Background Image

...

Making People Believe The Unbelievable Is No Trick; It's Work... Belief And Reader Absorption Come In The Details: An Overturned Tricycle In The Gutter Of An Abandoned Neighborhood Can Stand For Everything.

-Stephen King

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Making People Believe The

Stephen King

...

Making People Believe The Unbelievable Is No Trick; It's Work... Belief And Reader Absorption Come In The Details: An Overturned Tricycle In The Gutter Of An Abandoned Neighborhood Can Stand For Everything.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Stephen King

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

The World Had Teeth And It Could Bite You With Them Anytime It Wanted.

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

I Have To Remind Myself That Some Birds Aren’t Meant To Be Caged. Their Feathers Are Just Too Bright.

His Mother Called Such People Ignorant And Superstitious, But His Father Only Shook His Head Slowly And Puffed His Pipe And Said That Sometimes Old Stories Had A Grain Or Two Of Truth In Them And It Was Best Not To Take Chances. It Was Why, He Said, He Crossed Himself Whenever A Black Cat Crossed His Path.

So What He Supposed To Do? Grab Bobbie's Ax And Make Like Jack Nicholson In The Shinning? He Could See It. Smash, Crash, Bash: Heeeeeeere's Gardener!

If You Want To Play, You Gotta Pay.

No One Ever Really Pays For Betrayal In Silver....the Price Of Any Betrayal Always Comes Due In Flesh.

Money Talks, Bullshit Walks.

Each Life Makes Its Own Immitation Of Immortality.

In Spite Of The Problems He Was Having He Was Going On With His Life. There Are Thousands Who Don’t Or Won’t Or Can’t And Plenty Of Them Aren’t In Prison Either.

Fantasy Fiction Is Essentially About The Concept Of Power; Great Fantasy Fiction Is About People Who Find It At Great Cost Or Lose It Tragically; Mediocre Fantasy Fiction Is About People Who Have It And Never Lose It But Simply Wield It.

Did You Know That Dairy Queen Ice Cream Is Mostly Bubbles?

A Critical Assumption Is Sometimes Made That [grisham, Clancey, Crichton & Myself] Have Access To Some Mystical Vulgate That Other (and Often Better) Writers Cannot Find Or Will Not Deign To Use. I Doubt If This Is True. Nor Do I Believe The Contention Of Some Popular Novelists... That Thier Success Is Based On Literary Merit -- That The Public Understands True Greatness In Ways The Tight-a**ed, Consumed-by-jealousy Literary Establishment Cannot. This Idea Is Ridiculous, A Product Of Vanity And Insecurity.

Seven, Richie Thought. That's The Magic Number. There Has To Be Seven Of Us. That's The Way It's Supposed To Be.

The Ghost Story Movie That Scared Me The Most Was The Changeling With George C. Scott. I Think That's Sometimes Overlooked, But It's A Wonderful Piece Of Work.

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

Nothing Is Ever Lost, Sarah. Nothing That Can't Be Found.

I'm Convinced That Fear Is At The Root, Of All Bad Writing

I Think Part Of Being A Parent Is Trying To Kill Your Kids.

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.

The Overlook Was Still Not Done With Him. Written On The Mirror, Not In Lipstick But In Blood, Was A Single Word: Redrum

The Crazy People Of The World...shouldn't Get To Win. If God Won't Make It Better After They Do Have Their Shitty Little Victories, Then Ordinary People Have To. They Have To Try, At Least.

Until We See Each Other Again, Keep Your Head Together, Read Some Good Books, Be Useful, Be Happy.

Families, When A Child Is Born Want It To Be Intelligent. I, Through Intelligence, Having Wrecked My Whole Life, Only Hope The Baby Will Prove Ignorant And Stupid. Then He Will Crown A Tranquil Life By Becoming A Cabinet Minister.

There Are Really Very Few Economies Of Scale In Centralising Or Standardising Advertising.

We Never Know Which Lives We Influence, Or When, Or Why.

And That Almost Killed You?" "it Wasn't Deep But It Got Infected. Infection Means That The Bad Germs Got Into It. Infection's The Most Dangerous Thing There Is, Tom. Infection Was What Made The Superflu Germ Kill All The People. And Infection Is What Made People Want To Make The Germ In The First Place. An Infection Of The Mind.

But Sorry Is The Kool-aid Of Human Emotions. [...] True Sorrow Is As Rare As True Love.

What I'd Show You Is Much More Bizarre Than Anything We Have Looked At So Far, And I Warn You In Advance That The First Impulse Will Be To Laugh. That's All Right. Laugh If You Must. Just Don't Take Your Eye Off What You See, For Even In Your Imagination, Here Is A Creature Who Can Do You Damage.

I Think What You Do Is, You Keep Your Sensors Open. And It's - The More That You Do The Job, The More You Come To Understand In A Kind Of Intuitive Way That You're Always - You Know, Your Radar Is On. And The Thing Is Going Around And Around And Around. And It's Not Picking Up Any Blips.

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

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.

Everyone Loves Something For Nothing...even If It Costs Everything.

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.

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

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

There Are All Sorts Of Theories And Ideas About What Constitutes A Good Opening Line. It's Tricky Thing, And Tough To Talk About Because I Don't Think Conceptually While I Work On A First Draft -- I Just Write. To Get Scientific About It Is A Little Like Trying To Catch Moonbeams In A Jar. But There's One Thing I'm Sure About. An Opening Line Should Invite The Reader To Begin The Story. It Should Say: Listen. Come In Here. You Want To Know About This.

Life Turns On A Dime.

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

The Mind Can Calculate, But The Spirit Yearns, And The Heart Knows What The Heart Knows

I Love The Movies, And When I Go To See A Movie That's Been Made From One Of My Books, I Know That It Isn't Going To Be Exactly Like My Novel Because A Lot Of Other People Have Interpreted It. But I Also Know It Has An Idea That I'll Like Because That Idea Occurred To Me, And I Spent A Year, Or A Year And A Half Of My Life Working On It.

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.

As A Young Man Just Beginning To Publish Some Short Fiction In The T&a Magazines, I Was Fairly Optimistic About My Chances Of Getting Published; I Knew That I Had Some Game, As The Basketball Players Say These Days, And I Also Felt That Time Was On My Side; Sooner Or Later The Best-selling Writers Of The Sixties And Seventies Would Either Die Or Go Senile, Making Room For Newcomers Like Me.

Sometimes [...] Real Love Is Silent As Well As Blind.

What I Tell Kids Is Don't Get Mad (about Censorship) Get Even. Run, Don't Walk, To The First Library You Can Find, And Read What They're Trying To Keep Out Of Your Eyes. Read What They're Trying To Keep Out Of Your Brains. Because That's Exactly What You Need To Know.

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.

Directing Teenage Actors Is Like Juggling Jars Of Nitro-glycerine: Exhilarating And Dangerous.

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.

Little By Little, Writers Develop Their Own Styles, Each As Unique As A Fingerprint.

Anyone Who Thinks Impressions Of Old Movie Actors Is Funny Absolutely Cannot Be Trusted. I Think It's Like A Law Of Nature.

An Idea Is Like A Cold Germ: Sooner Or Later Someone Always Catches It.

I Believe The Road To Hell Is Paved With Adverbs, And I Will Shout It From The Rooftops.

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

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.

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.

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

Isn't It Too Bad That The Great Truths Are All Such Lies.

I Did A Couple Of Writing Seminars In Canada With High School Kids. These Were The Bright Kids; They All Have Computers, But They Can't Spell. Because Spell-check Won't [help] You If You Don't Know Through From Threw. I Told Them, "if You Can Read In The 21st Century, You Own The World." Because You Learn To Write From Reading.

We All Have A Tendency To Want Order In Our Lives. But Order Presupposes Authority, And Authority Presupposes, Sooner Or Later, That We'll All Need Hooves. It's Going To Happen Sooner Or Later, Isn't It? You Know It Is.

I'm Still In Love With What I Do, With The Idea Of Making Things Up, So Hours When I Write Always Feel Like Very Blessed Hours To Me.

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.

We Fall From Womb To Tomb, From One Blackness And Toward Another, Remembering Little Of The One And Knowing Nothing Of The Other ... Except Through Faith.

Knowing Nothing

I Have Never Felt Like I Was Creating Anything. For Me, Writing Is Like Walking Through A Desert And All At Once, Poking Up Through The Hardpan, I See The Top Of A Chimney. I Know There's A House Under There, And I'm Pretty Sure That I Can Dig It Up If I Want. That's How I Feel. It's Like The Stories Are Already There. What They Pay Me For Is The Leap Of Faith That Says: 'if I Sit Down And Do This, Everything Will Come Out Okay.'

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.

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.

Ninety-five Percent Of People Who Walk The Earth Are Simply Inert. One Percent Are Saints, And One Percent Are Assholes. The Other Three Percent Are People Who Do What They Say They Can Do.

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

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

Death Is When The Monsters Get You.

Time Takes It All, Whether You Want It To Or Not. Time Takes It All, Time Bears It Away, And In The End There Is Only Darkness. Sometimes We Find Others In That Darkness, And Sometimes We Lose Them There Again.

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

Don’t Go Beyond, No Matter How Much You Feel You Need To, Doctor. The Barrier Was Not Made To Be Broken. Remember This: There Is More Power Here Than You Know. It Is Old And Always Restless. Remember.

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 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.

It's Funny How Close The Past Is, Sometimes. Sometimes It Seems As If You Could Almost Reach Out And Touch It. Only Who Really Wants To?

Homesickness Is Not Always A Vague, Nostalgic, Almost Beautiful Emotion, Although That Is Somehow The Way We Always Seem To Picture It In Our Mind. It Can Be A Terribly Keen Blade, Not Just A Sickness In Metaphor But In Fact As Well. It Can Change The Way One Looks At The World; The Faces One Sees In The Street Look Not Just Indifferent But Ugly... Perhaps Even Malignant. Homesickness Is A Real Sickness--the Ache Of The Uprooted Plant.

It's How We See The World That Keeps The Darkness Beyond At Bay. Keeps It From Pouring Through And Devouring Us. I Think All Of Us Might Know That, Way Down Deep.

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.

New Experiences

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.

I Love Music, And I Can Play A Little. But Anyone Can See The Difference Between Someone Who's Talented And Someone That's Not.

Because The Hardest Boss A Man Can Ever Have Is Himself.

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.

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—

Trust, A Sense Of Humor, And Don't Let The Sun Go Down On An Argument Without Trying To Make It Up. That's All I Know About Good Marriage. I've Been Married A Long Time - It Seems To Be Working.

Oh Christ, He Groaned To Himself, If This Is The Stuff Adults Have To Think About I Never Want To Grow Up

Sometimes When You're Young, You Have Moments Of Such Happiness, You Think You're Living On Someplace Magical, Like Atlantis Must Have Been. Then We Grow Up And Our Hearts Break Into Two.

Talent Is Never Static. It's Always Growing Or Dying.

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.

Haste Makes Waste

I'm Most Afraid Of Losing My Mind. You Lose Your Identity, Your Sense Of Who You Are, Where You Are.

Only Library Books Speak With Such Wordless Eloquence Of The Power Good Stories Hold Over Us.

The Workman Cut To The Left, Still Laying On His Horn, And Roared Around The Drunkenly Weaving Limousine. He Invited The Driver Of The Limo To Perform An Illegal Sex Act On Himself. To Engage In Oral Congress With Various Rodents And Birds. He Articulated His Own Proposal That All Persons Of Negro Blood Return To Their Native Continent. He Expressed His Sincere Belief In The Position The Limo Driver's Soul Would Occupy In The Afterlife. He Finished By Saying That He Believed He Had Met The Limodriver's Mother In A New Orleans House Of Prostitution.

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

My Father Had Taught Me - Mostly By Example - That If A Man Wanted To Be In Charge Of His Life, He Had To Be In Charge Of His Problems.

"am I Weird?" "yeah. But So What? Everybody's Weird."

They Were Close To The End Of The Beginning . . .

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

Fantasy And Reality

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.

But See That You Get On. That's Your Job In This Hard World, To Keep Your Love Alive And See That You Get On, No Matter What. Pull Your Act Together And Just Go On.

Remember That The Truth Is In The Details. No Matter How You See The World Or What Style It Imposes On Your Work As An Artist, The Truth Is In The Details. Of Course The Devil's There, Too-everyone Says So-but Maybe Truth And The Devil Are Words For The Same Thing. It Could Be You Know.

Not Every Book Has To Be Loaded With Symbolism, Irony, Or Musical Language, But It Seems To Me That Every Book-at Least Every One Worth Reading-is About Something.

It Had That Comfortably Sprung, Lived-in Look That Library Books With A Lively Circulation Always Get; Bent Page Corners, A Dab Of Mustard On Page 331, A Whiff Of Some Reader's Spilled After-dinner Whiskey On Page 468. Only Library Books Speak With Such Wordless Eloquence Of The Power Good Stories Hold Over Us, How Good Stories Abide, Unchanged And Mutely Wise, While We Poor Humans Grow Older And Slower.

Ka Was A Wheel; It Was Also A Net From Which None Ever Escaped.

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?

Do I Know What People Say? Sure. I Shrug It Off. What Else Can You Do? Stop People From Talking? You Might As Well Try To Stop The Wind From Blowing.

Fiction Is The Truth Inside The Lie.

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

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

I Felt Lonely And Content At The Same Time. I Believe That Is A Rare Kind Of Happiness.

Cold Start Is A Hard Start.

Money Can't Buy Off The Lightning.

If You Say, Well, Ok, I Don't Believe In God. There's No Evidence Of God, Then You're Missing The Stars In The Sky And You're Missing The Sunrises And Sunsets And You're Missing The Fact That Bees Pollinate All These Crops And Keep Us Alive And The Way That Everything Seems To Work Together. Everything Is Sort Of Built In A Way That To Me Suggests Intelligent Design.

Fear Stands For Face Everything And Recover – Old Aa Saying

Ka Works And The World Moves On.

If You Think You've Gone Insane ... You're Nuts.

Fear Can Hold You Prisoner. Hope Can Set You Free.

Mrs. Cole Was A Perfect Democrat. She Hated All Kids Equally.

Politics Always Change. Stories Never Do.

I Love My Sons And I Love That They Are Writers - I Also Love My Daughter, Who's A Minister And An Orchard Keeper! - But I Wouldn't Wish The Burden Of Mid-world And The Dark Tower On Them. I Enjoy Working With Them, Though, Because We Fit Together.

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

It's A Cash And Carry World. Sometimes You Pay A Little. Mostly It's A Lot. Sometimes, It's Everything You Have.

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.

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)

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.

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

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.

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

By And Large... The Good's An Illusion, Little Fables Folks Tell Themselves So They Can Get Through Their Days Without Screaming Too Much.

How Much Courage Does It Take To Fire Up Your Tractor And Plow Under A Crop You Spent Six Or Seven Years Growing? How Much Courage To Go On And Do That After You've Spent All That Time Finding Out How To Prepare The Soil And When To Plant And How Much To Water And When To Reap? How Much To Just Say, "i Have To Quit These Peas. Peas Are No Good For Me, I Better Try Corn Or Beans.

They Were Trying To Run, Trying To Hide. But The Rock Would Not Hide Them; The Dead Tree Gave No Shelter.

That's Something That Is Almost Accidental At The Beginning Of A Career, But The More You Write, The More Trained You Are To Recognize The Little Signals.

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

Good Books Don't Give Up All Their Secrets At Once.

I Started To Submit When I Was Twelve, And Obviously At That Time They Weren't Good Enough, And I Suppose In My Heart Of Hearts I Knew It. But You Have To Start Sooner Or Later, You Have To Dig In.

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.

If You Were Seeing A Lot Of Horseshit, There Had To Be A Pony In The Vicinity.

Research Can Only Present Data About The Past. No One Seriously Believes That People's Answers To Hypothetical Questions About The Future Accurately Represent Their Future Behaviour; They Merely Represent A Current Attitude, Which May Or May Not Be Translated Into Future Behaviour.

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.

I Believe Most People Are Essentially Good. I Know That I Am. It's You I'm Not Entirely Sure Of.

The Man In Black Travels With Your Soul In His Pocket.

You Can't Be Careful On A Skateboard.

There’s Always Someone Who Knows Something.

I’ve Always Said To People, "i Don’t Care What You Call Me As Long As The Checks Don’t Bounce And The Family Gets Fed." But I Never Saw Myself That Way. I Just Saw Myself As A Novelist.

Whatever Came To Mind, Whatever Came To Hand, I Would Read.

Try Any Goddam Thing You Like, No Matter How Boringly Normal Or Outrageous. If It Works, Fine. If It Doesn't, Toss It. Toss It Even If You Love It.

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

The Quickest Way To Learn About A New Place Is To Know What It Dreams Of.

It's A Tough Life If You Don't Weaken.

Weird Love's Better Than No Love At All.

Rationalism Is The Idea That We Can Ever Understand Anything About The State Of Being. It's A Deathtrip. It Always Has Been. . . . And If Rationalism Is A Deathtrip, Then Irrationalism Might Very Well Be A Lifetrip . . . At Least Until It Proves Otherwise.

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

I'm Not A Big Fan Of Psychoanalysis: I Think If You Have Mental Problems What You Need Are Good Pills. But I Do Think That If You Have Thinks That Bother You, Things That Are Unresolved, The More That You Talk About Them, Write About Them, The Less Serious They Become.

What Charitable 1 Percenters Can't Do Is Assume Responsibility - America's National Responsibilities: The Care Of Its Sick And Its Poor, The Education Of Its Young, The Repair Of Its Failing Infrastructure, The Repayment Of Its Staggering War Debts.

The Wife Whose Sweetly Given Reply In The Face Of Any Problem Would Be, "whatever You Think Is Best, Dear." Women, Take Note: A Wife Like That Never Needs To Fear Bubbling Away The Last Of Her Life Through A Cut Throat.

If You Don’t Have The Time To Do Something Right, Where Are You Going To Find The Time To Fix It?

Story Is Honorable And Trustworthy; Plot Is Shifty, And Best Kept Under House Arrest.

Adults Are The Real Monsters.

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).

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.

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.

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

The Past Is Obdurate. It Doesn't Want To Change.

Waiting Rooms Were Made For Books-of Course! But So Are Theater Lobbies Before The Show, Long And Boring Checkout Lines, And Everyone's Favorite, The John.

You Are The Grim, Goal-oriented Ones Who Will Not Believe That The Joy Is In The Journey Rather Than The Destination No Matter How Many Times It Has Been Proven To You.

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.

And This Wasn’t Lying, Not Really. It Was Leaving Out.

You Cannot Hope To Sweep Someone Else Away By The Force Of Your Writing Until It Has Been Done To You.

Somebody Said The Prospect Of Eminent Death Has A Wonderful Clarifying Effect On The Mind. And I Don't Know If That's True, But I Do Think It Probably Causes Some Changes, Some Evolution In The Way A Person Works. But On A Day-by-day Basis, I Just Still Enjoy Doing What I'm Doing.

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

Do They See The Lethal Insanity Of A Race To The Brink Of Oblivion, And Then Over The Edge? Apparently Not. If They Did, Surely They Wouldn't Be Racing To Begin With. Or Is It A Simple Failure Of Imagination? One Doesn't Like To Think Such A Rudimentary Failing Could Bring About The End, Yet...

I Think A Lot Of Times Dreams Are Nothing More Than A Kind Of Mental Or Spiritual Flatulence. They're A Way Of Relieving Pressure.

"you Need Hedges.""hedges," I Said, Bemused. "yes, Edgar." He Looked Surprised And A Little Disappointed, As If I Had Failed To Understand A Very Simple Concept. "hedges Against The Night."

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

Never's The Word God Listens For When He Needs A Laugh.

I Try To Create Sympathy For My Characters, Then Turn The Monsters Loose.

The Important Question Has Nothing To Do With Whether The Talk In Your Story Is Sacred Or Profane; The Only Question Is How It Rings On The Page And In Your Ear. If You Expect It To Ring True, Then You Must Talk Yourself. Even More Important, You Must Shut Up And Listen To Others Talk.

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

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.

Now Panic Beats And Flutters Inside My Skull Like A Flock Of Starlings Locked In An Attic.

C-c-can You Get Bones In Your Buh-buh-brain?' Bill Asked. This Was Turning Into The Most Interesting Conversation He'd Had In Weeks.

Interesting Conversation

In Polite Society, We Call Our Obsessions Hobbies.

You Discarded Most Of The Lies Along The Way But Held On To The One That Said Life Mattered.

I Believe That The Combination Of Pencil And Memory Creates A Kind Of Practical Magic, And Magic Is Dangerous.

Just Go On Dancing With Me Like This Forever And I'll Never Tire. We'll Scrape Our Shoe On The Stars And Hang Upside Down From The Moon.

Good Writing Is Often About Letting Go Of Fear And Affectation. Affectation Itself, Beginning With The Need To Define Some Sorts Of Writing As 'good' And Other Sorts As 'bad' Is Fearful Behavior.

Writing's About Getting Up, Getting Well, And Getting Over. Getting Happy, Okay? Getting Happy.

I Love Crime, I Love Mysteries, And I Love Ghosts.

A Product Is Something Made In A Factory; A Brand Is Something That Is Bought By The Customer. A Product Can Be Copied By A Competitor; A Brand Is Unique. A Product Can Be Quickly Outdated; A Successful Brand Is Timeless.

If You Liked Being A Teenager, There's Something Really Wrong With You.

Being A Teenager

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.

Most Books About Writing Are Filled With Bullshit. Fiction Writers, Present Company Included, Don’t Understand Very Much About What They Do—not Why It Works When It’s Good, Not Why It Doesn’t When It’s Bad.

A Short Story Is Like A Kiss In The Dark.

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.

Twas Something Else. I Had Come To Hate Her, You See. I Had Come To Wish Her Dead, And That Was What Held Me Back.

We Make Up Horrors To Help Us Cope With The Real Ones.

If I Can Get It Down On Paper Without Puking All Over The Word Processor, Then As Far As I'm Concerned, It's Fit To See The Light Of Day.

I Still Believe In The Resilience Of The Human Heart And The Essential Validity Of Love;i Still Believe That Connections Between People Can Be Made And That The Spirits Which Inhabit Us Sometimes Touch. I Still Believe That The Cost Of These Connections Is Horribly, Outrageously High... And I Still Believe That The Value Received Far Outweighs The Price Which Must Be Paid. (from Introductory Notes.)

...stupidity Is One Of The Two Things We See Most Clearly In Retrospect. The Other Is Missed Chances.

I Recognize Terror As The Finest Emotion And So I Will Try To Terrorize The Reader. But If I Find That I Cannot Terrify, I Will Try To Horrify, And If I Find That I Cannot Horrify, I'll Go For The Gross-out. I'm Not Proud.

The Good Thing About Being Old, Is You Don’t Have To Worry About Dying Young.

Trending Author

Richard Matheson

Giacomo Leopardi

Category