Fairy Tale Stephen King Quotes

A brave man helps. A coward just gives presents.

There’s a dark well in everyone, I think, and it never goes dry. But you drink from it at your peril. That water is poison.

You never know where the trapdoors are in your life, do you?

good people shine brighter in dark times.

I think all worlds are magic. We just get used to it.

Time is the water, Charlie. Life is just the bridge it flows under.

They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.

There is pain in every almost.

it’s the stories of our childhood that make the deepest impressions and last the longest.

When there is love, scars are as pretty as dimples.

All alcohol smells the same to me, of sadness and loss.

Here is something I learned in Empis: good people shine brighter in dark times.

I think there’s always a reason for love, but sometimes hate just is. A kind of free-floating evil.

My old resentments were mostly gone, but not entirely. Fright and loss leave a residue.

STRAIN YOUR POOPER!

I don’t want to be a Disney prince. To hell with that. If I have to be a prince, I want to be a dark one.

Sometimes the most horrible things are what give us strength.

I think tempus est umbra in mente is a better one. Roughly translated, it means time is a shadow in the mind.

but shame is like laughter. And inspiration. It doesn’t knock.

You get used to the amazing, that's all. Mermaids and IMAX, giants and cell phones. If it's in your world, you go with it. It's wonderful, right? Only look at it another way, and it's sort of awful. Think Gogmagog is scary? Our world is sitting on a potentially world-ending supply of nuclear weapons, and if that's not black magic, I don't know what is.

I wish I had looked longer, but I don’t blame myself. You never know where the trapdoors are in your life, do you?

a quote from Benjamin Franklin: Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

Fright and loss leave residue.

Sleep...it's the only escape we have.

Do you know what magic does, Charlie?’ I thought it did all sorts of things–allowing hapless pilgrims such as myself to visit other worlds, for instance–but I shook my head. ‘It gives people hope, and hope is dangerous.

expect nothing but never lose hope.

There's always someone at fault, which is not the same as blame.

Monster dog. Like Cujo in that movie.

And always let your conscience be your guide.” —Blue Fairy

He might be crafty, but that wasn't necessarily the same thing as being smart.

...books, most of them old and with that smell that old books have. Probably not everyone likes that smell, but I do. It's musty, but good must.

I was insubstantial, and I remember thinking that we all are, really, just ghosts on the face of the earth trying to believe we have weight and a place in the world.

There is a dark well in everyone...it never goes dry. But you drink from it at your own peril. That water is poison

In our world you got your mystery and suspense stories . . . your science fiction stories . . . your Westerns . . . your fairy tales. Get it?” “Yes,” Roland said. “Do people in your world always want only one story-flavor at a time? Only one taste in their mouths?” “I guess that’s close enough,” Susannah said. “Does no one eat stew?” Roland asked.

But wishes are like beauty - vain things

but you know what they say about hope: it’s the thing with feathers. It can fly even for those who are imprisoned. Maybe especially for them.

life gets to be a burden… if you live long enough you’ll find that out for yourself.

Empis… Bella… Arabella… there are other worlds than these, Charlie.

And of course there’s always Amazon, which by 2040 will be the world government the right-wingers are so afraid of.

There was nothing, but I still stood there with the flashlight in my hand, paralyzed with fear. Of what? The unknown, which is the scariest thing there is.

Did I know before then that a person can choose not to be angry? I don’t think I did. What I knew was that I didn’t want to leave that way, either.

Laugh didn't knock but only barged in. You know that's true if you ever saw something funny and couldn't help laughing, not just in the moment but every time you remembered it.

It’s hard when a good dog gets old. And when they get to the end of it…” He shook his head. “It tears your heart out.

You can't take credit for sobering him up, because he did that. And if he starts drinking again, you can't take the blame, because he'd do that, too.

You said a brave man helps but a coward gives presents.

That much is true about songs (and many stories) even in my own world. They speak mind to mind, but only if you listen.

Based on this shaky matchstick foundation, I built a skyscraper of supposition.

but the booze was out of control. I know that now; then I just accepted it. Kids do that. Dogs, too.

It was everything I hated about what I thought of as "hoity-toity" academic writing, full of five-dollar words and tortured syntax.

They might not even need to collide for them to be destroyed; their mutual attraction might pull them to pieces. As sometimes happens in human

A whining note had come into his voice, the tone of someone who had—in AA lingo—a ring around his ass from sitting on the pity-pot.

As Mr. Neville, my English teacher, was fond of saying: Irony, it’s good for your blood.

Save your breath to cool your porridge,

shame is like laughter. And inspiration. It doesn’t knock.

Do you know what magic does Charlie?"..."It gives people hope. And hope is dangerous, wouldn't you say?

This is a pretty good world, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, and there are thousands of people doing thousands of good deeds every day

learn to listen so you can listen to learn,

As for the world I came from… I think all worlds are magic. We just get used to it.

Who is that trip-trapping upon my bridge?' Miss Davies spoke in the low, growling tones of the troll in the story. Some of the little ones covered their mouths and giggled, but most only watched her solemnly, accepting the voice of the troll as they accepted the voices of their dreams, and their grave eyes reflected the eternal fascination of the fairy tale: would the monster be bested . . . or would it feed?

I took a few deep breaths, told myself I was all right, didn't believe it, and went on.

I asked if he wanted to watch the news. He shook his head. “Put it on if you want, but I rarely bother. The names change but the bullshit never does.

He had been told the story of the sky-sisters as a child, and as you probably know for yourself, dear reader, it’s the stories of our childhood that make the deepest impressions and last the longest.

I found out that the giant’s famous chant—Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman—was cribbed from King Lear, where a character named Edgar says, Child Roland to the dark tower came, His word was still Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.

Tempus fugit is a good one,” she said, “but time doesn’t always fly, as everyone who’s ever had to wait around for something knows. I think tempus est umbra in mente is a better one. Roughly translated, it means time is a shadow in the mind.

Since my little bit of target practice in the shed I haven’t felt well at all. I’m having pain in the left side of my neck and down my left arm to the elbow. That sometimes fades a bit, but the heaviness in my chest doesn’t. I know what such symptoms mean. There’s a thunderstorm brewing inside me and I think it will break soon.

Hmm,' said the King. 'I must write that down in my book of aphorisms. I don't know if it is deep, but it sounds deep.

Whiskey doesn’t smell the same as gin… yet it does. All alcohol smells the same to me, of sadness and loss. I

As to what followed… if it was a thank-you fuck, I didn’t want to know. And if it was a mercy fuck, all I can say is hooray for mercy.

I’d been a good little co-dependent.

tempus est umbra in mente is a better one. Roughly translated, it means time is a shadow in the mind.

Lilimar was a haunted city, a place where only the dead, the living dead, and a few ass-kissers still remained.

He closed his eyes. ‘Bad idea,’ I said. Without opening them, he said, ‘The universe is full of them.

you can’t turn a pickle back into a cucumber, and God don’t make junk,

Worse, the entire palace, which had absolutely no symmetry, seemed to be moving, like Howl’s castle.

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

I told myself I was just passing the time, but now I wonder. I think sometimes we know where we’re going even when we think we don’t.

Amazing things can go through your mind in times of extreme stress.

Guns are like cheap cameras, all you have to do is point and shoot.

Disease may hide, but infection is a show-off. It stinks and pustulates.

The dead, no longer restless, had been reburied.

I don’t think I could have written this book without the help of Robin Furth, my research assistant. She knows more about Empis (and Charlie Reade) than I do.

(I’m sorry to keep throwing these names at you, but you have to remember there were thirty prisoners besides me)

Then came what the poets and musicians call a caesura.

This is a pretty good world, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, and there are thousands of people doing thousands of good deeds every day (maybe millions).

When he spoke, it was again hard to believe that I hadn't stepped into a storybook and become one of the characters. "Hello, young prince. I've been expecting you.

It was a quote from Benjamin Franklin: Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

you son of Adrian Bowditch.

People grew milkweed in their gardens for the larvae to eat, and flowers for the butterflies to drink nectar from when they emerged. They were considered the luck of the kingdom.

There’s always someone at fault,” Dad said. “Which is not the same as blame.

I saw that two were women and two were black.

...following my father's dictum: expect nothing but never lose hope.

I thought of Stooks saying I’ll never be pretty again. Queen Leah of the Gallien never would be, either, but that didn’t matter. Because she was beautiful.

What’s your name?” “Derek! Derek Shepherd!

I didn't exactly hate my father...I felt contempt for him.

You are one of the whole people.” “Whole people?” She reached over the table to touch my forehead, one cheek, my nose, and my mouth. Her fingers were light, the touch fleeting, but more of those shocks went through me. “Whole,” Falada said. “Not gray. Not spoiled.

Yes,” Leah said, and bent to pet Radar herself. Rades looked up sleepily. “But your dog is an animal, innocent of the bad strain that lives in the hearts of every man and woman. The strain that destroyed my brother. I’d guess that strain lives in your world, too.” I couldn’t argue that.

Of course I hadn’t been; my mind had been filled with my own thoughts… just as the minds of many who passed Elsa didn’t hear her songs because they were too busy to listen. That much is true about songs (and many stories) even in my own world. They speak mind to mind, but only if you listen.

Of course I hadn’t been; my mind had been filled with my own thoughts … just as the minds of many who passed Elsa didn’t hear her songs because they were too busy to listen. That much is true about songs (and many stories) even in my own world. They speak mind to mind, but only if you listen.

I raised my cup to Kellin. ‘Long days and pleasant nights.’ I drank. It was sweet and good. ‘What an interesting toast. I’ve never heard it before.’ ‘I learned it from my father.’ This was true. I thought not much else I might say in this richly appointed room would be the truth, but that was. He’d read it in some book or other, but I didn’t intend to say that.

The dominant literary mode of the twentieth century has been the fantastic. This may appear a surprising claim, which would not have seemed even remotely conceivable at the start of the century and which is bound to encounter fierce resistance even now. However, when the time comes to look back at the century, it seems very likely that future literary historians, detached from the squabbles of our present, will see as its most representative and distinctive works books like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and also George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and The Inheritors, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle, Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot-49 and Gravity’s Rainbow. The list could readily be extended, back to the late nineteenth century with H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr Moreau and The War of the Worlds, and up to writers currently active like Stephen R. Donaldson and George R.R. Martin. It could take in authors as different, not to say opposed, as Kingsley and Martin Amis, Anthony Burgess, Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, Don DeLillo, and Julian Barnes. By the end of the century, even authors deeply committed to the realist novel have often found themselves unable to resist the gravitational pull of the fantastic as a literary mode. This is not the same, one should note, as fantasy as a literary genre – of the authors listed above, only four besides Tolkien would find their works regularly placed on the ‘fantasy’ shelves of bookshops, and ‘the fantastic’ includes many genres besides fantasy: allegory and parable, fairy-tale, horror and science fiction, modern ghost-story and medieval romance. Nevertheless, the point remains. Those authors of the twentieth century who have spoken most powerfully to and for their contemporaries have for some reason found it necessary to use the metaphoric mode of fantasy, to write about worlds and creatures which we know do not exist, whether Tolkien’s ‘Middle-earth’, Orwell’s ‘Ingsoc’, the remote islands of Golding and Wells, or the Martians and Tralfa-madorians who burst into peaceful English or American suburbia in Wells and Vonnegut. A ready explanation for this phenomenon is of course that it represents a kind of literary disease, whose sufferers – the millions of readers of fantasy – should be scorned, pitied, or rehabilitated back to correct and proper taste. Commonly the disease is said to be ‘escapism’: readers and writers of fantasy are fleeing from reality. The problem with this is that so many of the originators of the later twentieth-century fantastic mode, including all four of those first mentioned above (Tolkien, Orwell, Golding, Vonnegut) are combat veterans, present at or at least deeply involved in the most traumatically significant events of the century, such as the Battle of the Somme (Tolkien), the bombing of Dresden (Vonnegut), the rise and early victory of fascism (Orwell). Nor can anyone say that they turned their backs on these events. Rather, they had to find some way of communicating and commenting on them. It is strange that this had, for some reason, in so many cases to involve fantasy as well as realism, but that is what has happened.