Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin Kingis an American author of contemporary horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, many of which have been adapted into feature films, miniseries, television shows, and comic books. King has published 54 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and six non-fiction books. He has written nearly 200 short stories, most of which have been collected in book collections. Many of his stories are set in...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth21 September 1947
CityPortland, ME
For me, that emotional payoff is what it’s all about. I want you to laugh or cry when you read a story...or do both at the same time. I want your heart, in other words. If you want to learn something, go to school.
Time is a keyhole.... We sometimes bend and peer through it. And the wind we feel on our cheeks when we do--the wind that blows through the keyhole--is the breath of all the living universe.
I like to always stop with a couple of pages that I haven't - that are just raw copy, where I haven't touched it, I haven't tried to revise it, I haven't tried to polish it. It's like having a little bit of a runway. The next day when you sit down, you have the comfort of saying, well, I have got a little bit here, used to be in the typewriter. Now it's in the magic box, the computer.
No good friends, no bad friends; only people you want, need to be with. People who build their houses in your heart.
If we don't have each other, we go crazy with loneliness. When we do, we go crazy with togetherness.
It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.
The idea for a novel is like a little tiny fire in a dark night. And, one by one, the characters come and stand around it and warm their hands.
No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't.
I don't like the idea that I am going to come back as an ant or a sparrow if I don't get along in the great karma of life.
Wanting more is just a recipe for heartache.
Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.
So where do the ideas-the salable ideas-come from? They come from my nightmares. Not the night-time variety, as a rule, but the ones that hide just beyond the doorway that separates the conscious from the unconscious.
Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle.
You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.