All Quotes

"If any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and fly upward, like a fish who puts his head out and sees the world, he would see a world beyond; and, if the nature of man could sustain this sight, he would acknowledge that this was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true stars. For this earth, and the stones, and the entire region which surrounds us, are spoilt and corroded..."

"Upon the earth are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the continent; and in a word, the air is used by them as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them as the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their seasons is such that they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have sight and hearing and smell, and all the other senses, in far greater perfection, in the same degree that air is purer than water or the ether than air. Also they have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive their answers and are conscious of them and hold converse with them, and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they really are, and their other blessedness is of a piece with this."

"[In the world below...] those who appear to have lived neither well not ill, go to the river Acheron, and mount such conveyances as they can get, and are carried in them to the lake, and there they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and suffer the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, and are absolved, and receive the rewards of their good deeds according to their deserts. But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes—who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like—such are hurled into Tartarus, which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have committed crimes, which, although great, are not unpardonable—who in moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or who have taken the life of another under like extenuating circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth—mere homicides by way of Cocytus, patricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon—and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and here they lift up their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to receive them, and to let them come out of the river into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for this is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges."

"Those also who are remarkable for having led holy lives are released from this earthly prison, and go to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth; and those who have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer far than these..."

"I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and her missions is exactly true—a man of sense ought hardly say that. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of this kind is true."

"Socrates having heard Plato read the Lysis, said, "O Hercules! what a number of lies the young man has told about me." For he had set down a great many things as sayings of Socrates which he never said."

"Let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who has cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to him, and rather hurtful in their effects, and has followed after the pleasures of knowledge in this life; who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth—in these arrayed she is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her time comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls."

"[In what way would you have us bury you?] In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take care that I do not walk away from you. ...I cannot make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead body... And though I have spoken many words in the endeavor to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed—these words of mine, with which I comforted you and myself, have had, I perceive, no effect upon Crito. ...you should be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried."

"I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him; for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer then, my good Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think best."

""Please." He thought to say, Don't make me beg, but that was wrong because it wasn't enough. "I'm begging you. Please talk to me." She held up the cigarette and uttered a terrible toneless laugh. "I thought, now that the little lice are gone, I can have a smoke on my doorstep. And look, here's the big louse, the louse of louses. Last warning, Mr. Louse who got my husband killed. Get... the fuck... off my doorstep." "What if he didn't do it?" Her eyes widened and the pressure of her hand on the door slackened, at least for the moment. "What if he...? Jesus Christ, he told you he didn't do it! He told you as he lay there dying! What else do you want, a hand-delivered telegram from the Angel Gabriel?" "If he didn't, whoever did is still out there, and he's responsible for the destruction of the Peterson family, as well as yours." She considered this for a moment, then said: "Oliver Peterson is dead because you and that sonofabitch Samuels had to put on your circus. And you killed him, didn't you, Detective Anderson? Shot him in the head. Got your man. Excuse me, your boy." She slammed the door in his face. Ralph again raised his hand to knock, thought better of it, and turned away."

"Go down, Jack. Get them and I'll take the cancer away. Oh, but right now he had more immediate concerns, didn't he? He was swelling up like a waterlogged sponge. The snakebite poison, too. I can make you well. Jack wasn't sure he could believe Tat-Man, but he understood he had no choice. Also, there was Anderson. Mr. No Opinion didn't get to walk away from this. It was all his fault, and he didn't get to walk away. He started down the path at a shambling trot, clutching the barrel of the Winchester and using the stock as a cane. His second fall came when the rocky scree slid away under his left foot and his swollen, throbbing right leg wasn't able to compensate. The leg of his pants split open the next time he went down, disclosing flesh that was turning purplish-black and necrotic. He clawed at the rocks and got to his feet again, his face puffing and running with sweat. He was pretty sure he was going to die on this godforsaken chunk of rock and weeds, but he was goddamned if he was going to do it alone."

"According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, roughly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States. Most are found. Thousands are not."

"Great events turn on small hinges."

"He was out."

"There was a perfunctory knock at the door, and then Rosalind stuck her head in, looking apologetic. "I'm sorry to disturb you, ma'am, but it's Fred Clark, asking to see you. He seems-" "Refresh me. Who is Fred Clark?" Mrs. Sigsby took off her reading glasses and rubbed the sides of her nose. "One of the janitors." "Find out what he wants and tell me later. If we've got mice chewing the wiring again, it can wait. I'm busy." "He says it's important, and he seems extremely upset." Mrs. Sigsby sighed, closed the folder, and put it in a drawer. "All right, send him in. But this had better be good." It wasn't. It was bad. Very."

"Mrs. Sigsby sat down on the bare mattress and looked at the woman hanging from the shower head. And at the message she had written with the lipstick Mrs. Sigsby now observed lying in front of the toilet. HELL IS WAITING. I'LL BE HERE TO MEET YOU."

"But they always come back, she thought, looking at a sand beach she sometimes visited but where she would never live. They always come back and no matter how sloppy some things have become around here, they don't talk. That's one thing they are never sloppy about. Because if people found out what we're doing, the hundreds of children we've destroyed, we'd be tried and executed by the dozens. Given the needle like Timothy McVeigh."

""We'll find him," Stackhouse said. Because if we don't, he thought, I'm toast. This whole place might be toast."

"The Dixon boy hasn't had the tank, has he?" "Of course not." Donkey Kong looked vaguely offended at the very idea. "He's not a pink. Farthest thing from one. To risk damaging a BDNF as high as his would be insane. Or to risk damaging his abilities. Which would be unlikely but not impossible. Sigsby would have my head." "She won't and he goes in it today," Stackhouse said. "Dunk that little motherfucker until he thinks he's dead, and then dunk him some more." "Are you serious? He's valuable property! One of the highest TP-positives we've had in years!" "I don't care if he can walk on water and shoot electricity out of his asshole when he farts. Have the Greek do it as soon as he comes back on duty. He loves putting them in the tank. Tell Zeke not to kill him, I do understand his value, but I want him to have an experience he'll remember for as long as he can remember. Then take him to Back Half." "But Mrs. Sigsby-" "Mrs. Sigsby agrees completely." Both men swung around. She was standing in the door between the office and her private quarters. Stackhouse's first thought was that she looked as if she had seen a ghost, but that wasn't quite right. She looked as if she were a ghost. "Do it just the way he told you, Dan. If it damages his BDNF, so be it. He needs to pay."

"For a moment Luke stayed where he was, thinking that if he remained perfectly still and perfectly silent, the man would decide he'd been mistaken and go away. But that was childish thinking, and he was no longer a child. Not even close. So he crept out and tried to stand, but his legs were stiff and his head was light. He would have fallen over if the white guy hadn't grabbed him. "Holy shit, kid, who tore your ear off?""

"Luke had to use all his willpower to keep from drinking the whole sixteen-ounce bottle of water at a single go. He left a quarter of it, set it down, then snatched it up again and screwed on the cap. He thought if the train took a sudden yaw and it spilled, he would go insane. He gobbled the sausage biscuit in five snatching bites and chased it with another big swallow of water. He licked the grease from his palm, then took the water and the Hostess pie and crept back into his nest. For the first time since riding down the river in the S.S. Pokey and looking up at the stars, he felt that his life might be worth living. And although he did not exactly believe in God, having found the evidence against just slightly stronger than the evidence for, he prayed anyway, but not for himself. He prayed for the highly hypothetical higher power to bless the man who had called him outlaw and thrown that brown bag into the boxcar."

"Julia, I really think this is a mistake. It ought to be me." She faced him. "Say it again, and I'll haul off on you." She walked to the van. Denny Williams unrolled the side door for her. Mrs. Sigsby started to get in, then turned to Stackhouse. "And make sure Avery Dixon is well dunked and in Back Half by the time I return." "Donkey Kong doesn't like the idea." She gave him a terrifying smile. "Does it look like I care?"

"That's right, you tell Sheriff John. You-all need to be on your guard. They're apt to come locked and loaded. There's a town in Maine, Jerusalem's Lot, and you could ask the people who lived there about the men in the black cars. If you could find any people, that is. They all disappeared forty or more years ago. George Allman talks about that town all the time." "Got it." She went to the door, serape swishing, then turned. "You don't believe me, and I ain't a bit surprised. Why would I be? I been the town weirdo for years before you came, and if the Lord doesn't take me, I'll be the town weirdo years after you're gone." "Annie, I never-" "Hush." She stared at him fiercely from beneath her sombrero. "It's all right. But pay attention, now. I'm telling you... but he told me. That boy. So that's two of us, all right? And you remember what I said. They come in black cars."

"He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts."

"William "Stuttering Bill" Denbrough recites this in IT (1985), but the line is not originally King's, as is often believed. It is part of a tongue-twister that dates at least to its publication in "Exercises in Articulation" in The Dayspring (March 1874), p. 39:"

"Alvin Schwartz presents a slightly different version of the tongue-twister in his collection A Twister of Twists, A Tangler of Tongues (HarperTrophy, 1972, p. 80):"

"In his notes, Schwartz comments that the tongue-twister dates to 19th-century New England and that it was often referred to as "The Drunken Saylor.""

"I'm not saying that you will, right off the bat, with no author experience, make the kind of money Stephen King makes. Achieving that level of success can take literally months."

"(Name a book that made you want to write.) My uncle gave me Stephen King’s Pet Sematary one Christmas. I guess he was thinking: “It’s a bestseller, the girl likes to read, it has a cat on the cover…” I read it when everybody was asleep, probably passed out after the celebrations, and I was so scared I had to throw it away. But I picked it up again and went on reading. I remember thinking, wow, I’d really like to make people feel something so real as this under their skin. It’s clearly a novel about how scared he is to lose his family. I was 12 or 13 but you understand it at that age too; you never think it’s only about the supernatural. Everything I learned about blending reality and horror, I learned from Stephen King."

"If it feels like you’re being forced to honor and respect a demagogue and liar under penalty of … some bad thing, well, you’re not wrong. As Radley Balko said Monday, “we're witnessing the most aggressive, fanatical crackdown on free speech in my lifetime. The speed and breadth of government censorship and private sector and nonprofit capitulation has been astonishing, as has the lack of urgency [or] silence from people who've long claimed to care about this stuff.” How is this happening? Consider the case of Stephen King. Yes, that Stephen King. Last week, on Twitter, the novelist quoted-tweeted remarks by Fox host Jesse Watters. “Charlie Kirk was not a ‘controversial’ or ‘polarizing’ man,” Watters said. “Charlie was a PATRIOT. THIS is a turning point and we all need to turn in the right direction. Rest in peace, my friend.” It should be said first of all that this is a lie. Kirk was nothing but controversial and polarizing. That was his entire shtick. And that’s why Stephen King said: “He advocated for stoning gays to death. Just sayin’.”"

"That Kirk did not explicitly advocate for the stoning of gays to death, in the strictest sense and syntax of those words, is therefore a distinction without a difference – unless, like Kirk, you’re a liar. In that case, the distinction between saying what you’re saying and not saying what you’re saying is important. If that collapses, so does your deception. As long as the distinction between what is said and what is intended to be understood is in place, it’s possible to bully people into silence. That’s what happened to Stephen King and others. They spoke the truth about Kirk – not the strict letter of it but the true spirit of it – but did not have the courage to stand by the truth after being accused of slander. And in the process of apologizing, they ended up affirming the lie, making it grow bigger, such that a USA Today story about King’s apology says that he “repeatedly apologized for a false accusation.” (After all, it must have been false if Stephen King apologized for it.)"

"I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered — now I have only one doubt left — which of the twain was God?"

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The study of this Book is forbidden. It is wise to destroy this copy after the first reading. Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and peril. These are most dire."

"There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt. Love is the law, love under will."

"I am certainly of opinion that genius can be acquired, or, in the alternative, that it is an almost universal possession. Its rarity may be attributed to the crushing influence of a corrupted society. It is rare to meet a youth without high ideals, generous thoughts, a sense of holiness, of his own importance, which, being interpreted, is, of his own identity with God. Three years in the world, and he is a bank clerk or even a government official. Only those who intuitively understand from early boyhood that they must stand out, and who have the incredible courage and endurance to do so in the face of all that tyranny, callousness, and the scorn of inferiors can do; only these arrive at manhood uncontaminated."

"Religion in life is either an amusement and a soporific, or a sham and a swindle."

"I am inclined to agree with the Head Master of Eton that pæderastic passions among schoolboys 'do no harm'; further, I think them the only redeeming feature of sexual life at public schools."

"There seems to be much misunderstanding about True Will ... The fact of a person being a gentleman is as much an ineluctable factor as any possible spiritual experience; in fact, it is possible, even probable, that a man may be misled by the enthusiasm of an illumination, and if he should find apparent conflict between his spiritual duty and his duty to honour, it is almost sure evidence that a trap is being laid for him and he should unhesitatingly stick to the course which ordinary decency indicates ... I wish to say definitely, once and for all, that people who do not understand and accept this position have utterly failed to grasp the fundamental principles of the Law of Thelema."

"Black magic is not a myth. It is a totally unscientific and emotional form of magic, but it does get results — of an extremely temporary nature. The recoil upon those who practice it is terrific. It is like looking for an escape of gas with a lighted candle. As far as the search goes, there is little fear of failure! To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires. I have been accused of being a "black magician." No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it."

"Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out! The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the technique of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be improper to expound in this present elementary stage."

"The best models of English writing are Shakespeare and the Old Testament, especially the book of Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. ... In writing English the most important quality that you can acquire is style. It makes all the difference to anyone who reads what you write, whether you use the best phrases in the best way."

"Every man and every woman is a star."

"These are fools that men adore; both their Gods & their men are fools. This verse establishes uncompromisingly that all Gods — G capital, that is to say, 'true Gods' — and all men deified by legend or deceit — that is to say, false gods' — are fools. How come? It is a key. Distinction is clearly made between the two types: one are Gods; the other is men."

"I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy."

"Then saith the prophet and slave of the beauteous one: Who am I, and what shall be the sign? So she answered him, bending down, a lambent flame of blue, all-touching, all penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black earth, & her lithe body arched for love, and her soft feet not hurting the little flowers: Thou knowest! And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my body."

"I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union."

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

"Love is the law, love under will."

"Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!"

"I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky."