Looking for the best and inspirational Stephen King quotes?
Stephen King is an American author of horror, thriller, science fiction novels, short stories, screenplays, and other works. He has published more than 60 novels, including Carrie, The Shining, IT, and Misery.
In Portland, Maine, he was born on September 21st, 1947, to Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After one brother, Stephen was the third child in the family, Owen died at two months old from crib death, and one sister Doris Ann. Nellie struggled to give her children what they needed as their father’s alcoholism dragged the family down into poverty. Stephen had a difficult childhood with his alcoholic father dying from alcoholism when he was just eleven years old, which led his siblings to believe that he would die young.
Ever since his debut in 1973 with Carrie, King has been writing prolifically. He’s published a book every year since then and writes one million words per book.
He is one of the most famous literary authors of all time. He has sold more than 350 million books worldwide, with his best-selling novel, IT, making him the third-best-selling fiction author ever.
His quotes will help you stay motivated by focusing on how far you have come and what a great future awaits you if only you will keep pressing on.
59 Inspirational Stephen King Quotes
“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
“It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.”
“Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.”
“When you are talented you do it whatever it is until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head.”
“Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”
“People don’t get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don’t stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.”
“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.”
“You cannot condemn a man for what may only be a figment of your own imagination.”
“Remeber, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.”
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and got to work.”
“Talent is a wonderful thing, but it won’t carry a quitter.”
“I think that we’re all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better — and maybe not all that much better after all.”
“Sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.”
“We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living.”
“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
“We lie best when we lie to ourselves.”
“The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there…and still on your feet.”
“Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once.”
“Time heals all wounds.”
“Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”
“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”
“Control the things you can control, maggot. Let everything else take a flying at you and if you must go down, go down with your guns blazing.”
“When the time is gone, you can never get it back.”
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around those two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”
“Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”
“Life is like a wheel. Sooner or later, it always comes around to where you started again.”
“The mind can calculate, but the spirit yearns, and the heart knows what the heart knows.”
“Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.”
“People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.”
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
“A story should entertain the writer too.”
“Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”
“Let me say it again: You must not come lightly to the blank page.”
“People don’t get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don’t stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.”
“When asked, how do you write? I invariably answer, one word at a time.”
“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches.”
“If you don’t control your temper, your temper will control you.”
“The most important things are the hardest to say.”
“Be a writer of the soul.”
“Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness.”
“The mind can calculate, but the spirit yearns, and the heart wants what the heart wants.”
“The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”
“The only mortal sin is giving up.”
“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
“It’s alright to feel fear, but sometimes a very bad idea to show it.”
“Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
“We lie best when we lie to ourselves.”
“The mind can calculate, but the spirit yearns, and the heart knows what the heart knows”
“A coward judges all he sees by what he is.”
“Quiet people have the loudest minds.”
“If you can read and write, you can own the world.”
“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.”
“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 on life.”
“Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”
“Time’s the thief of memory.”
