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I Am Always Chilled And Astonished By The Would-be Writers Who Ask Me For Advice And Admit, Quite Blithely, That They "don't Have Time To Read." This Is Like A Guy Starting Up Mount Everest Saying That He Didn't Have Time To Buy Any Rope Or Pitons.

-Stephen King

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I Am Always Chilled

Stephen King

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I Am Always Chilled And Astonished By The Would-be Writers Who Ask Me For Advice And Admit, Quite Blithely, That They "don't Have Time To Read." This Is Like A Guy Starting Up Mount Everest Saying That He Didn't Have Time To Buy Any Rope Or Pitons.

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I Don't Want To Just Mess With Your Head. I Want To Mess With Your Life.... I Want You To Miss Appointments, Burn Dinner, Skip Your Homework. I Want You To Tell Your Wife To Take That Moonlight Stroll On The Beach At Waikiki With The Resort Tennis Pro While You Read A Few More Chapters.

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Procrastination

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I Had A Period Where I Thought I Might Not Be Good Enough To Publish.

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Let's Face It. No Kid In High School Feels As Though They Fit In.

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

When You Stack Up All The Years We Are Allowed Against All There Is To Read, Time Is Very Short Indeed.

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

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The Color White Is The Absence Of Memory.

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Explanations Are Such Cheap Poetry.

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

The Best Show On Television Is Red Sox Baseball. Everything Else Sucks.

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.

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

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

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

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

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Falling In Love

Sometimes There Is Absolutely No Difference At All Between Salvation And Damnation.

The Shining. It Was A Good Name, A Comforting Name, Because She Had Always Thought Of It As A Dark Thing.

Memory Is The Basis Of Every Journey.

We All Float Down Here!

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We Sometimes Need To Create Unreal Monsters And Bogies To Stand In For All The Things We Fear In Our Real Lives.

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It's Best To Be Ruthless With The Past.

In Small Towns People Scent The Wind With Noses Of Uncommon Keenness.

I Just Didn't Want Her To Get Hurt. I Thought She Was Going To Be. But Everyone Gets Their Share, Don't They? Sure. Pow, In The Nose. Pow, In The Eye. Pow, Below The Belt, Down You Go, And The Ref Just Went Out For A Hot Dog.

When The Time Is Gone, You Can Never Get It Back.

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.

Every Marriage Has Two Hearts, One Light And One Dark

For Most Of Us, I Think It's Easier To Admit Doing Wrong Than Being Stupid.

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If A Writer Knows What He Or She Is Doing, I'll Go Along For The Ride. If He Or She Doesn't... Well, I'm In My Fifties Now, And There Are A Lot Of Books Out There. I Don't Have Time To Waste With The Poorly Written Ones.

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.

The Year She Had Run Fleetly Through The Dewy Grass Under The Moon- The Night Of Wine, When Dreams Condensed Out Of Thin Air Like The Nightmilk Of Fantasy.

Kids Absolutely Not Reading. I Think It's Because They're So Screen-oriented [tvs, Computers, Smartphones]. They Do Read - Girls In Particular Read A Lot. They Have A Tendency To Go Toward The Paranormal, Romances, Twilight And Stuff Like That. And Then It Starts To Taper Off Because Other Things Take Precedence, Like The Kardashian Sisters.

If Anyone Ever Asks You What Panic Is, Now You Can Tell Them: An Emotional Blank Spot That Leaves You Feeling As If You've Been Sucking On A Mouthful Of Pennies.

There Came A Time When You Realized That Moving On Was Pointless. That You Took Yourself With You Wherever You Went.

Semi-automatic S Have Only Two Purposes. One Is So Owners Can Take Them To The Shooting Range Once In A While, Yell Yeehaw, And Get All Horny At The Rapid Fire And The Burning Vapor Spurting From The End Of The Barrel. Their Other Use-their Only Other Use-is To Kill People.

And In Real Life Endings Aren't Always Neat, Whether They're Happy Endings, Or Whether They're Sad Endings.

Politics Always Change. Stories Never Do.

Time Was A Face On The Water, And Like The Great River Before Them, It Did Nothing But Flow.

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

A Campaign, Like A Brand, Is Not Just A Number Of Bits Put Together - A Claim Here, A Pack Shot There, A Reason Why Somewhere Else. If We Try To Produce It By The Atomistic Approach, We Will End Up With A Sort Of Identikit Brand. It Will Be A Perfect Description Of The Structure Of The Brand, As The Identikit Can Describe The Contours Of The Face. But It Won't Be The Same Thing. The Brand Will Never Come To Life.

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

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Talent Is A Dreadfully Cheap Commodity, Cheaper Than Table Salt. What Separates The Talented Individual From The Successful One Is A Lot Of Hard Work And Study; A Constant Process Of Honing. Talent Is A Dull Knife That Will Cut Nothing Unless It Is Wielded With Great Force.

The Dream Didn't Fade As Dreams Usually Do Upon Waking.

I Don't Have Nightmares; I Give Them All To You.

God Is Cruel. Sometimes He Makes You Live.

It Would Perhaps Not Be Amiss To Point Out That He Had Always Tried To Be A Good Dog. He Had Tried To Do All The Things His Man And His Woman, And Most Of All His Boy, Had Asked Or Expected Of Him. He Would Have Died For Them, If That Had Been Required. He Had Never Wanted To Kill Anybody. He Had Been Struck By Something, Possibly Destiny, Or Fate, Or Only A Degenerative Nerve Disease Called Rabies. Free Will Was Not A Factor.

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?"

How Many Times, Over How Many Years, Had He—a Grown Man—asked For The Mercy Of Another Chance? He Was Suddenly So Sick Of Himself, So Revolted, That He Could Have Groaned Aloud.

The Most Important Things To Remember About Back Story Are That (a) Everyone Has A History And (b) Most Of It Isn’t Very Interesting.

A Slice Of Pie Without Cheese Is Like A Kiss Without A Squeeze.

We're All Going To Die; I'm Just Trying To Make It A Little More Interesting.

A Good Reputation Is Something That Must Be Earned, Yet Can Never Be Bought.

Good Reputation

When It Comes To Horror There's A Strange Need To Analyze. When "evil Children" Fad Happened, There Was The Exorcist And The Other And The Omen. People Would Say, "what This Really Means Is That Americans Don't Want To Have Kids Anymore. They Feel Hostility Towards Their Own Children. They Feel They're Being Tied Down And Dragged Down." In Fact, In Most Cases, What Those Books Are About Is Nice Children Who Are Beset By Forces Beyond Their Control.

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.

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

You're Dead, George. You Just Don't Have The Sense To Lie Down.

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

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

For A Moment He Felt A Wild Hope: Perhaps This Really Was A Nightmare. Perhaps He Would Awake In His Own Bed, Bathed In Sweat, Shaking, Maybe Even Crying . . . But Alive. Safe. Then He Pushed The Thought Away. Its Charm Was Deadly, Its Comfort Fatal.

Each Life Makes Its Own Immitation Of Immortality.

The Age Of The Book Is Not Over. No Way... But Maybe The Age Of Some Books Is Over. People Say To Me Sometimes 'steve, Are You Ever Going To Write A Straight Novel, A Serious Novel' And By That They Mean A Novel About College Professors Who Are Having Impotence Problems Or Something Like That. And I Have To Say Those Things Just Don't Interest Me. Why? I Don't Know. But It Took Me About Twenty Years To Get Over That Question, And Not Be Kind Of Ashamed About What I Do, Of The Books I Write.

One Night When My Longing For Her Was Like A Fire Burning Out Of Control In My Heart And My Head, I Wrote Her A Letter That Just Seemed To Go On And On. I Poured Out My Whole Heart In It, Never Looking Back To See What I'd Said Because I Was Afraid Cowardice Would Make Me Stop. I Didn't Stop, And When A Voice In My Head Clamored That It Would Be Madness To Mail Such A Letter, That I Would Be Giving Her My Naked Heart To Hold In Her Hand, I Ignored It With A Child's Breathless Disregard Of The Consequences.

I Think We Rarely Recognize The Fifth Business In Our Lives At The Time Those People Are Changing Us.

But It's Writing, Damn It, Not Washing The Car Or Putting On Eyeliner. If You Can Take It Seriously, We Can Do Business. If You Can't Or Won't, It's Time For You To Close The Book And Do Something Else. Wash The Car, Maybe.

Do You Need Someone To Make You A Paper Badge With The Word Writer On It Before You Can Believe You Are One? God I Hope Not.

I Realized The Shells Were Talking In A Voice I Recognized. I Should Have; It Was My Own. Had I Always Known That? I Suppose I Had. On Some Level, Unless We're Mad, I Think Most Of Us Know The Various Voices Of Our Own Imaginations. And Of Our Memories, Of Course. They Have Voices, Too. Ask Anyone Who Has Ever Lost A Limb Or A Child Or A Long-cherished Dream. Ask Anyone Who Blames Himself For A Bad Decision, Usually Made In A Raw Instant (an Instant That Is Most Commonly Red). Our Memories Have Voices, Too. Often Sad Ones That Clamor Like Raised Arms In The Dark.

Symbolism Exists To Adorn And Enrich, Not To Create An Artificial Sense Of Profundity.

Once Again There Was The Desert, And That Only.

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

I Was Sitting One Day And Thinking About Cannibalism, Because That's What Guys Like Me Do... And I Thought, Suppose A Guy Was Washed Up On A Rocky Island, How Much Of Himself Could He Eat?

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.

Dolls With No Little Girls Around To Mind Them Were Sort Of Creepy Under Any Conditions.

I Stood For Almost An Hour In A Line Of Shuffling, Bitter - Eyed Late Mailers (christmas Is Such A Carefree, Low - Pressure Time - That's One Of The Things I Love About It).

The Idea That Creative Endeavor And Mind-altering Substances Are Entwined Is One Of The Great Pop-intellectual Myths Of Our Time.

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.

I Looked At The Ceiling And Wished This Life Was Over. This Unhappy Life That Had Started Out So Confidently. I Thought I Would Sleep No More That Night But Eventually I Did. In The End We Always Wear Out Our Worries. That's What Wire Man Says.

But I Think There Are A Set Of Experiences That Turn A Potential Writer Into A Working Writer, And Then There Are Places In Your Life Were You Start To Recognize What You Want To Do.

Places In Your Life

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

In Polite Society, We Call Our Obsessions Hobbies.

I Think Reality Is Thin, You Know, Thin As Lake Ice After A Thaw, And We Fill Our Lives With Noise And Light And Motion To Hide That Thinness From Ourselves.

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.

Remember, Hope Is A Good Thing, Maybe The Best Of Things, And No Good Thing Ever Dies.

Home Is Watching The Moon Rise Over The Open, Sleeping Land And Having Someone You Can Call To The Window, So You Can Look Together. Home Is Where You Dance With Others, And Dancing Is Life.

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.

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.

Some Guys-a Lot Of Guys-don't Believe What They Are Seeing, Especially If It Gets In The Way Of What They Want To Eat Or Drink Or Believe. Me, I Don't Believe In God. But If I Saw Him, I Would. I Wouldn't Just Go Around Saying, "jesus, That Was A Great Special Effect." The Definition Of An Asshole Is A Guy Who Doesn't Believe What He's Seeing.

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

It Don't Matter If You Believe In God Nick, He Believes In You.

Rewrite Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft - 10%.

I'd Like To Take A Motorcycle Trip Across Europe, Maybe Even Across China. Of Course I'd Also Like To Broker A Peace Agreement Between The Israelis And The Palestinians, But It's Important To Put Ceilings On One's Ambitions.

We Never Cease Wanting What We Want, Whether It's Good For Us Or Not.

In Both Writing And Sleeping, We Learn To Be Physically Still At The Same Time We Are Encouraging Our Minds To Unlock From The Humdrum Rational Thinking Of Our Daytime Lives.

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.

Writing Fiction, Especially A Long Work Of Fiction, Can Be A Difficult, Lonely Job; It's Like Crossing The Atlantic Ocean In A Bathtub. There's Plenty Of Opportunity For Self-doubt.

I Believe In Evil, But All My Life I've Gone Back And Forth About Whether Or Not There's An Outside Evil, Whether Or Not There's A Force In The World That Really Wants To Destroy Us, From The Inside Out, Individually And Collectively.

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