congregation.

When I Was Younger, I Used To Vacillate Between Thinking Love Was This Great And Glorious Mystery And Thinking It Was Just Something A Bunch Of Hollywood Move Producers Made Up To Sell More Tickets In The Depression, When Dish Night Kind Of Played Out." Eddie Laughed. Now I Think That All Of Us Are Born With A Hole In Our Hearts, And We Go Around Looking For The Person Who Can Fill It. You...eddie, You Fill Me Up.

Good Luck Is Just Bad Luck With Its Hair Combed.

Pray For Rain While Digging A Well.

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.

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.

The Scariest, Most Terrifying Thing That I Fear? Yes. My Imagination. I Thought You Were Going To Say "fear, Itself." Then You Have A Small Imagination.

The First Movie I Can Remember Seeing Was The Creature From The Black Lagoon. And, I Can Remember Hearing A Radio Play Of Ray Bradbury's Mars Is Heaven. And When I Cut My Teeth On Comic Books, They Were Not The Easy Ones Of Today Like Spiderman, Superman And The Hulk. They Were Tales Of The Crypt, The Vaultkeeper, And That Sort Of Thing.

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.

In The Year 2025, The Best Men Don't Run For President, They Run For Their Lives. . . .

Want A Coke?” Abra Asked. “sugar Solves Lots Of Problems, That’s What I Think.

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