You lost your innocence when you grew up, all right, everyone knew that, but did you have to lose your hope, as well?

But she was weak… weak somehow. It was as if she was sending out radio signals which only he could receive. You could point to certain things–how much she smoked (but he had almost cured...

It’s as if God gave you something-all those stories- and said, “Here you are. Try not to lose it.” But children lose everything unless somebody is there to help them, and if your parents are...

His kid brother had been smart enough to make something of himself in the big world; Ollie himself might have been smart enough to stay ahead of the bank loans and the credit cards, but...

Even the company of the mad was better than the company of the dead.

When the work is the best work, it’s more like being a secretary than it is a creative person, you just sort of take the stuff down.

I guess a sock is also a geometric shape—technically—but I don’t know what you’d call it. A socktagon?

For men, I think, love is a thing formed of equal parts lust and astonishment. The astonishment part women understand. The lust part they only think they understand.

Why does she have to be such a…such a…””Go on,” I said. “The truth is never cussing, Son.””Such a bitch!

never’s the word God listens for when he needs a laugh.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

I’ve met talespinners before, Jake, and they’re all cut more or less from the same cloth. They tell tales because they’re afraid of life.

The woman who preaches has poison religion. Let the respectable ones go

Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be: partisans but never zealots, respectors of the facts which attend each situation...

Your man Jesus seems to me a bit of a son of a bitch when it comes to women,´Roland said. ´Was He ever married?´The corners of Callahan’s mouth quirked. ´No´ he said, ´but His girlfriend...

Cat can have kittens in the oven, girl, but that won’t ever make em muffins.

A man who doubts himself shouldn’t have to try too hard for too long, not until he’s seasoned.

Then, instead of telling her that where there was life there was hope, or to let a smile be her umbrella, or that it was always darkest just before the dawn, or anything else that...

Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.

Flakes of snow swirled and danced across the porch. The Overlook faced it as it had for nearly three-quarters of a century, its darkened windows now bearded with snow, indifferent to the fact it was...

The truth is that most writers are needy.

The multiple choices and possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to. They are like strings on a guitar. Strum them and you make a pleasing sound. A harmonic.

that this is Russian-A flu, not the more dangerous Swine flu.

The sun had burned through and the day had gone from dull to dazzling, yet in the west blask-satin thunderheads continued to stack up. It was as if night has burst a blood-vessel in the...

Se había perdido para siempre en el mundo del olvido

If you liked being a teenager, there’s something really wrong with you.

He fell silent. For several moments they all did, and the quiet had the feel of a deliberate thing. Then Eddie said, “All right, we’re back together again. What the hell do we do next?

And, instead of pelting these babbling idiots with their own freshly toasted marshmallows, everyone else sitting around the fire is often nodding and smiling and looking solemny thoughtful.

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

The feel of the sticky wetness down there when she moved made her grimace. God, she wanted to get cleaned up. In a hurry.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

Why’ is a crooked letter and can’t be made straight.

Free at last, he thought. Great God Almighty, I’m free at last. Then: I believe this is redemption. And it’s good, isn’t it? Quite good, indeed.

When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.

It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.

Pride was the belt you used to hold your pants up when you had no pants.

There came a time when you realized that moving on was pointless. That you took yourself with you wherever you went.

Then, for no reason I could tell you, I tossed the spool again, even though Elaine had asked me not to. Maybe only because, in a way, him chasing a spool was like old people...

and so will the world end, I think, a victim of love rather than hate. For love’s ever been the more destructive weapon, sure.

There are really only two types of men in the world when it comes to bad trouble,” Andy said, cupping a match between his hands and lighting a cigarette. “Suppose there was a house full...

When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.

Good luck is just bad luck with its hair combed.

Ka was a wheel; it was also a net from which none ever escaped.

You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for… and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.

There are books full of great writing that don’t have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story… don’t be like the book-snobs who won’t do that. Read sometimes for the words–the language. Don’t be...

When it was done and I went to sleep, I lay awake and listened to the clock on your nightstand and the wind outside and understood that I was really home, that in bed with...

You try to tell yourself that you’ve been lucky, most incredibly lucky, and usually that works because it’s true. Sometimes it doesn’t work, that’s all. Then you cry.

The reason authors almost always put a dedication on a book is, because their selfishness even horrifies themselves in the end.

In America, where surface has always passed for substance, people always believe guys like Frank Dunning.

If there’s one American belief I hold above all others, it’s that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is “right” and what is “best” should be given no rest;...