“When you're twenty-one, life is a roadmap. It's only when you get to be twenty-five or so that you begin to suspect that you've been looking at the map upside down, and not until you're forty are you entirely sure. By the time you're sixty, take it from me, you're fucking lost.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“It’s hard to let go. Even when what you’re holding onto is full of thorns, it’s hard to let go. Maybe especially then.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“You think Okay, I get it, I'm prepared for the worst, but you hold out that small hope, see, and that's what fucks you up. That's what kills you.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“All I can say is what you already know: some days are treasure. Not many, but I think in almost every life there are a few. That was one of mine, and when I'm blue -- when life comes down on me and everything looks tawdry and cheap, the way Joyland Avenue did on a rainy day -- I go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isn't always a butcher's game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes they are precious.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. You've heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What's so sweet about that?”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“Passing time adds false memories and modifies real ones.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“The last good time always comes, and when you see the darkness creeping toward you, you hold on to what was bright and good. You hold on for dear life.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“My father had taught me - mostly by example - that if a man wanted to be in charge of his life, he had to be in charge of his problems.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“I'm not sure anybody ever gets completely over their first love, and that still rankles. Part of me still wants to know what was wrong with me. What I was lacking.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“What I know now is that gallant young men rarely get pussy. Put it on a sampler and hang it in your kitchen.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“In the years since, I've discovered there's a lot to be said for boredom.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“...I'd been raised by my parents to believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height of impoliteness...”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“Nothing screws with memory like repetition.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“Young women and young men grow up, but old women and old men just grow older and surer they've got right on their side.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“We rarely get what we imagine in this world.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“This is a badly broken world, full of wars and cruelty and senseless tragedy. Every human being who inhabits it is served his or her portion of unhappiness and wake up nights.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“Some days are treasure. Not many but I think in almost every life there are a few.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“Pops gave him a cool stare that settled Tom down - a thing not always easy to do. "Son, do you know what history is?"
"Uh...stuff that happened in the past?"
"Nope," he said, trying on his canvas change-belt. "History is the collective and ancestral shit of the human race, a great big and ever growing pile of crap. Right now, we're standin at the top of it, but pretty soon we'll be buried under the doodoo of generations yet to come. That's why your folks' clothes look so funny in old photographs, to name but a single example. And, as someone who's destined to buried beneath the shit of your children and grandchildren, I think you should be just a leetle more forgiving.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“Climb aboard, Jonesy. I'm going to send you up where the air is rare and the view is much more than fair.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“I kissed her, just a gentle brush of my lips across hers. It was like swallowing a tiny drop of something incredibly sweet.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“Age looked at youth, and youth's applause first weakened, then died.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“We all write fiction when we write about the past.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“God and heaven lasted about four years longer than the Tooth Fairy”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“He says there's a reason wife and life sound almost the same.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
“The gate is the key to the kingdom.”
― Stephen King, quote from Joyland
Stephen King
Born place: in Portland, Maine, The United States
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“I'm a detective, but nuns could stonewall Sam Spade into an asylum”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre
“Kids who get called the worst names oftentimes find each other. That's how it was with us. Skeezie Tookis and Addie Carle and Joe Bunch and me. We call ourselves the Gang of Five, but there are only four of us. We do it to keep people on their toes. Make 'em wonder. Or maybe we do it because we figure that there's one more kid out there who's going to need a gang to be part of. A misfit,like us.”
― James Howe, quote from The Misfits
“Yes, but I think I should leave." "And I think you are distressed and need to rest before making such a hasty decision," he countered, with infuriating benignity. "Surely, meeting Charles's younger brother so unexpectedly, and under such traumatic circumstances, has not helped matters any." He was smiling, but there was something she couldn't identify beneath that smile, and his dark eyes were watching her closely. Too closely. "Lord Gareth bears a certain resemblance to Charles, don't you think?" "Your Grace, I don't want to argue with you, but I would be more comfortable staying someplace in the village —" "What?!" cried Andrew and Nerissa in chorus. "Are your trunks still outside on the coach, Miss Paige?" the duke persisted. "Well, of course, but —" "Are they emblazoned with your name or initials?" "Yes, but —" "Puddyford!" The door opened obediently, and a liveried servant appeared, his face expressionless, his body erect and at attention. "Puddyford, I have business to attend to in the village. Have Miss Paige's trunks brought inside and up to her rooms. Nerissa, you will see that our guest is made comfortable, and someone is sent to attend to her needs." He let his gaze sweep assessingly over Juliet. "You will be happy in the Blue Room, I think." "Your Grace, I have no wish to impose upon your hospitality —" "Nonsense, my dear girl. You have conducted yourself admirably, and your answers have satisfied me. Don't look so put out. Don't you realize I was only testing you with my studied rudeness?”
― Danelle Harmon, quote from The Wild One
“I remember my wife in white.' It just made people weep to hear it...Everybody just thought it was the saddest sentence that was ever written. And it didn't matter if I never wrote another word. This one sentence had put an end to the need for any future sentences. I had said it all.”
― Carolyn Parkhurst, quote from The Dogs of Babel
“Every atom in me feels composed of lead. This is what dying is: a pull to the ground.”
― Sonya Hartnett, quote from Surrender
Magic Rises
The Assassin's Curse
The Railway Children
Good Grief
Wanted
The Crow RoadBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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