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Favourite Stephen King Quotes

Ever thought to yourself, "Now, where did <insert favourite quote here> come from? Who said it? Where can I find it?" Well, here is a list of favourite quotes - mine, and those from others on the alt.books.stephen-king newsgroup. If you can't find yours here, please email me with it - the address, as ever, for browsers without mailing capabilities, is jls20@hermes.cam.ac.uk. If you have a quote you want putting on, I'd be grateful if you'd provide book, character (if applicable )and chapter in as much detail as possible (eg 13.4 for chapter 13, heading 4). That way it makes it easier for me to make it easier for others to look up. If you want to find a link and it isn't here, I'll do all I can - again, if you can give any information that you can remember, it'll make it easier for me (and anyone else I draft in to help me find it!) Anyway, on with the links... As yet they're in no particular order, and a lot need looking up for more info - when I've got enough to order them properly, I will.

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless..." - Opening paragraph, The Body (Stand By Me)

"Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant, did you ever notice that?" - end of chapter 32, The Body (Stand By Me)

"I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus, did you?" - end of chapter 11, The Body (Stand By Me)

"Oh yes, we all float - and when you're down here with us, you'll float too!" - Pennywise the Clown at various stages in It.

"Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to" - Vera Donovan, in Dolores Claiborne.

"In vain he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts" - Bill Denborough at various stages in It.

`The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed' - opening line of Dark Tower I - The Gunslinger

"Either get busy living or get busy dying" - Red, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

"I hope the Pacific is as blue as is has been in my dreams. I hope." - Red, the end of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

`Dolorously, Termont's voice floated back: "Smells like shit. Oh God, that's what it is, it's shit, oh my God lemme outta here I'm gonna blow my groceries oh shit it's shit oh my Gawwwwwd -" And then came the unmistakable sound of Rory Termont losing his last couple of meals.' p93 in my copy of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (The Shawshank Redemption) (My copy runs from page 11-113)

"Sometimes, dead is bettah" - Jud Crandall, Pet Sematary

"The soil of a man's heart is stonier [...] A man grows what he can... and he tends it" - Jud Crandall, Chapter 22 (near end) Pet Sematary

"The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle." - Stephen King, in the foreword of Night Shift.

`Jack Torrance thought : Officious little prick' - Start of The Shining

"That wasn't any act of God. That was an act of pure human fuckery." - Larry Underwood, The Stand

`When asked,"How do you write ?" I invariably answer, "one word at a time.' - Stephen King

"You ain't no nice guy!" - Maria the Oral Hygienist to Larry Underwood, The Stand, about halfway through Chapter 10 (Complete & Uncut Edition).

`He looked fixedly at the rat for a long time before letting the mattress fall back, mercifully hiding it from sight. "Just in case," Lloyd Henreid whispered into the silence. "Just in case, is all."' - The Stand (C&U), end of Chapter 32.

"Hey Traschan, whydja want to burn up a church? Why dintcha burn up the SCHOOL?" - The Stand (C&U), about 4 pages into chapter 34.

"Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home." - Glen Bateman, The Stand (C&U), 3rd paragraph of Chapter 42.

`"You're nothing!" Glen said, wiping his streaming eyes and still chuckling. "Oh pardon me...it's just that we were all so frightened...we made such a business out of you...I'm laughing as much at our own foolishness as at your regrettable lack of substance..."' - Glen Bateman to Randall Flagg, The Stand (C&U), about the middle of Chapter 73.

`And, when the hand touched his shoulder again, he somehow found the strength to run.' - The Long Walk, (The Bachman Books, p. 434)

"There are some huge rats in the walls, by the sound." - Boone, Jerusalem's Lot (Night Shift)

`It Is The Tale, Not He Who Tells It.' - The Breathing Method

"Good old Wolf right here and now!" - Wolf, The Talisman, p269

`Cujo knew he was too old to chase rabbits.' - Cujo, p17 Viking Hardcover

"She [Susan] is very lovely, Mr. Mears - very toothsome if I may be permitted a small bon mot." Barlow's note left to Ben & co. pg 345 'Salem's Lot.

"You may not know it, but shape-changing is a time-honored custom in Derry." - The Crimson King, Insomnia p713.

"You're dead, George. You just don't have the sense to lie down." - Thad Beaumont, The Dark Half, p226.

"It's a long walk back to Eden, dear, so don't sweat the small stuff." - Lois, Insomnia.

`Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.' - Closing lines of The Stand.

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