Quotes

I've killed enough of the world's trees.

I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami.

Each life makes its own imitation of immortality.

When asked, "How do you write?", I invariably answer, "One word at a time".

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.

I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.

For every six crappy poems you read, you'll actually find one or two good ones. And that, believe me, is a very acceptable ratio of trash to treasure.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy... and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

[asked why he hasn't personally directed more movies] Just watch Maximum Overdrive (1986).

[on playing the role of Jordy Verrill in Creepshow (1982)] If I had written it for myself, I would have put in at least one sex scene!

Rob Reiner, who made Stand by Me (1986), is one of the bravest, smartest filmmakers I have ever met, and I'm proud of my association with him. I am also mused to note that the company Mr. Reiner formed following the success of "Stand By Me" is Castle Rock Productions . . . a name with which many of my longtime readers will be familiar.

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

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

I love the movies, and when I go to see a movie that's been made from one of my books, I know that it isn't going to be exactly like my novel because a lot of other people have interpreted it. But I also know it has an idea that I'll like because that idea occurred to me, and I spent a year, or a year and a half of my life working on it.

I know writers who claim not to read their notices, or not to be hurt by the bad ones if they do, and I actually believe two of these individuals. I'm one of the other kind - I obsess over the possibility of bad reviews and brood over them when they come. But they don't get me down for long; I just kill a few children and old ladies, and then I'm right as a trivet again.

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.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

I've had a deal for years with Castle Rock Entertainment that goes back to Stand by Me (1986). I have told them that you can have my work for a buck. What I want from you is script approval, director approval, cast approval, and I want to have the authority to push the stop button at any point regardless of how much money you [the production company] have invested, because none of the money you have put in has gone into my pocket. What I get on the back end, if things work out, is 5% from dollar one.

Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They both are fruit but taste completely different.

[on directing Maximum Overdrive (1986)] I didn't get the job because I went to film school. I got the job because I'm Stephen King. If you become famous enough, they'll let you hang yourself in Times Square with live TV coverage.

[on film adaptations of his work] I don't feel any urge to control after I sign a piece of paper. I say, "See you later. You have what you need and I have what I want. As long as the check doesn't bounce, you and I are quits."

[from his acceptance speech for the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, 2003] I salute the National Book Foundation Board, who took a huge risk in giving this award to a man many people see as a rich hack.

I know a few writers who claim not to read reviews, and I actually believe one of these individuals. I am the opposite: I anticipate bad reviews and brood over them when they come. But then I just kill a few children and old ladies and I'm right as a trivet again.

[on the death of Michael Jackson] Strange man. Lost man. And not unique in his passing. Like James Dean, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Heath Ledger, and a dozen others we could name, he just left the building far too soon. Because, man oh man, that guy could dance.

I didn't believe there was justification for going into the war in Iraq. And it just seemed at the time, that in the wake of 9/11, the [George W. Bush] Administration was like this angry kid walking down the street who couldn't find whoever sucker-punched him, and so turned around and punched the first likely suspect. Sometimes the sublimely wrong people can be in power at a time when you really need the right people.

When Robert Bloch died, the only thing that anybody really remembered about him was that he wrote Psycho (1960), which became the famous Alfred Hitchcock movie. And whenever I'm introduced, I'm the guy that wrote "The Stand". When my name comes up in the blogs these days, it's usually in relation to H1N1: "He was the guy who thought about the flu!"

You can still reconcile the idea that things are not necessarily going to go well without falling back on platitudes like "God has a plan" and "This is for the greater good."

I'm in the supermarket one day with my cart, and there's this woman, about 95. She says, 'I know who you are. You write those stories, those awful horror stories . . . I don't like that. I like uplifting movies like that 'Shawshank Redemption'. So I said, 'I wrote that.' And she said, 'No, you didn't.' And that was it. Talk about surreal. I went to myself, for a minute, 'It's not very much like my other stuff. Maybe I didn't write it!'

(About seeing Carrie (1976) for the first time) In the row in front of us there were two huge African-American men. Two-hundred and fifty pounders at least. They're screaming like children. They're grabbing each other around the neck and one of them says to the other one, "That's it, that's it. She ain't never gonna be right". And I looked at my wife and I said this movie's gonna be huge.

Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is how important it is to have a boyfriend.

I was addicted for most of the 80s. Its not a terribly long time to be an addict, but it lasted longer than WW2.

[why he disliked Jack Nicholson in The Shining (1980)] Jack Torrance as written was someone who was a nice guy that then went over the edge, not someone who flew the cuckoo's nest from the outset. There was no moral struggle at all.

Having kids allows you to finish off your own childhood, but from a more mature perspective.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Never write a book whose manuscript is bigger than your own head.

You have to be a little nuts to be a writer because you have to imagine world's that aren't there.

A short story is like a stick of dynamite with a tiny fuse; you light and that's the end.

[his novel, The Stand] My "Lord of the Rings" of the American landscape.

[on cocaine] One snort, and it owned me body and soul.

Writing is the only thing I'm good at. I could never do another job.

Book tours are like a pillow fight with all the pillows treated with low-grade poison gas.

As a kid, I didn't talk much, I wrote. I'm not used to externalizing my thoughts other than on paper, which is typical of writers.

One of the reasons that I live in Bangor is because if somebody wants to get to me, they have to be really dedicated.

I'm the Big Mac of authors.

[on his past career as a teacher] Teaching school is like having jumper cables hooked to your ears, draining all the juice out of you.

You should do sex, never write about it.

People ask me when are you going to write something serious, but that's a question that hurts. That's like walking up to a Black man and asking how it feels to be a nigger.

[writing outside the horror genre] Writing on a non-supernatural level is like learning to talk after you've had a stroke.

[his religious beliefs] I've always believed in God. I also think that the capacity to believe is the sort of thing that either comes as part of your equipment, or at some point in your life when you're in a position where you actually need help from a power greater than yourself. You simply make an agreement to believe in God because it will make your life easier and richer to believe than not to believe. So I choose to believe.

[on his fear of the number 13] The number 13 never fails to trace that old icy finger up and down my spine. When I'm writing, I'll never stop work if the page number is 13 or a multiple of 13; I'll just keep on typing till I get to a safe number. I always take the last two steps on my back stairs as one, making 13 into 12. There were after all 13 steps on the English gallows up until 1900 or so. When I'm reading, I won't stop on page 94, 193, or 382, since the sums of these numbers add up to 13.