Top 500 Stephen King Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “You cannot condemn a man for what may only be a figment of your own imagination.”

— Stephen King

102. “Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.”

— Stephen King

Featured in: Quotes About Kids

103. “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.”

— Stephen King

104. “You should never trust a person who prays in public.”

— Stephen King

105. “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.”

— Stephen King

106. “The past is obdurate.”

— Stephen King

107. “A product is something made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by the customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless.”

— Stephen King

108. “Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward life with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.”

— Stephen King

109. “People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.”

— Stephen King

110. “What is writing? Writing is telepathy.”

— Stephen King

111. “If you don’t have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it?”

— Stephen King

112. “Sometimes dead is better.”

— Stephen King

113. “Don’t ask me silly questions I won’t play silly games I’m just a simple choo choo train And I’ll always be the same. I only want to race along Beneath the bright blue sky And be a happy choo choo train Until the day I die.”

— Stephen King

114. “A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.”

— Stephen King

Featured in: Leadership Quotes

115. “Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”

— Stephen King

116. “We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.”

— Stephen King

117. “We lie best when we lie to ourselves.”

— Stephen King

118. “Death, but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on.”

— Stephen King

119. “The truth is in the details.”

— Stephen King

120. “We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”

— Stephen King

121. “We’re all going to die; I’m just trying to make it a little more interesting.”

— Stephen King

122. “I do not kill with my gun; He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.”

— Stephen King

123. “Some things were better lost than found.”

— Stephen King

124. “We all float down here!”

— Stephen King

125. “Love isn’t soft, like the poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.”

— Stephen King

126. “Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force.”

— Stephen King

127. “The unconscious mind writes poetry if it’s left alone.”

— Stephen King

128. “A coward judges all he sees by what he is.”

— Stephen King

Featured in: Judging Quotes

129. “Until we see each other again, keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, be happy.”

— Stephen King

Featured in: Book Quotes

130. “You can’t polish a turd.”

— Stephen King

131. “There are a great many ways to commit suicide you know.”

— Stephen King

132. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want for nothing. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He greases up my head with oil. He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies. Amen.”

— Stephen King

133. “Writing good dialogue is art as well as craft.”

— Stephen King

134. “A product can be quickly outdated, but a successful brand is timeless.”

— Stephen King

135. “Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness.”

— Stephen King

136. “But I believe in love, you know; love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart.”

— Stephen King

137. “Fear is the emotion that makes us blind.”

— Stephen King

138. “True sorrow is as rare as true love.”

— Stephen King

139. “Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters.”

— Stephen King

140. “I have two amazing things in my life: I’m pain-free and I’m debt-free.”

— Stephen King

141. “And will I tell you that these three lived happily ever after? I will not, for no one ever does. But there was happiness. And they did live.”

— Stephen King

142. “The good thing about being old, is you don’t have to worry about dying young.”

— Stephen King

Featured in: Worry Quotes

143. “The soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can and tends it.”

— Stephen King

144. “FEAR stands for face everything and recover – Old AA saying.”

— Stephen King

145. “We did not ask for this room or this music. We were invited in. Therefore, because the dark surrounds us, let us turn our faces to the light. Let us endure hardship to be grateful for plenty. We have been given pain to be astounded by joy. We have been given life to deny death. We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.”

— Stephen King

146. “If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”

— Stephen King

147. “It’s best to be ruthless with the past.”

— Stephen King

148. “We have once again succeeded in destroying what we could not create.”

— Stephen King

149. “I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.”

— Stephen King

150. “A person’s memory is everything, really. Memory is identity. It’s you.”

— Stephen King