The writer's original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader's. — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“To those readers who feel that I didn't know any better, I assert that I did ... but the temptation was simply… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the tools to write.” — Stephen King Copy Share Image
Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
As a rule, I don't worry about genre. I just want to tell a good story, with characters that interest me and… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
My mother was a reader, and she read to us. She read us Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when I was six… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
The more fiction you read and write, the more you'll find your paragraphs forming on their own. — Stephen King Copy Share Image
The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story… Writing is seduction. Good… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
As a teenager, I read a lot of H.P. Lovecraft, so I wrote like H.P. Lovecraft. And in my 20s, I read… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
I'm a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, most fiction. I don't read in order… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“More than anything else I wanted to get inside my readers’ defenses, wanted to rip them and ravish them and change them… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
My feeling of the whole genre, of the terror tale, is this: The best thing that you can do for the readers… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“People who shine can sometimes see things that are gonna happen, and I think sometimes they can see things that did happen.… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen.… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
Too often, in novels that are speculative, God is a kind of kryptonite, and that's about all that it is, and it… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
How does it happen that a writer who's not even very good - and I can say that, I've read four or… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“Oh, maybe a little treasure for the more rabid Incunks, the collectors and the academics who maintained their positions in large part… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“And, you know, I hope you have some fun with this book. Nosh and nibble at the corners or read the mother… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
I don't make movies. I don't feel that I have to have artistic control. Part of this comes from the fact that… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“But none of them taught me the things I learned from Carrie White. The most important is that the writer’s original perception… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“The resulting scrambling to get the next big shiver and shake novel produced some really terrible books. As a further result, the… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“I discovered news of old horrors in old books; read intelligence of old atrocities in old periodicals; always in the back of… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools)… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write. — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“It was wrong, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs in order to make an omelette.” — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King Copy Share Image
Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. — Stephen King Copy Share Image
Until we see each other again, keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, be happy. — Stephen King Copy Share Image
A successful novel should interrupt the reader’s life, make him or her miss appointments, skip meals, forget to walk the dog. — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“If a book is not alive in the writer's mind, it is as dead as year-old horse shit.” — Stephen King Copy Share Image
Say what you mean. Say what you see. Make a photograph, if you can, for the reader. — Stephen King Copy Share Image
I enjoy going back and forth between plays and novels. It's like having a wife and a mistress. Books are the wife;… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent. — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“Come to the book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it and draw your own… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
I have an idea of how the book will finish up, but it very rarely finishes up the way that I think… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
The glory of a good tale is that it is limitless and fluid; a good tale belongs to each reader in its… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
I hardly ever read mainstream fiction that deals with life as it is. I like an element of fantasy, something that isn't… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
The movies have never been a big deal to me. The movies are the movies. They just make them. If they're good,… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
Shall there be truth between us, as two men? Not as friends, but as enemies and equals? — Stephen King Copy Share
The worst advice? 'Don't listen to the critics.' I think that you really ought to listen to the critics, because sometimes they're telling you… — Stephen King Copy Share
“October 3, 2017 The clown, Hagarty said, looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and that old TV clown, Bozo—or so he thought at… — Stephen King Copy Share
“Eddie saw great things and near misses. Albert Einstein as a child, not quite struck by a run-away milk-wagon as he crossed a street.… — Stephen King Copy Share
It hurt, of course, but more often than not the best things do, I've found. — Stephen King Copy Share
“The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time... Creative people probably do… — Stephen King Copy Share
“The sun had burned through and the day had gone from dull to dazzling, yet in the west blask-satin thunderheads continued to stack up.… — Stephen King Copy Share
“God, you had enough time to have been through it three times. You've been through my stuff. I bet you over and let one… — Stephen King Copy Share
“Flakes of snow swirled and danced across the porch. The Overlook faced it as it had for nearly three-quarters of a century, its darkened… — Stephen King Copy Share
“In that instant it all seemed to come clear to him- it came in a grisly flash of light, and he realized that the… — Stephen King Copy Share
Who gets to be best-liked in any community? Who is the most trusted? Why, the man who does the dirty job, of course, and… — Stephen King Copy Share
“¿Lo ves, tonto? Volvió a regañarse. Tú lo inventaste todo, gato asustado. No fue más que tu imaginación, gato asustado, gato asustado... No te… — Stephen King Copy Share
“Death . . . but not for you. That was what Walter, clever as Satan even at the end, had said. A lawyer’s answer . . . so close to… — Stephen King Copy Share
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… — Stephen King Copy Share
“Climb aboard, Jonesy. I'm going to send you up where the air is rare and the view is much more than fair.” — Stephen King Copy Share
