Quotes from Needful Things

Stephen King ·  790 pages

Rating: (168.9K votes)


“I'm having a magenta day. Not just red, but magenta!”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Everyone loves something for nothing...even if it costs everything.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?

She had shaken her head slowly.

Men and women who can't get over their past . . . That's what ghosts are.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Love, the simplest, strongest, and most unforgiving of all emotions.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things



“Why is it that so many people think all the answers are in their wallet?”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“That was what I wanted, but I don't need it to be gone. I can love you and I can love life and bear the pain all at the same time. I think the pain might even make the rest better, the way a good setting can make a diamond look better.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Some tears have to be cried no matter what the hour- until they are, they simply rave and burn inside.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Put an egg in your shoe and beat it, make like a tree and leave, imitate an amoeba and split.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“What chance?’ she had asked, bewildered.
‘Your chance. Your chance to live your own life. Right now you have the look of a woman who is seeing ghosts. Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?’
She had shaken her head slowly.
‘Men and women who can’t get over the past,’ Aunt Evvie said. ‘That’s what ghosts are. Not them.’ She flapped her arm toward the coffin which stood on its bands beside the coincidentally fresh grave. ‘The dead are dead. We bury them, and buried they stay.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things



“You must be human . . . how weirdly exotic and excitingly perverse.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Sure. Sure you have. I never forget a face.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“In a democracy we sometimes have to put up with things we don't life or approve of.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“It was wrong, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs in order to make an omelette.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Hugh stretched out one hand and stroked the fur. It felt cold and rich, it crackled with silky static electricity. Stroking it was like stroking a clear autumn night.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things



“At fifty-one you had to keep running just to escape the avalanche of your own past.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“She looks like a woman who just got laid . . . and had about three orgasms.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Because in America, you could have anything you wanted, just as long as you could pay for it. If you couldn't pay, or refused to pay, you would remain needful for ever.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“real reason he’d gone was the one most bad decisions have in common: it had seemed like a good idea at the time.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“lies and love rarely went together, and never for long.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things



“norris didn't cry, but he was apt to puke on them, the way he had puked on homer gamache that time he had found homer sprawled in a ditch out by homeland cemetary, beaten to death with his own artificial arm.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“Ladies and gentlemen, attention, please!
Come in close where everyone can see!
I got a tale to tell, it isn’t gonna cost a dime!
(And if you believe that,
we’re gonna get along just fine.)”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“She sat there all afternoon in her hot maiden’s bedroom, thinking and dreaming in the dark circle which the splinter spread around her, a darkness which was like the hood of a cobra.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“It’s like my mother used to say—people have more fun than anybody, except for horses, and they can’t.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“A little of everything, that’s what a successful business is all about, Brian. Diversity, pleasure, amazement, fulfillment . . . what a successful life is all about, for that matter . . . I don’t give advice, but if I did, you could do worse than to remember that . . . now let me see . . . somewhere”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things



“Castle Rock Middle School was a frowning pile of red brick standing between the Post Office and the Library, a holdover from the time when the town elders didn’t feel entirely comfortable with a school unless it looked like a reformatory.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“The first rule of her
confrontational life-style was Always get the last word. The second
was Always make the first move. Making this first move was what she
thought of as Taking Care of Things, and she meant to take care of
Nettle in a hurry.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


“He would have been perfectly at home living in a cave and dragging his woman around by the hair when he wasn't busy throwing rocks at his enemies. He was the sort of man whose response is only completely predictable when he is confronted with superior strength and authority. Confrontations of this kind didn't happen often, but when they did, he bowed to the superior force almost at once. Although he did not know it, it was this characteristic which had kept him from simply running away from the Flying Corson Brothers in the first place. In men like Ace Merrill, the only urge stronger than the urge to dominate is the need to roll over and humbly expose the undefended neck when the real leader of the pack puts in an appearance.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things


About the author

Stephen King
Born place: in Portland, Maine, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Jack enjoyed watching Amanda's face in the candlelight, her expression by turns thoughtful, amused, and lively, those gray eyes gleaming more brightly than the polished silver.
Unlike the other women present, who picked at their food with appropriately feminine disinterest, Amanda displayed a healthy appetite. Apparently it was one of the privileges of spinsterhood, that a woman could eat well in public. She was so natural and straightforward, a refreshing change from the other sophisticated women he had known.”
― Lisa Kleypas, quote from Suddenly You


“You can weave your life so long -- only so long, and then a thing in the world out of your control will tug at one vital thread and leave you patternless and subdued.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, quote from The Forgotten Beasts of Eld


“The library spilled onto the floor and into the other rooms. Some books held up wobbly tables, others were literally swept under the rug. Sabrina had once found a book inside the toilet tank.”
― Michael Buckley, quote from The Problem Child


“I know that you and your girls have been told for years on end that you just don’t pass up any opportunities when a man walks your way—he could be The One. But I’m here to tell you that this philosophy is just plain dumb. Women are smart—you all can tell when your friends are lying, you know when your kids are up to no good, co-workers can’t get anything past you at
the job. You’re quick to let each one of them know that you’re not stupid, that you see them coming a mile away, and you’re not going to let them play that game with you. But when it comes to your relationships with the opposite sex, all of that goes out the window; you relinquish your power and lose all control over the situation—cede it to any old man who looks at you twice. Just because he happened to look at you twice.”
― Steve Harvey, quote from Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment


“And so it was on the second Thursday of September, these five men kissed their spouses and children good-bye and climbed aboard the rented RV for a fun filled weekend of golfing, drinking, taking drugs and having sex with women who were not their wives.”
― Helen Argiro, quote from Tales of Sex & Suburban Lunacy


Interesting books

Evenfall
(4.4K)
Evenfall
by Ais
Fire with Fire
(12.6K)
Fire with Fire
by Jenny Han
Murder at the Vicarage
(109.4K)
Murder at the Vicara...
by Agatha Christie
Law Man
(37.4K)
Law Man
by Kristen Ashley
Requiem
(18.2K)
Requiem
by Jamie McGuire
Rage
(25.5K)
Rage
by Richard Bachman

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.