Background Image

...

...stopping A Piece Of Work Just Because It's Hard, Either Emotionally Or Imaginatively, Is A Bad Idea. Sometimes You Have To Go On When You Don't Feel Like It, And Sometimes You're Doing Good Work When If Feels Like All You're Managing Is To Shovel Sh*t From A Sitting Position.

-Stephen King

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

...stopping A Piece Of

Stephen King

...

...stopping A Piece Of Work Just Because It's Hard, Either Emotionally Or Imaginatively, Is A Bad Idea. Sometimes You Have To Go On When You Don't Feel Like It, And Sometimes You're Doing Good Work When If Feels Like All You're Managing Is To Shovel Sh*t From A Sitting Position.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Stephen King

Absence May Or May Not Make The Heart Grow Fonder, But It Certainly Freshens The Eye.

Don't Give Me What I Ask For, Give Me What I Need.

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.

Everyone Needs A Hobby, He Said. And Everyone Needs A Miracle Or Two, Just To Prove Life Is More Than Just One Long Trudge From The Cradle To The Grave.

Talent Is A Dull Knife That Will Cut Nothing Unless It Is Wielded With Great Force.

I Think It Is Harder To Write A Story That Appeals To The Intellect. But, When You Tie Onto One, You Can Do It Quite Deeply. It Really Depends On The Type Of Idea You Have To Begin With.

You've Got To Do Something To Fill Up Your Day. And I Can Only Play So Much Guitar And Watch So Many Tv Shows. It Fulfills Me. There Are Two Things About It I Like: It Makes Me Happy, And It Makes Other People Happy.

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.

Just The Act Of Cooking Made Her Feel Better, Because Cooking Was Life.

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

He Had Been (thinking? Praying?) It Was All The Same Thing.

The Greatest Mystery The Universe Offers Is Not Life But Size.

There Should Be No Telephone In Your Writing Room, Certainly No Tv Or Videogames For You To Fool Around With. If There’s A Window, Draw The Curtains Or Pull Down The Shades Unless It Looks Out At A Blank Wall.

And The Most Terrifying Question Of All May Be Just How Much Horror The Human Mind Can Stand And Still Maintain A Wakeful, Staring, Unrelenting Sanity.

He Realized Now That A Lot Of The Problem Had Been His Own Mind, Which Was Usually Moving At A Speed Ten Or Twenty Times That Of His Classmates. They Had Thought Him Strange, Weird, Or Even Suicidal, Depending On The Escapade In Question, But Maybe It Had Been A Simple Case Of Mental Overdrive-if Anything About Being In Constant Mental Overdrive Was Simple. Anyway, It Was The Sort Of Thing You Got Under Control After A While-you Got It Under Control Or You Found Outlets For It.

He Looked To Her Like An Absurd Twentieth-century Hamlet, An Indecisive Figure So Mesmerized By Onrushing Tragedy That He Was Helpless To Divert Its Course Or Alter It In Any Way.

By Writing A Horror Novel Where This Inexplicable Disorder Takes Over In Our Ordered Lives, You Make Order Look Better By Comparison. But Below That, There's A Part Of Us That Responds To The Who Bashing Their Instruments To Pieces On The Stage. There's A Very Primitive Part That Says, "do It Some More."

Reading A Good Long Novel Is In Many Ways Like Having A Long And Satisfying Affair

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

A Friend Came To Visit James Joyce One Day And Found The Great Man Sprawled Across His Writing Desk In A Posture Of Utter Despair. James, What’s Wrong?' The Friend Asked. 'is It The Work?' Joyce Indicated Assent Without Even Raising His Head To Look At His Friend. Of Course It Was The Work; Isn’t It Always? How Many Words Did You Get Today?' The Friend Pursued. Joyce (still In Despair, Still Sprawled Facedown On His Desk): 'seven.' Seven? But James… That’s Good, At Least For You.' Yes,' Joyce Said, Finally Looking Up. 'i Suppose It Is… But I Don’t Know What Order They Go In!

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 Could Start At A Path Leading Nowhere More Fantastic Than From Your Own Front Steps To The Sidewalk, And From There You Could Go… Well, Anywhere At All.

God Always Punishes Us For What We Can't Imagine.

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

Sarcastic People Tend To Be Marshmallows Underneath The Armor

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.

Fiction Is The Truth Inside The Lie.

The More Fiction You Read And Write, The More You'll Find Your Paragraphs Forming On Their Own.

And As A Writer, One Of The Things That I've Always Been Interested In Doing Is Actually Invading Your Comfort Space. Because That's What We're Supposed To Do. Get Under Your Skin, And Make You React.

Everything's A Lot Tougher When It's For Real. That's When You Choke. When It's For Real.

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.

I Believe These Stories Exist Because We Sometimes Need To Create Unreal Monsters And Bogies To Stand In For All The Things We Fear In Our Real Lives: The Parent Who Punches Instead Of Kissing, The Auto Accident That Takes A Loved One, The Cancer We One Day Discover Living In Our Own Bodies. If Such Terrible Occurrences Were Acts Of Darkness, They Might Actually Be Easier To Cope With. But Instead Of Being Dark, They Have Their Own Terrible Brilliance. . . And None Shine So Bright As The Acts Of Cruelty We Sometimes Perpetrate In Our Own Families.

Successful Rebellions Always Begin In Secret.

The Concept Of Dreaming Is Known To The Waking Mind But To The Dreamer There Is No Waking, No Real World, No Sanity; There Is Only The Screaming Bedlam Of Sleep.

You Say True, I Say Thankya.

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

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.

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.

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

It Is The Tale, Not He Who Tells It.

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?

The Scholar's Greatest Weakness: Calling Procrastination Research.

Procrastination

And She Sees That The Moonlight Is Losing Its Orange Glow. It Has Become Buttery, And Will Soon Turn To Silver.

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

...for The First Time In My Life, Writing Was Hard. The Problem Was The Teaching...by Most Friday Afternoons I Felt As If I'd Spent The Week With Jumper Cables Clamped To My Brain.

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

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.

I Think We Fought Vietnam For The Benefits Of Civilization, And Certainly We Fought It To Oppose Authority. To Show Our Authority, To Show We Weren't Weak. Isn't That What Nixon Kept Saying? "we Have To Show The World That We're Not Weak." So Of Course What We Ended Up Showing The World Was That We Were, Yep, Weak. 'cause We Couldn't Beat These Kids In Black Pajamas.

The First Draft Of A Book—even A Long One—should Take No More Than Three Months, The Length Of A Season.

Human Nature Baby, Grab It And Growl.

Pride Was The Belt You Used To Hold Your Pants Up When You Had No Pants.

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.

Write With The Door Closed, Rewrite With The Door Open.

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

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.

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

I Hope You Liked Them, Reader; That They Did For You What Any Good Story Should Do--make You Forget The Real Stuff Weighing On Your Mind For A Little While And Take You Away To A Place You've Never Been. It's The Most Amiable Sort Of Magic I Know.

Each Life Makes Its Own Immitation Of Immortality.

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.

I Get Inspiration, A Lot Of Times, From Very Commonplace Things That Just Strike A Chord And Develop Themselves In The Subconscious.

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

All You Need To Do Is Hold On Tight...and Believe.

...they Came To See What Happened To Their Town, To See If It Was Indeed Lying Burnt And Bleeding. Many Of Them Also Came To Die.

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.)

Kill You All!" The Clown Was Laughing And Screaming. "try To Stop Me And I'll Kill You All! Drive You Crazy And Then Kill You All! You Can't Stop Me!

Sometimes A Man And A Woman Reach A Crossroads And Linger There, Reluctant To Take Either Way, Knowing The Wrong Choice Will Mean The End... And Knowing There’s So Much Worth Saving.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

If It's Ka It'll Come Like A Wind, And Your Plans Will Stand Before It No More Than A Barn Before A Cyclone

Where The World Ends Is Where You Must Begin

...knowing That To Be A Librarian Was To Come As Close As Any Human Being Can To Sitting In The Peak-seat Of Eternity's Engine.

You Have To Stay Faithful To What You're Working On.

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.

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.

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.

And If There Are No Cars Or Planes, And If No One’s Uncle John Is Out In The Wood Lot West Of Town Banging Away At A Quail Or Pheasant; If The Only Sound Is The Slow Beat Of Your Own Heart, You Can Hear Another Sound, And That Is The Sound Of Life Winding Down To Its Cyclic Close, Waiting For The First Winter Snow To Perform Last Rites.

I Win, You Win. You Win, I Win. The Gun, I Win. The Fruit, You Win. I Win, You Win.

We Never Know Which Lives We Influence, Or When, Or Why. Not Until The Future Eats The Present, Anyway. We Know When It's Too Late.

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.

Do It For Joy And You Can Do It Forever

The Story Is The Only Thing That's Important. Everything Else Will Take Care Of Itself. It's Like What Bowlers Say. You Hear Writers Talk About Character Or Theme Or Mood Or Mode Or Tense Or Person. But Bowlers Say, If You Make The Spares, The Strikes Will Take Care Of Themselves. If You Can Tell A Story, Everything Else Becomes Possible. But Without Story, Nothing Is Possible, Because Nobody Wants To Hear About Your Sensitive Characters If There's Nothing Happening In The Story. And The Same Is True With Mood. Story Is The Only Thing That's Important.

Mister, We Deal In Lead.

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

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

Good Reputation

Because Things Like This You Can Only Ssay Once. And You Either Get It Wrong Or Right, It's The End Either Way, Because It's Too Hard To Ever Try To Say Again.

When You're Six, Most Of Your Bingo Balls Are Still Floating Around In The Draw-tank.

Terrifying. . . . A Dark Matter Is Populated With Vivid, Sympathetic Characters, And Driven By Terrors Both Human And Supernatural. It's The Kind Of Book That's Impossible To Put Down Once It Has Been Picked Up. It Kept Me Reading Far Into The Night. Straub Builds Otherworldly Terror Without Ever Losing Touch With His Attractive Cast Of Youngsters, Who Age Beautifully. Put This One High On Your List.

She Felt Like Someone Who Drowns Remembering What It Was Like To Still Be On The Boat, So Calm And At Ease, So Carelessly Safe

Money Talks, Bullshit Walks.

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.

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.

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

A Successful Novel Should Interrupt The Reader’s Life, Make Him Or Her Miss Appointments, Skip Meals, Forget To Walk The Dog.

Time Is A Face On The Water.

I Never Had Any Friends Later On Like The Ones I Had When I Was 12 - Jesus, Did You?

Paul Edgecomb: What Do You Want Me To Do John? I'll Do It. You Want Me To Let You Walk Out Of Here And See How Far You Get? John Coffey: Now Why Would You Want To Do A Foolish Thing Like That? Paul Edgecomb: When I Die And I Stand Before God Awaiting Judgment And He Asks Me Why I Let One Of His Miracles Die, What Am I Gonna Say, That It Was My Job?

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.

You Have To Go Where The Book Leads You.

We Each Owe A Death, There Are No Exceptions, I Know That, But Sometimes, Oh God, The Green Mile Is So Long.

The Muses Are Ghosts, And Sometimes They Come Uninvited.

When You Write A Book, You Spend Day After Day Scanning And Identifying The Trees. When You’re Done, You Have To Step Back And Look At The Forest.

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

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.

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.

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.

Life Is Like A Wheel. Sooner Or Later, It Always Come Around To Where You Started Again.

Sooner Or Later

I Feel Better In My Mind Because I'm Doing What God Made Me To Do. He Said, 'go Write Books, Steve, And You'll Be Happy.' I'm Happy Now, And That Has Had An Effect On My Life And My Relationship With My Wife And Kids And Even My Friends. I've Always Wanted To Be A Writer.

Even When Love Isn't Enough...somehow It Is.

I Don't Really Map Anything Out. I Just Let It Happen [while Writing]. But Once It Happens, It's Always There. If It's Laid, It's Played. If I Get To Page 300 And It's Not Working, I Junk It.

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.

As For The End Of The Universe…i Say Let It Come As It Will, In Ice, Fire, Or Darkness. What Did The Universe Ever Do For Me That I Should Mind Its Welfare?

Cold Start Is A Hard Start.

I Think It Is Beyond Doubt That H. P. Lovecraft Has Yet To Be Surpassed As The Twentieth Century's Greatest Practitioner Of The Classic Horror Tale.

As A Species We're Fundamentally Insane.

Time Slowed And Reality Bent; On And On The Eggman Went.

Anywhere In New York, Anywhere In The Country, Somewhere There's Going To Be A Coke Sign. People Identify With Coke. You Can Write A Novel About New York And People From The Country Will Read It If They Feel That You've Made Them Familiar With New York.

I'm Seen As Somebody Who Writes For Adults Because I'm An Older Man Myself. Some Of Them Find Me, And A Lot Of Them Don't.

Books Are The Perfect Entertainment: No Commercials, No Batteries, Hours Of Enjoyment For Each Dollar Spent. What I Wonder Is Why Everybody Doesn't Carry A Book Around For Those Inevitable Dead Spots In Life.

Let Me Tell You Something My Friend. Hope Is A Dangerous Thing. Hope Can Drive A Man Insane.

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

Fantasy Has A Better Chance Of Lasting Than A Lot Of Other Things. The Hobbit And The Narnia Books, They Seem To Get Handed Down Father To Son, Mother To Daughter. Because They're Set In A Fantasy World, They Can Remain Relevant.

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.

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.

How Many Have To Die Before We Will Give Up These Dangerous Toys?

Yes, I’ve Made A Great Deal Of Dough From My Fiction, But I Never Set A Single Word Down On Paper With The Thought Of Being Paid For It...i Have Written Because It Fulfilled Me. ... I Did It For The Pure Joy Of The Things. And If You Can Do It For Joy, You Can Do It Forever.

Loving What You Do

Perfect Paranoia Is Perfect Awareness.

You Needn't Die Happy When Your Time Comes, But You Must Die Satisfied, For You Have Lived Your Life From The Beginning To The End And Ka Is Always Served.

Scaring People, Especially In Our Day And Time, Is One Of The Hardest Things On Earth, As Far As I Am Concerned.

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

He Thrusts His Fists Against The Posts And Still Insists He Sees The Ghosts.

If Being A Kid Is About Learning How To Live, Then Being A Grown-up Is About Learning How To Die.

The Things A Man Sees When He Ain't Got A Gun.--watson The Caretaker

We All Do What We Can, And It Has To Be Good Enough, And If It Isn't Good Enough, It Has To Do.

My Childhood Was Pretty Ordinary, Except From A Very Early Age, I Wanted To Be Scared. I Just Did. I Was Scared Afterwards. I Wanted A Light On, Because I Was Afraid That There Was Something In The Closet. My Imagination Was Very Active, Even At A Young Age.

Your Pimples Are The Lord's Way Of Chastising You. Now Eat Your Pie.

It's As If God Gave You Something-all Those Stories- And Said, "here You Are. Try Not To Lose It." But Children Lose Everything Unless Somebody Is There To Help Them, And If Your Parents Are Too Stupid To Do It, Maybe I Ought To.

The Real Importance Of Reading Is That It Creates An Ease & Intimacy With The Process Of Writing... It Also Offers You A Constantly Growing Knowledge Of What Has Been Done And What Hasn't, What Is Trite And What Is Fresh, What Works And What Lies There Dying (or Dead) On The Page. The More You Read, The Less Apt You Are To Make A Fool Of Yourself With Your Pen Or Word Processor.

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

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.

The Old Sleep Poorly. Perhaps They Stand Watch.

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 Always Drank, From When It Was Legal For Me To Drink. And There Was Never A Time For Me When The Goal Wasn't To Get As Hammered As I Could Possibly Afford To. I Never Understood Social Drinking, That's Always Seemed To Me Like Kissing Your Sister.

When Asked, 'how Do You Write?' I Invariably Answer, 'one Word At A Time.'

Most Gothics Are Overplotted Novels Whose Success Or Failure Hinges On The Author's Ability To Make You Believe In The Characters And Partake Of The Mood.

Americans Are Apocalyptic By Nature. The Reason Why Is That We've Always Had So Much, So We Live In Deadly Fear That People Are Going To Take It Away From Us.

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

God Wiped Snot Out Of His Nose And That Was You.

I Saw Something Even More Beautiful Than A Sense Of Humor: An Appreciation For Life’s Essential Absurdity.

In A Brilliant Fusion Of Fact And Fiction, Jayne Anne Phillips Has Written The Novel Of The Year. It's The Story Of A Serial Killer's Crimes And Capture, Yes, But It's Also A Compulsively Readable Story Of How One Brave Woman Faces Up To Acts Of Terrible Violence In Order To Create Something Good And Strong In The Aftermath. Quiet Dell Will Be Compared To In Cold Blood, But Phillips Offers Something Capote Could Not: A Heroine Who Lights Up The Dark Places And Gives Us Hope In Our Humanity.

Every Book You Pick Up Has Its Own Lesson Or Lessons, And Quite Often The Bad Books Have More To Teach Than The Good Ones.

Time's The Thief Of Memory

They're Animals, All Right. But Why Are You So Goddam Sure That Makes Us Human Beings?

Gordie: Do You Think I'm Weird? Chris: Definitely. Gordie: No Man, Seriously. Am I Weird? Chris: Yeah, But So What? Everybody's Weird

No Writer, Painter, Or Actor - No Artist - Is Ever Handed A Sharp Knife (although A Few People Are Handed Almighty Big Ones; The Name We Give To The Artist With The Big Knife Is 'genius'), And We Hone With Varying Degrees Of Zeal And Aptitude.

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.

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.

Say Your Name Over Two Hundred Times And Discover You Are No One.

There's Nothing As Human As Hunger. There's No Creation Without Talent, I Give You That, But Talent Is Cheap. Talent Goes Begging. Hunger Is The Piston Of Art.

Don't Let The Door Hitcha Where The Good Lord Splitcha.

There's Two Kinds Of Evil That Horror Fiction Always Deals With. One Kind Is The Sort Of Evil That Comes From Inside People, Like In Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. The Other Kind Of Evil Is Predestined Evil. It Falls On You Like A Stroke Of Lightning. That's The Scary Stuff, But, In A Way, It's The Stuff You Don't Have To Worry About. I Gotta Worry Whether Or Not I'm Getting Cavities. I Gotta Worry About Whether Cigarettes Are Giving Me Cancer. Those Are Things I Can Change. Don't Give Me Lightning Out Of A Clear Sky. If That Hits Me I Just Say, "that's Probably The Way God Meant It To Be."

I Like To Hang Out Clothes On Windy Days. Sometimes That's All I Feel Like. A Sheet On A Line.

When You Put On A Clown Suit And A Rubber Nose, Nobody Has Any Idea What You Look Like Inside.

To The Devil With False Modesty.

I'd Like To Learn French Well Enough To Write In That Language.

I And Everyone Else In This World Live In What Is Probably The Most Difficult Times That Have Ever Been. We Are Facing Total Thermonuclear Destruction; And, If You Can Make Someone Believe In A Ghost Or A Demon Or A Vampire In The Face Of That, You Are Doing Well. From My Own Personal Point Of View, I Don't Think Just Blood And Guts Is Enough. At Least, It Isn't For Me. Maybe It Will Turn Someone's Stomach; But, I'm Not Sure That Is Literature Or Even Entertainment.

We Lie Best When We Lie To Ourselves.

The Exhilaration Was Hard To Explain. It Was A Lonely Feeling — A Somehow Melancholy Feeling. He Was Outside; He Passed On The Wings Of The Wind, And None Of The People Beyond The Brightly Lighted Squares Of Their Windows Saw Him. They Were Inside, Inside Where There Was Light And Warmth. They Didn't Know He Had Passed Them; Only He Knew. It Was A Secret Thing.

My Feeling Of The Whole Genre, Of The Terror Tale, Is This: The Best Thing That You Can Do For The Readers In This Field Is To Terrify Them. It Is Something That Is Intellectual, It Happens In Your Mind.

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.

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

The Quiet, Singing Voice Of The Rose. The Song That Promised All Might Be Well, All Might Be Well, That All Manner Of Things Might Be Well.

Put An Egg In Your Shoe And Beat It, Make Like A Tree And Leave, Imitate An Amoeba And Split.

The Only Mortal Sin Is Giving Up.

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

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.

So Okay - There You Are In Your Room With The Shade Down And The Door Shut And The Plug Pulled Out Of The Base Of The Telephone. You've Blown Up Your Tv And Committed Yourself To A Thousand Words A Day, Come Hell Or High Water. Now Comes The Big Question: What Are You Going To Write About? And The Equally Big Answer: Anything You Damn Well Want.

People Can Be Stunningly Unobservant.

I Don't Want To Sound Like An Ad, A Public Service Ad On Tv, But The Fact Is If You Can Read, You Can Walk Into A Job Later On. If You Don't, Then You've Got, The Army, Iraq, I Don't Know, Something Like That. It's, It's Not As Bright. So, That's My Little Commercial For That.

A Scary Movie Puts A Lot Of People, A Mob, In One Place. There Are Advantages To That Because The Panic Runs Through The Audience. If It's A Good Movie, The Fear Jumps From One Person To The Next. You Can Find Yourself Screaming Just Because Everybody Around You Is Screaming. There's A Real Atmosphere Of Terror. It's Also Visual, Which Means That You Can't Look Away From This Thing - It's Happening. You're In The Dark. It's Like A Nightmare. It's Like A Dream. It's Very, Very Visual. It Works On All Those Levels.

Death Was No Less A Miracle Than Birth.

We All Float Down Here!

I Did Spend Years As An Addict, So I Know That World, Although I Wish I Didn't.

You Should Never Trust A Person Who Prays In Public.

It's Hard For Me To Believe That People Who Read Very Little (or Not At All In Some Cases) Should Presume To Write And Expect People To Like What They Have Written.

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

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

The Thing Under My Bed Waiting To Grab My Ankle Isn't Real. I Know That, And I Also Know That If I'm Careful To Keep My Foot Under The Covers, It Will Never Be Able To Grab My Ankle.

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.

There Are Lots Of Would-be Censors Out There, And Although They May Have Different Agendas, They All Want Basically The Same Thing: For You To See The World They See...or To At Least Shut Up About What You Do See That's Different. They Are Agents Of The Status Quo. Not Necessarily Bad Guys, But Dangerous Guys If You Happen To Believe In Intellectual Freedom.

Memories Are Contrary Things; If You Quit Chasing Them And Turn Your Back, They Often Return On Their Own.

But Now The Joy Is Gone And The Sadness Is Back, The Sadness Feels Like Something Deserved, The Price Of Some Not-quite-forgotten Betrayal.

People With A High Tolerance For Boredom Can Get A Lot Of Thinking Done.

Swear To Me Swear To Me That If It Isn't Dead You'll All Come Back.

No One Dies Happy, You Can Only Die Well

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.

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

Trending Author

Kathleen Blanco

Christine Pelosi

Category