“Every religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That’s all history is, after all: scar tissue.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Life is a crap carnival with shit prizes.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Rich people can be generous, even the ones with bloodcurdling political views can be generous, but most believe in generosity on their own terms, and underneath (not so deep, either), they’re always afraid someone is going to steal their presents and eat their birthday cake.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Creepy as hell. You ever see that TV movie about the clown in the sewer?”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Never tell a lie when you can tell the truth.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Most people are sheep and sheep don't eat meat”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Everybody likes the ice cream man.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“When you gaze into the abyss, Nietzsche wrote, the abyss also gazes into you.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“How cruel would a supreme being have to be to make a world as fucked-up as this one?”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Any system created by the mind of man can be hacked by the mind of man.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Hodges has read there are wells in Iceland so deep you can drop a stone down them and never hear the splash. He thinks some human souls are like that.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Hodges remembers an old saying: even on the darkest day, the sun shines on some dog’s ass.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“even on the darkest day, the sun shines on some dog’s ass.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“That’s all history is, after all: scar tissue.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“[E]ighty percent of success is just showing up.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“More coffee?” Hodges declines with a smile. Hot can only do so much for bad coffee.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“It’s easy—too easy—to either disbelieve or disregard someone you dislike.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“In a don’t-give-a-fuck world, he is about to become the ultimate don’t-give-a-fucker.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“It wasn't fair, but what is? Life is a crap carnival with shit prizes.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“That had to be the answer. When you heard hoofbeats, you didn't think zebras.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“What he knows now is that guilt isn’t the only reason people commit suicide. Sometimes you can just get bored with afternoon TV.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Holly sighs. “I’m out of cigarettes, too.” “Those things will kill you,” Jerome says. She gives him a flat look. “Yes! That’s part of their charm.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“as if the cops expected the big gray sedan to start up by itself, like that old Plymouth in the horror movie,”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“I did something good for you just now. Before the sun goes down tonight, I want you to pass it on.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“College was for people who didn’t know they were smart.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Any system created by the mind of man can be hacked by the mind of man. You feel me?”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Woody Allen was right: eighty percent of success is just showing up.”
― Stephen King, quote from Mr. Mercedes
“Baggy and the boys were in the Bar Room on the third floor, not directly under the cupola, but not far from it. In fact, they were probably the closest humans to the sniper when he began his target practice. After the shooting resumed for the ninth or tenth time, they evidently became even more frightened and, convinced they were about to be slaughtered, decided they had to take matters into their own hands. Somehow they managed to pry open the intractable window of their little hideaway. We watched as an electrical cord was thrown out and fell almost to the ground, forty feet below. Baggy’s right leg appeared next as he flung it over the brick sill and wiggled his portly body through the opening. Not surprisingly, Baggy had insisted on going first. “Oh my God,” Wiley said, somewhat gleefully, and raised his camera. “They’re drunk as skunks.” Clutching the electrical cord with all the grit he could muster, Baggy sprung free from the window and began his descent to safety. His strategy was not apparent. He appeared to give no slack on the cord, his hands frozen to it just above his head. Evidently there was plenty of cord left in the Bar Room, and his cohorts were supposed to ease him down. As his hands rose higher above his head, his pants became shorter. Soon they were just below his knees, leaving a long gap of pale white skin before his black socks bunched around his ankles. Baggy wasn’t concerned about appearances—before, during, or after the sniper incident. The shooting stopped, and for a while Baggy just hung there, slowly twisting against the building, about three feet below the window. Major could be seen inside, clinging fiercely to the cord. He had only one leg though, and I worried that it would quickly give out. Behind him I could see two figures, probably Wobble Tackett and Chick Elliot, the usual poker gang. Wiley began laughing, a low suppressed laugh that shook his entire body. With each lull in the shooting, the town took a breath, peeked around, and hoped it was over. And each new round scared us more than the last. Two shots rang out. Baggy lurched as if he’d been hit—though in reality there was no possible way the sniper could even see him, and the suddenness evidently put too much pressure on Major’s leg. It collapsed, the cord sprang free, and Baggy screamed as he dropped like a cinder block into a row of thick boxwoods that had been planted by the Daughters of the Confederacy. The boxwoods absorbed the load, and, much like a trampoline, recoiled and sent Baggy to the sidewalk, where he landed like a melon and became the only casualty of the entire episode. I heard laughter in the distance. Without a trace of mercy, Wiley recorded the entire spectacle. The photos would be furtively passed around Clanton for years to come. For a long time Baggy didn’t move. “Leave the sumbitch out there,” I heard a cop yell below us. “You can’t hurt a drunk,” Wiley said as he caught his breath. Eventually, Baggy rose to all fours. Slowly and painfully, he crawled, like a dog hit by a truck, into the boxwoods that had saved his life, and there he rode out the storm.”
― John Grisham, quote from The Last Juror
“Edward Plantagenet is no man to hold cheaply. Far better to take him at his own inflated estimation!”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Falls the Shadow
“The skin was not skin at all, but bone. Ectoskeleton.”
― John Steakley, quote from Armor
“Note to self, when a girl’s smile makes you forget your own name – you’re in some deep shit.”
― Rachel Van Dyken, quote from Ruin
“Knowledge is power; power corrupts. Corruption brings shame and ruin. Ignorance may not be bliss, but it is perhaps preferable to a life lived in shame.”
― Lauren Kate, quote from Teardrop
BookQuoters 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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