Quotes from The Dark Tower

Stephen King ·  1050 pages

Rating: (114.9K votes)


“And will I tell you that these three lived happily ever after? I will not, for no one ever does. But there was happiness. And they did live.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“A coward judges all he sees by what he is.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“never's the word God listens for when he needs a laugh.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. These are the rooms of ruin where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one...”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower



“He who speaks without an attentive ear is mute.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“The road and the tale have both been long, would you not say so? The trip has been long and the cost has been high... but no great thing was ever attained easily. A long tale, like a tall Tower, must be built a stone at a time.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“and so will the world end, I think, a victim of love rather than hate. For love's ever been the more destructive weapon, sure.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“Death, but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“The scariest, most terrifying thing that I fear?"
Yes."
My Imagination."
I thought you were going to say "Fear, itself."
Then you have a small imagination."
Roland and Eddie”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower



“You needn't die happy when your time comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from the beginning to the end and ka is always served.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“What I'm saying is that I'm trying to find rational reasons to explain irrational feelings, and that's neveer a good sign.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“Because talent won't be quiet, doesn't know how to be quiet," he said. "Whether it's a talent for safe-cracking, thought-reading, or dividing ten-digit numbers in your head, it screams to be used. It never shuts up. It'll wake you in the middle of your tiredest night, screaming, 'Use me, use me, use me! I'm tired of just sitting here! Use me, fuckhead, use me!”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“Battles that last five minutes spawn legends that live a thousand years.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“Time flies, knells call, life passes, so hear my prayer.
Birth is nothing but death begun, so hear my prayer.
Death is speechless, so hear my speech.
This is Jake, who served his ka and his tet. Say true.
May the forgiving glance of S’mana heal his heart. Say please.
May the arms of Gan raise him from the darkness of this earth. Say please.
Surround him, Gan , with light.
Fill him, Chloe, with strength.
If he is thirsty, give him water in the clearing.
If he is hungry, give him food in the clearing.
May his life on this earth and the pain of his passing become as a dream to his waking soul, and let his eyes fall upon every lovely sight; let him find the friends that were lost to him, and let every one whose name he calls call his in return.
This is Jake, who lived well, loved his own, and died as ka would have it.
Each man owes a death. This is Jake. Give him peace.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower



“May you find your Tower, Roland, and breach it, and may you climb to the top!”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“It'll be your damnation, boy. You'll wear out a hundred pairs of boots on your way to hell.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“Laughter, Susannah would later reflect, is like a hurricane: once it reaches a certain point, it becomes self-feeding, self-supporting. You laugh not because the jokes are funny but because your own condition is funny.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“Our time here is brief, our risk enormous. Don't waste the one or increase the other, if you please.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“I've met talespinners before, Jake, and they're all cut more or less from the same cloth. They tell tales because they're afraid of life.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower



“As for the end of the universe…I say let it come as it will, in ice, fire, or darkness. What did the universe ever do for me that I should mind its welfare?”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“Why must you hurt me, when I love you so? When I can do nothing else nor want to, for love made me and fed me and kept me in better days? Why will you cut me, and disfigure my face, and fill me with woe? I have only loved you for your beauty as you once loved me for mine in the days before the world moved on. Now you scar me with nails and put burning drops of quicksilver in my nose; you have set the animals on me, so you have, and they have eaten of my softest parts. Around me the can-toi gather and there’s no peace from their laughter.

Yet still I love you and would serve you and even bring the magic again, if you would allow me, for that is how my heart was cast when I rose from the Prim. And once I was strong as well as beautiful, but now my strength is almost gone. If torture were to stop now, I might still recover – if never my looks, then at least my strength and my kes.

But other week… or maybe five days… or even three… and it will be too late. Even if the torture stops, I’ll die. And you’ll die too, for when love leaves the world, hearts are still. Tell them of my love and tell them of my pain and tell them of my hope, which still lives. For this is all I have and all I am and all I ask.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“Remember in elementary school you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file from smallest to tallest? What is the logic in that? What, do tall people burn slower?”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“What I'd show you is much more bizarre than anything we have looked at so far, and I warn you in advance that the first impulse will be to laugh. That's all right. Laugh if you must. Just don't take your eye off what you see, for even in your imagination, here is a creature who can do you damage.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“How does it happen that a writer who's not even very good - and I can say that, I've read four or five of his books - gets to be in charge of the world's destiny? Or of the entire universe's?"

If he's not very good, why didn't you stop at one?"

Mrs. Tassenbaum smiled. "Touché. He is readable, I'll give him that - tells a good story...”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower



“Go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“He fell silent. For several moments they all did, and the quiet had the feel of a deliberate thing. Then Eddie said, "All right, we're back together again. What the hell do we do next?”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“I’d have you see the like this; I’d have you see them very well. Will you? They are clustered around Suzie’s Cruisin Trike, embracing in the aftermath of their victory. I’d have you see them this way not because they have won a great battle—they know better than that, every one of them—but because now they are ka-tet for the last time. The story of their fellowship ends here, on this make-believe street and beneath this artificial sun; the rest of the tale will be short and brutal compared to all that’s gone before. Because when ka-tet breaks, the end always comes quickly.

Say sorry.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“My friend wants to get moving and so do I,' Eddie said. 'We've got miles to go yet.'

I know that. It's on your face, son. Like a scar.'

Eddie was fascinated by the idea of duty and ka as something that left a mark, something that might look like decoration to one eye and disfigurement to another. Outside, thunder cracked and lightning flashed.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower


“I used to work for this guy before I came here...He used to tell me that ‘never’ is the word God listens for when he needs a laugh.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Dark Tower



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About the author

Stephen King
Born place: in Portland, Maine, The United States
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