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Only God Gets Things Right The First Time.
-Stephen King
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Only God Gets Things

Stephen King
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Only God Gets Things Right The First Time.

Understanding the Quote: "only god gets things right the first time...."

This quote by Stephen King reflects deeply on the theme of firsts. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Firsts, First Time, 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 firsts and first time. 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
Firsts
First Time
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Bleeding
Towns
And Suddenly It Didn't Seem To Matter Any More, Nothing Would Matter If She Could Turn Over, Turn Over And See The Stars, Turn Over And Look Once And Die.
Stars
Looks
Matter
And I Wonder If There Is Really Any Point To What I'm Doing, Or What I'm Supposed To Make Of A World Where A Man Can Get Rich Playing "let's Pretend
Men
World
Wonder
True Love Always Happens In A Flash.
Love
Flash
Happens
I Have The World's Best Job. I Get Paid To Hang Out In My Imagination All Day.
Jobs
Best Job
Imagination
I'm A Slow Reader, But I Usually Get Through Seventy Or Eighty Books A Year, Most Fiction. I Don't Read In Order To Study The Craft; I Read Because I Like To Read
Book
Order
Years
Kill Your Darlings, Kill Your Darlings, Even When It Breaks Your Egocentric Little Scribbler’s Heart, Kill Your Darlings.
Kings
Writing
Heart
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.
Quilts
Dark
Thinking
Go Now. Our Journey Is Done. And May We Meet Again, In The Clearing, At The End Of The Path.
Journey
Done
May
He Removed His Unvaluable Valuables And Dumped His Shirt, Pants, And Skivvies Into A Letter Slot.
Running
Letters
Pants
When You're Five And You Hurt, You Make A Big Noise In The World. At Ten You Whimper. But By The Time You Make Fifteen You Begin To Eat The Poisoned Apples That Grow On Your Own Inner Tree Of Pain.
Hurt
Pain
Apples
I Think The Best Stories Always End Up Being About The People Rather Than The Event, Which Is To Say Character-driven.
Character
Thinking
People
Teaching School Is Like Having Jumper Cables Hooked To Your Brain, Draining All The Juice Out Of You.
Teaching
School
Brain
Any Thoughts Of Guilt, Any Feelings Of Regret, Had Faded. The Desert Had Baked Them Out.
Regret
Feelings
Guilt
As Always At These Times When He Felt Really In Need Of God The Front Of His Mind Was Serene, But The Deeper Part, Where Faith Did Constant Battle With Doubt, Was Terrified That There Would Be No Answer.
Doubt
Mind
Battle
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.
Play
Differences
Littles
Fear Stands For Face Everything And Recover – Old Aa Saying
Faces
This Is A Short Book Because Most Books About Writing Are Filled With Bullshit.
Book
Writing
Bullshit
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.
Writing
Stories
Able
Reading Is The Creative Center Of A Writer's Life." -
Reading
Creative
Checkouts
The One Thing About Kids Is That You Never Really Know Exactly What They're Thinking Or How They're Seeing. After Writing About Kids, Which Is A Little Bit Like Putting The Experience Under A Magnifying Glass, You Realize You Have No Idea How You Thought As A Kid. I've Come To The Conclusion That Most Of The Things That We Remember About Our Childhood Are Lies. We All Have Memories That Stand Out From When We Were Kids, But They're Really Just Snapshots. You Can't Remember How You Reacted Because Your Whole Head Is Different When You Stand Aside.
Memories
Lying
Kids
And So Will The World End, I Think, A Victim Of Love Rather Than Hate. For Love's Ever Been The More Destructive Weapon, Sure.
Hate
Thinking
World
If You Write (or Paint Or Dance Or Sculpt Or Sing, I Suppose), Someone Will Try To Make You Feel Lousy About It, That's All.
Writing
Trying
Paint
In The Year 2025, The Best Men Don't Run For President, They Run For Their Lives. . . .
Running
Men
Years
I'm Not Making An Enemy; I'm Keepin' One.
Enemy
I Think Uncertainty Is Good For Things. Certainty Breeds Complacency And Complacency Means That You Just Sit Somewhere In Your Nice Little Comfortable Suburban House In Michigan, Looking At Cnn And Saying, "oh, Those Poor Immigrant Children That Are All Coming Across The Border. But We Really Can't Have Them Here - That Isn't What God Wants. Let's Send Them All Back To The Drug Cartels." There's A Complacency To It.
Children
Nice
Mean
Wendy? Darling? Light, Of My Life. I'm Not Gonna Hurt Ya. I'm Just Going To Bash Your Brains In.
Hurt
Light
Shining
It’s Hard To Let Go. Even When What You’re Holding Onto Is Full Of Thorns, It’s Hard To Let Go. Maybe Especially Then.
Letting Go
Thorns
Hard To Let Go
As A Rule, I Don't Worry About Genre. I Just Want To Tell A Good Story, With Characters That Interest Me And My Readers.
Character
Worry
Stories
I Have Spent A Good Many Years Since―too Many, I Think―being Ashamed About What I Write. I Think I Was Forty Before I Realized That Almost Every Writer Of Fiction Or Poetry Who Has Ever Published A Line Has Been Accused By Someone Of Wasting His Or Her God-given Talent. If You Write (or Paint Or Dance Or Sculpt Or Sing, I Suppose), Someone Will Try To Make You Feel Lousy About It, That's All.
Writing
Thinking
Years
There's A Lot Of Things People Think They Can't Do And Then Discover They Can When They Find Themselves Tight-wired.
Thinking
People
A Person Can Go Along Quite Awhile If They Get A Good Day Every Once And Again.
Good Day
Persons
Ifs
A Man Without A Sense Of Purpose, Even One Whose Bank Accounts Are Stuffed With Money, Is Always A Small Man.
Men
Purpose
Bank Accounts
If You Intend To Write As Truthfully As You Can, Your Days As A Member Of Polite Society Are Numbered, Anyway... You Must Be Prepared To Do Some Serious Turning Inward Toward The Life Of The Imagination, And That Means, I'm Afraid, That Geraldo, Keith Obermann, And Jay Leno Must Go. Reading Takes Time, And The Glass Teat Takes Too Much Of It.
Reading
Writing
Mean
I Love You Too Much To Lie To You, Lisey. I Love You With All That Passes For My Heart. I Suspect That Kind Of All-out Love Becomes A Burden To A Woman In Time, But It's The Only Kind I Have To Give. I Think We're Going To Be Quite A Wealthy Couple In Terms Of Money, But I'll Almost Certainly Be An Emotional Pauper All My Life. I've Got The Money Coming, But As For The Rest I've Got Just Enough For You, And I Won't Ever Dirty Or Dilute It With Lies. Not With The Words I Say, Not With The Ones I Hold Back.
Couple
Lying
Dirty
Discipline And Constant Work Are The Whetstones Upon Which The Dull Knife Of Talent Is Honed Until It Becomes Sharp Enough, Hopefully, To Cut Through Even The Toughest Meat And Gristle.
Cutting
Knives
Discipline
There Are Books Full Of Great Writing That Don't Have Very Good Stories. Read Sometimes For The Story... Don't Be Like The Book-snobs Who Won't Do That. Read Sometimes For The Words--the Language. Don't Be Like The Play-it-safers Who Won't Do That. But When You Find A Book That Has Both A Good Story And Good Words, Treasure That Book.
Book
Writing
Play
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.
Noon
Prime
Late
Dolls With No Little Girls Around To Mind Them Were Sort Of Creepy Under Any Conditions.
Girl
Creepy
Mind
Calling It A Simple Schoolgirl Crush Was Like Saying A Rolls-royce Was A Vehicle With Four Wheels, Something Like A Hay-wagon. She Did Not Giggle Wildly And Blush When She Saw Him, Nor Did She Chalk His Name On Trees Or Write It On The Walls Of The Kissing Bridge. She Simply Lived With His Face In Her Heart All The Time, A Kind Of Sweet, Hurtful Ache. She Would Have Died For Him.
Crush
Sweet
Wall
Friends. They Aren’t Any Such Thing As Good Friend Or Bad Friend. Maybe There Are Just Friend. People Who Stand By You When You're Hurt And Who Helped You Feel Not So Lonely. Maybe There Are Worth Being Scared For And Hoping For And Living For. Maybe Worth Dying For Too. If That What Has To Be. No Bad Friends. Only People You Want. Need To Be With. People Who Build Their Houses In Your Heart.
Lonely
Hurt
Heart
People Think That I Must Be A Very Strange Person. This Is Not Correct. I Have The Heart Of A Small Boy. It Is In A Glass Jar On My Desk.
Inspirational
Motivational
Book
Once Again There Was The Desert, And That Only.
Desert
Gunslinger
Deschain
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.
Writing
Trying
Matter
I Saw Something Even More Beautiful Than A Sense Of Humor: An Appreciation For Life’s Essential Absurdity.
Beautiful
Appreciation
Essentials
Hapscomb's Texaco Sat On Number 93 Just North Of Arnette, A Pissant Four-street Burg About 110 Miles From Houston.
Numbers
Houston
Four
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.
Running
Dream
Wine
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.
Writing
Thinking
Bullshit
The First Is That Good Writing Consists Of Mastering The Fundamentals (vocabulary, Grammar, The Elements Of Style) And Then Filling The Third Level Of Your Toolbox With The Right Instruments. The Second Is That While It Is Impossible To Make A Competent Writer Out Of A Bad Writer, And While Is Equally Impossible To Make A Great Writer Out Of A Good One, It Is Possible, With Lots Of Hard Work, Dedication, And Timely Help, To Make A Good Writer Out Of A Merely Competent One
Hard Work
Writing
Dedication
Everything In Moderation. And That Includes A Couple Of Beers A Day.
Couple
Beer
Moderation
Practice Is Invaluable... Honesty Is Indispensable.
Honesty
Practice
Indispensable
Do Any Of Us, Except In Our Dreams, Truly Expect To Be Reunited With Our Hearts' Deepest Loves, Even When They Leave Us Only For Minutes, And On The Most Mundane Of Errands? No, Not At All. Each Time They Go From Our Sight We In Our Secret Hearts Count Them As Dead. Having Been Given So Much, We Reason, How Could We Expect Not To Be Brought As Low As Lucifer For The Staggering Presumption Of Our Love?
Dream
Heart
Sight
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.
Reading
Writing
Skills
Small Towns Harbor Small Imaginations.
Imagination
Towns
Small Town
Whatever Came To Mind, Whatever Came To Hand, I Would Read.
Hands
Mind
Terrible Thing To Live In Fear. Brooks Hatlen Knew It. Knew It All Too Well. All I Want Is To Be Back Where Things Make Sense. Where I Won't Have To Be Afraid All The Time.
Redemption
Want
Brooks
I Think The Best Writers Are Voracious Readers Who Pick Up The Cadences And The Feel Of Narration Through A Number Of Different Books. And You Begin By Maybe Copying The Style Of Writers That Really Knocked You Out.
Book
Thinking
Numbers
Roland Grabbed Jake And Hauled Him To His Feet. “you Came!” Jake Shouted. “you Really Came!” “i Came, Yes. By The Grace Of The Gods And The Courage Of My Friends, I Came.
Feet
Grace
Jake
"am I Weird?" "yeah. But So What? Everybody's Weird."
Stand By Me
Yeah
Why Does Everyone Think That I Am A Cruel And Insensitive Man? I Mean, Come On, I Have Kids... On My Desk In Little Jars!
Mean
Kids
Men
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
A Secret Needs Two Faces To Bounce Between; A Secret Needs To See Itself In Another Pair Of Eyes.
Eye
Two
Secret
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.
Dream
Sweet
Pain
The More You Read, The Less Apt You Are To Make A Fool Of Yourself With Your Pen Or Word Processor.
Kings
Writing
Fool
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