14 Stephen King Quotes on Writing

Stephen King quotes on writing

45. When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'

53. Three-thirty in the morning...To Ray Garraty it seemed the longest minute of the longest night of his entire life. It was low tide, dead ebb, the time when the sea washes back, leaving slick mudflats covered with straggled weed, rusty beer cans, rotted prophylactics, broken bottles, smashed buoys, and green-mossed skeletons in tattered bathing trunks. It was dead ebb.

106. The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst-for me, at least-is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.

113. This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do-not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less the bullshit.

114. The corollary is that no writer will take all of his or her editor's advice; for all have sinned and fallen short of editorial perfection. Put another way, to write is human, to edit is divine.

115. When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story...When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.

119. You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair--the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.

120. I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops.

121. If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

122. If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write.

123. Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.

138. 'Lisey?' Amanda asked. Her brow was deeply furrowed. 'I'm sorry,' Lisey said. 'I just kind of...went off there for a second'. 'You often do,' Amanda said. 'I think you got it from Scott. Pay attention, Lisey. I made a little number on each of his magazines and journals and scholarly things. The ones piled over there against the wall.' Lisey nodded as if she knew where this was going. 'I made the numbers in pencil, just light,' Amanda went on. 'Always when you're back was turned or you were somewhere else, because I thought if you saw you might have told me to stop.' 'I wouldnt've.' She took the little notebook which was limp with its owner sweat. 'Eight hundred and forty six! That many!' And she knew the publications running along the wall weren't the sort she herself might read and have in the house, ones like O and Good Housekeeping and Ms., but rather Little Sewanee Review and Glimmer Train and things with incomprehensible names like Piskya. 'Quite a few more than that,' Amanda said, and cocked a thumb at the piles of books and journals. When Lisey really looked at them, she saw that her sister was right. Many more than eight hundred and forty-some. Had to be. 'Almost three thousand in all, and where you'll put them or who'd want them I'm sure I can't say. No, these eight hundred and forty-six is just the number that have pictures of you.'

142. I don't take notes; I don't outline, I don't do anything like that. I just flail away at the goddamn thing. I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami. You can't sell it as caviar.

153. Why would I read one of mine? I know how they come out!