Top 100 A.S. King Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Today I am in control because I want to be. I have my fingers on the switch, but have lived a lifetime ignoring the control I have over my own world. Today is different.”

— A.S. King

2. “The more I know people, the more I love my dog.”

— A.S. King

3. “Dude, what matters is if you’re happy. What matters is your future. What matters is that we get out of here in one piece. What matters is finding the truth of our own lives, not caring about what other people think is the truth of us.”

— A.S. King

Featured in: Caring Quotes

4. “I wish we could go back in time and climb trees together again. I love you, Vera. I always will.”

— A.S. King

5. “We are all made from star dust and we will all return to star dust, like a cosmic palindrome.”

— A.S. King

6. “The simplest answer is to act.”

— A.S. King

7. “We’re all just making it up as we go along. No one really knows what they’re doing. Anyone who tells you otherwise is talking out of their butt.”

— A.S. King

8. “I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. If we’re supposed to ignore everything that’s wrong with our lives, then I can’t see how we’ll ever make things right.”

— A.S. King

9. “Only you can allow yourself to be angry.”

— A.S. King

10. “Listen to me. They may control what you do, but no one can pee on your soul without your permission.”

— A.S. King

11. “I place us where we are a happy couple who are madly in love, and we are kissing the way people kiss on their wedding day. With joy and relief and love. Without guilt. Without Shame.”

— A.S. King

12. “You know that saying about how you don’t know what you have until it’s gone-I already did know what I had, and now that she’s gone, I know even more.”

— A.S. King

13. “I am equal to a baby and to a hundred year old lady. I am equal to an airline pilot and a car mechanic. I am equal to you. You are equal to me. It’s that universal. Except that it’s not.”

— A.S. King

14. “Look, this is a loan. I don’t know if love is something I will run out of one day. I don’t know if I should be giving it all to you guys or not. Today, I feel like maybe I should have kept some for myself for days when no one else loves me.”

— A.S. King

15. “How can we say nobody’s perfect if there is no perfect to compare to? Perfection implies that there really is a right and wrong way to be. And what type of perfection is the best type? Moral perfection? Aesthetic? Physiological? Mental?”

— A.S. King

16. “Because with Charlie, nothing was ever easy. Everything was windswept and octagonal and finger-combed. Everything was difficult and odd, and the theme songs all had minor chords.”

— A.S. King

17. “I can’t stop myself from reaching for the bottle that’s under my seat. I’ve gone all night without a sip, but it’s not about being addicted. It’s about being told what to do my whole life and doing it and then losing everything anyway.”

— A.S. King

18. “I knew not to give the best of myself to the worst of people.”

— A.S. King

19. “It’s a question. And I’m answering it. But I don’t know the answer yet, and I’m sorry.”

— A.S. King

20. “Even though I know that breaking your brain is the same as breaking your arm, I’m still ashamed that my brain is broken.”

— A.S. King

21. “Because this has to stop now. Life’s too short to live the whole thing underground.”

— A.S. King

22. “I was also built from delusional optimism and folly.”

— A.S. King

23. “Isn’t it funny how we live inside the lies we believe?”

— A.S. King

24. “I didn’t think about anything past tomorrow because anything past tomorrow was just like cloud busting – it depended soley on the person looking at the clouds and it could rain any minute.”

— A.S. King

25. “I can’t help seeing a cage for what it is. Sure, it protects the bulb, but maybe if people weren’t so careless, then nothing would need to be caged.”

— A.S. King

26. “Is it okay to hate a dead kid? Even if you loved him once? Even if he was my best friend? Is it okay to hate him for being dead?”

— A.S. King

27. “The world will be upside down forever. We just have to come to terms with that.”

— A.S. King

28. “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.” Now.”

— A.S. King

29. “I’d rather feel something for real than pretend it’s not what it is.”

— A.S. King

30. “In nature, crying is okay. Waterfalls cry all the time.”

— A.S. King

31. “I don’t smile. I have all these thoughts. Crazy thoughts. Like, on the one hand, I want to kiss her passionately, like they do in movies, and just paralyze her with the feeling of how much I want to take care of her.”

— A.S. King

32. “Then they fake smile at each other, but I’m starting to understand that smiling is really just another way of baring one’s teeth.”

— A.S. King

33. “But that’s a side effect of alcohol, isn’t it? Stopping to think about other people is not on the bar menu.”

— A.S. King

34. “When they torture me, they show they’re weak. When I survive, I show them I’m stronger.”

— A.S. King

35. “We’re alive. We have words and shapes and ideas. We will throw them at you when you do not believe. We will throw our love and our hate and our failure and success. We’ll split in two right in front of you and be our best and our worst. We’ll lie and tell the truth.”

— A.S. King

36. “You’ll never lose me, Vera. I’m the Great Hunter now.”

— A.S. King

37. “Look. This isn’t a temper tantrum. I’m not some teenager you can blow off because you made a myth about teenagers being dramatic.”

— A.S. King

38. “Everybody’s always looking for the person they’re better than.”

— A.S. King

39. “I remember asking everyone else in my life for forgiveness, but I realize I never asked myself.”

— A.S. King

40. “I felt a mix of wanting to kill him and wanting to kiss him at the same time. When I thought of what true love must be like, I figured it must be like this, and not the stupid eighth grade infatuation most girls my age felt. True love includes an equal part of good and bad, but true sticks around and doesn’t run off to Vegas with a podiatrist.”

— A.S. King

41. “I want to tell her that the only thing you get from walling yourself in is empty.”

— A.S. King

42. “I am as blank as a piece of white paper in a world with no pencils.”

— A.S. King

43. “She wore too much eyeliner then, at age thirteen, and now, at eighteen, she wears so much black under her eyes, she looks like a slutty linebacker raccoon.”

— A.S. King

44. “I mean, accidents are usually fast, right? Can’t say the last four hundred years counts as fast. Can you?”

— A.S. King

45. “The thing you don’t see while you’re still there on Earth is how easy it is to change your mind. When you’re in it and you’re mixed up with feelings, assumptions, influences, and misconceptions, things seem completely impossible to change. From here, you see that change is as easy as flicking a light switch in your brain.”

— A.S. King

46. “I find myself thinking that it would be nice to be able to fix my life the way I’m fixing the patio. I wonder, is there enough terracotta-colored cement to fill the hole where my father should be? Or where my mother’s spine should be? Or where my guts should be?”

— A.S. King

47. “Pretty much nobody on Earth takes me seriously. And yet, on the inside I know there is something wrong enough that someone should be taking it seriously. Maybe it starts with me. Maybe I have to take it seriously first.”

— A.S. King

48. “If parents cared as much about raising kids as the chef cared about making this cake, the world would be a completely different meat grinder. Bruce can’t take a bite of his cake without.”

— A.S. King

49. “The absence of violence is not love.”

— A.S. King

50. “Instead of replying with my usual open-your-mind speech, I send love to my mother. Mom, I love you even though you are a critical, unforgiving horror show. This casserole sucks, but I like the way you roasted the walnuts.”

— A.S. King