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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.
-Stephen King
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I Wasn't A Social

Stephen King
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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.

Understanding the Quote: "i wasn't a social drinker. i used to say that i didn't..."

This quote by Stephen King reflects deeply on the theme of bars. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Bars, Want, Social, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Stephen King interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Stephen King

Stephen King is celebrated for insightful thoughts on bars and want. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Bars
Want
Social
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Waste
Wells
There Are A Lot Of People In The Field [ Of Horror Stories] That I Do Read. There Is A Lot Of Stuff That Is Written In This Field, Though, That Is Not Very Good. You Just Have To Look For The Good Stuff.
Horror Stories
People
Looks
I Would Say Plotting Is The Most Difficult Thing For Me. Characterization Is Only Hard Because Sometimes I Feel I Get So Interested In It That I Want To Talk Too Much About The Characters And That Slows The Story Down. So I Say, "hey, People Want To Find Out What's Going To Happen Next, They Don't Want To Listen To You Spout Off About This Or That Person." But I Think Even The Bad Guy Deserves To Tell His Side Of The Story.
Character
Writing
Thinking
It Is Fairly Clear That Many Of The Arguments Against Proposition Testing Are Really Arguments Against Propositions Themselves.
Business
Argument
Clear
The Old Sleep Poorly. Perhaps They Stand Watch.
Sleep
Watches
For Men, I Think, Love Is A Thing Formed Of Equal Parts Lust And Astonishment. The Astonishment Part Women Understand. The Lust Part They Only Think They Understand.
Love Is
Men
Thinking
If Being A Kid Is About Learning How To Live, Then Being A Grown-up Is About Learning How To Die.
Kids
Being A Kid
Dies
The Wonder Is That So Many Ocds Manage To Live Productive Lives, Just The Same. They Work, They Eat (often Not Enough Or Too Much, It's True), They Go To The Movies, They Make Love To Their Girlfriends And Boyfriends, Their Wives And Husbands... And All The Time Those Birds Are There, Clinging To Them And Pecking Away Little Bits Of Flesh.
Girlfriend
Husband
Productive Life
It's Dialogue That Gives Your Cast Their Voices, And Is Crucial In Defining Their Characters.
Character
Writing
Voice
Marriage Is Referred To In The Bible As “mystical Union,” And It Really Is In The Sense That Two People Who Don’t Know Each Other Get Together. I’m Always Interested In How Much You Find Out About The Other Person And How Much You Don’t Find Out.
Two
People
Together
A Short Story Is Like A Kiss In The Dark.
Dark
Kissing
Stories
A Cat Won't Curry Favor Even If It's In Their Best Interests To Do So. A Cat Can't Be A Hypocrite. If More Preachers Were Like Cats, This Would Be A More Religious Country.
Country
Religious
Hypocrite
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.'
Life
Thinking
Numbers
I Think We'd All Like To Believe That After We Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil, That There's Going To Be Something On The Other Side Because For Most Of Us, I Know For Me, Life Is So Rich, So Colorful And Sensual And Full Of Good Things, Things To Read, Things To Eat, Things To Watch, Places To Go, New Experiences, That I Don't Want To Think That You Just Go To Darkness.
Believe
Thinking
New Experiences
The Family Exists For Many Reasons, But Its Most Basic Function May Be To Draw Together After A Member Dies.
Together
May
Reason
The Thought Process Can Never Be Complete Without Articulation.
Thinking
Process
Articulation
He Pointed Toward The Silhouettes On The Side Of The [bathrooms] Instead--black Cutout Man, Black Cutout Woman. The Man Had His Legs Apart, The Woman Had Hers Together. Pretty Much The Story Of The Human Race In Sign Language.
Men
Race
Black
A Great Whispering Noise Began To Rise In The Woods On Either Side Of The Tracks, As If The Forest Had Just Noticed We Were There And Was Commenting On It.
Track
Whispering
Noise
But I Believe In Love, You Know; Love Is A Uniquely Portable Magic. I Don’t Think It’s In The Stars, But I Do Believe That Blood Calls To Blood And Mind Calls To Mind And Heart To Heart.
Life
Stars
Love You
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.
Dream
Memories
Children
Sometimes The Things Presented To Us As Choices Aren't Choices At All.
Choices
Sometimes
I Have Grown Into A Bestsellasaurus Rex - A Big, Stumbling Book-beast That Is Loved When It Shits Money And Hated When It Tramples Houses... I Started Out As A Storyteller; Along The Way I Became An Economic Force.
Book
House
Way
The Sort Of Strenuous Reading And Writing Program I Advocate - Four To Six Hours A Day, Every Day - Will Not Seem Strenuous If You Really Enjoy Doing These Things And Have An Aptitude For Them.
Reading
Writing
Four
Tell Him He's Wrong. Tell Him That Even If He's Right About Waiting, He's Right For The Wrong Reasons, And That Makes Him All The Way Wrong.
Waiting
Way
Reason
Some Of This Book—perhaps Too Much—has Been About How I Learned To Do It. Much Of It Has Been About How You Can Do It Better. The Rest Of It—and Perhaps The Best Of It—is A Permission Slip: You Can, You Should, And If You're Brave Enough To Start, You Will. 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.
Art
Book
Writing
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).
Home
Shopping
Generations
Kindle, Isn’t It?” The Waitress Asked. “i Got One For Christmas, And I Love It. I’m Reading My Way Through All Of Jodi Picoult’s Books.” “oh, Probably Not All Of Them,” Wesley Said. “huh? Why Not?” “she’s Probably Got Another One Done Already. That’s All I Meant.” “and James Patterson’s Probably Written One Since He Got Up This Morning!” She Said, And Went Off Chortling.
Morning
Book
Reading
That's Not Such A Bad Thing,' He Said To Me. 'in Nightmares We Can Think The Worst. That's What They're For, I Guess.
Thinking
Nightmare
Said
... Suicide Gets In The Air Sometimes. Like A Cold Germ.
Suicide
Suicidal
Air
Here I Am, Ninety Years Old And Ready For The Cooling Board, Using A Brand New Macintosh Computer, And There You Sit, Twenty-two And Gorgeous, Fresh As A New Peach, Yet Scrawling On A Yellow Legal Pad Like An Old Maid In A Victorian Romance.
Years
Here I Am
Two
No One Ever Does Live Happily Ever After, But We Leave The Children To Find That Out For Themselves.
Children
Doe
Ever After
It's Time For The Wealthy To Pay Their Fair Share Before The Middle Class Becomes The Forgotten Class.- And It's Time For The Banks To Give Back What They Were Given. There Are Those In Politics, Particularly Those On The Conservative Side, Who Can't Get Enough Of Telling People That The Wealthy One Per Cent Must Not Be Taxed Because Doing So Kills Jobs. The Real Job-killers Are Corporate Greed And Political Expediency. It's Time For Working People In Maine And All Across The Country To Take Back The American Dream.
Dream
Country
Jobs
In Bowling And In Life, If A Person Made The Spares, The Strikes Would Take Care Of Themselves.
Life
Care
Bowling
We Sometimes Need To Create Unreal Monsters And Bogies To Stand In For All The Things We Fear In Our Real Lives.
Real
Monsters
Needs
It's Actually Against My Religion To Laugh At Men Who Are Toting Guns.
Gun
Men
Laughing
Above, The Stars Shone Hard And Bright, Sparks Struck Off The Dark Skin Of The Universe.
Stars
Dark
Skins
I'm Most Afraid Of Losing My Mind. You Lose Your Identity, Your Sense Of Who You Are, Where You Are.
Mind
Identity
Losing
The Quickest Way To Learn About A New Place Is To Know What It Dreams Of.
Dream
Way
Dark Tower
Anyway, As The Old Barrelhouse Song Says, My God, How The Money Rolled In. Norton Must Have Subscribed To The Old Puritan Notion That The Best Way To Figure Out Which Folks God Favours Is By Checking Their Bank Acounts.
Song
Way
Favour
Life Is Fair. We All Get The Same Nine-month Shake In The Box, And Then The Dice Roll. Some People Get A Run Of Sevens. Some People, Unfortunately, Get Snake-eyes. Its Just How The World Is.
Running
Eye
Snakes
If You Want To Play, You Gotta Pay.
Play
Want
Pay
When I Was A Kid I Believed Everything I Was Told, Everything I Read, And Every Dispatch Sent Out By My Own Overheated Imagination. This Made For More Than A Few Sleepless Nights, But It Also Filled The World I Lived In With Colors And Textures I Would Not Have Traded For A Lifetime Of Restful Nights.
Kids
Night
Color
There Are, Occasionally, Writers Who Are Able To Combine Both Story And Style. They Are, Of Course, The Best. You Get A Spectacular View And You Also Get To Look At It From The Backseat Of A Chauffeur-driven Cadillac. In The Field Of Fantasy, Those Writers Able To Combine Story-as-narration With Story-as-style Are Even Rarer. But There Are A Few...the Late Theodore Sturgeon, The Early Ray Bradbury...and Richard Christian Matheson. A Brilliant Chip Off The Old Block.
Christian
Block
Views
The World Had Teeth And It Could Bite You With Them Anytime It Wanted.
Teeth
World
Wanted
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.
Believe
Past
Men
I’m Not Particularly Keen On Writing Which Exhaustively Describes The Physical Characteristics Of The People In The Story And What They’re Wearing… I Can Always Get A J. Crew Catalogue… …so Spare Me, If You Please, The Hero’s ‘sharply Intelligent Blue Eyes’ And ‘outthrust Determined Chin’.
Hero
Writing
Eye
He Didn’t Know If That Was Really True Or Not, But He Discovered Something Which Was Tremendously Liberating: He Didn’t Care. He Was Very Tired Of Thinking And Thinking And Still Not Knowing. He Was Also Tired Of Being Frightened, Like A Man Who Has Entered A Cave On A Lark And Now Begins To Suspect He Is Lost. Stop Thinking About It, Then. That’s The Solution.
Tired
Men
Thinking
Death, But Not For You, Gunslinger. Never For You. You Darkle. You Tinct. May I Be Brutally Frank? You Go On.
Goes On
May
Gunslinger
You Can't Polish A Turd.
Turds
Polish
I Believe The First Draft Of A Book — Even A Long One — Should Take No More Than Three Months…any Longer And — For Me, At Least — The Story Begins To Take On An Odd Foreign Feel, Like A Dispatch From The Romanian Department Of Public Affairs, Or Something Broadcast On High-band Shortwave Duiring A Period Of Severe Sunspot Activity.
Believe
Book
Long
I Believe That The Combination Of Pencil And Memory Creates A Kind Of Practical Magic, And Magic Is Dangerous.
Memories
Believe
Magic
No Knowledge Obtained Without Risk
Risk
You Will Not Falter, Because You Will Have The Everlasting Arm Of The Lord God Of Hosts To Lean On. Yes. With God’s Help You Will Stand.
Arms
Helping
Host
She Didn't See Him At First. She Was Watching The Dancers. Her Color Was High, And There Were Deep Dimples At The Corners Of Her Mouth. She Looked Nine Miles Out Of Place, But He Had Never Loved Her More. This Was Willa On The Edge Of A Smile.
Color
Dancer
Mouths
The Past Is Obdurate. It Doesn't Want To Change.
Past
Want
My Heart's With You, Bill, No Matter How It Turns Out. My Heart Is With All Of Them, And I Think That, Even If We Forget Each Other, We'll Remember In Our Dreams.
Dream
Heart
Thinking
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