Quotes from The Dark Half

Stephen King ·  469 pages

Rating: (103.5K votes)


“He didn’t know if that was really true or not, but he discovered something which was tremendously liberating: he didn’t care. He was very tired of thinking and thinking and still not knowing. He was also tired of being frightened, like a man who has entered a cave on a lark and now begins to suspect he is lost. Stop thinking about it, then. That’s the solution.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half


“But writers INVITE ghosts, maybe; along with actors and
artists, they are the only totally accepted mediums of our society. They make worlds that never
were, populate them with people who never existed, and then invite us to join them in their
fantasies. And we do it, don't we? Yes. We PAY to do it.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half


“Cut him. Cut him while I stand here and watch. I want to see the blood flow. Don't make me tell you twice.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half


“...he was after all, a novelist...and a novelist was simply a fellow who got paid to tell lies. The bigger the lies, the better the pay.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half


“The George George Stark George Starked over the Starky Stark.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half



“He sometimes believed that the compulsion to make fiction was no more than a bulwark against confusion, maybe even insanity. It was a desperate imposition of order by people able to find that precious stuff only in their minds . . . never in their hearts.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half


“I want to make sure I remember what real ugly is. I might want to tell my grandchildren someday.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half


“Stark lit a Pall Mall himself, picked up one of his Berols, opened his own notebook . . . and then paused. He looked at Thad with naked honesty. “I’m scared, hoss,” he said. And Thad felt a great wave of sympathy for Stark—in spite of everything he knew. Scared. Yes, of course you are, he thought. Only the ones just starting out—the kids—aren’t scared. The years go by and the words on the page don’t get any darker . . . but the white space sure does get whiter. Scared? You’d be crazier than you are if you weren’t. “I know,” he said. “And you know what it comes down to—the only way to do it is to do it.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half


“«Sa, anch'io gioco un pochino a tennis, e pensavo...»
«Se lei gioca a tennis solo un pochino, allora probabilmente non è al mio livello.»”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Half


About the author

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

Popular quotes

“After an hour my senses begin to vibrate in a definite rhythm, I tune into the great stillness, I tune in. I gaze at the crescent moon sitting like a white shell in the sky, and I have a feeling of love for it, I feel I’m blushing. It’s the moon, I say softly and passionately, it’s the moon! And my heart beats toward it with a gentle throbbing. It lasts for several minutes. It blows a little, a strange wind is coming, an unusual blast of air. What is it? I look around and see no one. The wind calls me and my soul bows in answer to the call,37 I feel myself lifted out of my sphere, pressed to an invisible breast, my eyes are moist with tears, I tremble—God is somewhere near looking at me. This lasts for another few minutes. I turn my head, the strange blast of air is gone, and I see something like the back of a spirit wandering soundlessly through the forest. . . .”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Pan


“You’re an escapee from the loony bin,” I said. “You’re the butt of every joke ever told. You might as well be the chicken that crossed the road.”
― Jennifer Echols, quote from Forget You


“I admit to the jealousy. If you ever allow someone else to touch you, I will kill him, Jessie. I will tear him apart. Do you understand me?”
― Laurann Dohner, quote from Justice


“As rumor had said, he found several corpses strewn carelessly about the floor. Since the glow of the light was feeble, he could not count the number. He could only see that some were naked and others clothed. Some of them were women, and all were lolling on the floor with their mouths open or their arms outstretched showing no more signs of life than so many clay dolls. One would doubt they had ever been alive, so eternally silent they were.”
― Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, quote from Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories


“I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which knocked me stupid.”
― H. Rider Haggard, quote from King Solomon's Mines


Interesting books

The Unit
(6.3K)
The Unit
by Ninni Holmqvist
A Year in the Merde
(12.7K)
A Year in the Merde
by Stephen Clarke
Galore
(4.2K)
Galore
by Michael Crummey
Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
(4.2K)
Nomad: From Islam to...
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Politics of Jesus
(3K)
The Politics of Jesu...
by John Howard Yoder
The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana
(123)

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.