The Shining
Quotes from the Book
Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.
Sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.
It's strange how pain marks our faces, and makes us look like family.
I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.
Sometimes the embers are better than the campfire.
On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?
He killed them with their love
Weird love's better than no love at all.
I believe that the combination of pencil and memory creates a kind of practical magic, and magic is dangerous.
But people love a hypocrite, you know——they recognize one of their own, and it always feels so good when someone gets caught with his pants down and his dick up and it isn't you.
A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures...
Like some dogs: kick them once and they never trust you again, no matter how nice you are to them.
A dimwit thinks nothing is funny unless it's mean.
I think that's what people most always do with the stuff they can't make out - just forget it.
Working with him was sort of like trying to defuse a bomb with somebody standing behind you and every now and then clashing a pair of cymbals together. In a word, upsetting.
Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all, time bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.
Sometimes, the embers are better then the campfire. It's strange, but it's true.
Love among the ruins... I'll tell you something, my friend: Weird love's better than no love at all.
... when we say, 'I don't understand,' God replies, 'I don't care.' ”.
About halfway through I broke down crying, which I hadn't expected. I was a little ashamed, but only a little;it was her, you see, and she never taxed me with the times that I slipped from the way I thought a man should be...the way I thought I should be, at any rate. A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures, and one without must be among the most miserable, I think, the only true blessing of their lives that they don't know how poorly off they are.
There was a beautiful feeling of calm in my groin, a sense of peace so remarkable it was almost ecstasy——anyone who' suffered bad pain and then recovered will know what I'm talking about.
A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures, and one without must be among the most miserable, I think, the only true blessing of their lives that they don't know how poorly off they are.
It was sweet and lovely, that smile, perhaps the more so because it wasn’t complicated by much in the way of thought.
Rightly tired of the pain İ hear and feel, boss... where we's comin from or goin to or why... If İ could end it, İ would. But İ can't.
I'm tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I'm tired of never having me a buddy to be with to tell me where we's going to, coming from, or why. Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world...every day. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head...all the time. Can you understand? ...
The world turns, that's all. You can hold on and turn with it, or stand up to protest and be spun right off.
Atonement was powerful; it was the lock on the door you closed against the past.
What our parents tell us when we are small seldom goes ignored, no matter how foolish it may be
Did you know?
- The novel was originally published in 1996 as six self-contained monthly paperback installments before being collected into a single volume in 1997.
- King modeled the serialized release on the Victorian practice of serial fiction, particularly the work of Charles Dickens.
- All six installments appeared on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time.
- The title refers to the faded green linoleum floor of the death-row cellblock the guards walk on.
- A recurring character is Mr. Jingles, an unusually intelligent mouse befriended by the inmate Eduard Delacroix.
- The 1999 film adaptation, directed by Frank Darabont, received four Academy Award nominations.
About Stephen King
About the book
The Green Mile is Stephen King's supernatural drama set on the death row of the fictional Cold Mountain Penitentiary in 1932. Its narrator, Paul Edgecombe, is the block supervisor of "E Block," nicknamed the Green Mile for the color of its worn linoleum floor. The story centers on John Coffey, a huge, gentle Black inmate condemned for the rape and murder of two young girls, who turns out to possess an inexplicable power to heal. As an elderly man in a nursing home decades later, Paul sets down the events of that year, recalling the prisoners and guards who passed through his charge and the miracle he could not reconcile with the execution he was sworn to carry out.
The novel weaves together themes of compassion, injustice, and the moral weight of capital punishment. Coffey's healing gift stands against the casual cruelty embodied by the sadistic guard Percy Wetmore and the murderous inmate "Wild Bill" Wharton, forcing Paul to question the machinery of the law he serves. King frames the whole story as a memory, letting an old man's regret color a tale about mercy, wrongful conviction, and the burden of witnessing a good man destroyed by the very system meant to deliver justice.
The Green Mile was notable for its unusual format: King published it in 1996 as a serial in six inexpensive monthly paperback installments, consciously echoing the Victorian serialization of Charles Dickens. The experiment was a commercial success, with all six volumes appearing on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously, and it won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. The book was adapted into an acclaimed 1999 film directed by Frank Darabont, and it remains one of King's most beloved works outside the horror genre for which he is best known.
Key characters
- Paul EdgecombeDeath-row block supervisor and the story's narrator
- John CoffeyGentle giant condemned for murder who possesses healing powers
- Percy WetmoreSadistic, well-connected prison guard
- Eduard "Del" DelacroixCajun inmate who befriends the mouse Mr. Jingles
- William "Wild Bill" WhartonViolent, unstable inmate and the true antagonist
- Brutus "Brutal" HowellPaul's dependable second-in-command on the block
- Mr. JinglesAn intelligent mouse adopted by the prisoners
Book details
- First published
- 1996
- Length
- 400 pages
- Reading time
- 7 hours
- Author
- Stephen King
- Genre
- Fiction
- Goodreads rating
- 4.49 (374k ratings) →
Movie & TV adaptations
- IMDb
If you liked this, read…
- 1The Shawshank Redemption (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption)Another King prison drama, also filmed by Frank Darabont, about hope inside a brutal penal system
- 2To Kill a MockingbirdExplores racial injustice and a wrongful conviction in the American South
- 3The StandA sweeping King novel blending the supernatural with a struggle between good and evil
Keep reading
The Stand
The Kite Runner
Requiem
The Gargoyle
UnWholly
Brother Odd
Revolution
Needful Things
Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
Joyland
The Broken Eye
Gilead
The Adventures of Augie March
I Am Pilgrim
Odd Hours
Fool's Fate
The Hour I First Believed
A Fraction of the Whole
The Lies About Truth
The Handmaid's Tale
Lila
We Were Liars
The Law of Moses
The Serpent King
The Last Song
Demon Copperhead
Paper Towns
Horns
Uncle Tom's Cabin
I Was Here
Rot & Ruin
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Prisoner of Heaven
Embers
The Brothers K
Infamous
Plain Truth
Invisibility
Mother Night
The Storyteller
Mosquitoland
Golden Fool
Peace Like a River
The Mime Order
King of Thorns
The Likeness
Bruiser
Fragments
The Blue Castle
Odd Thomas
Herzog
The Black Obelisk
Freedom
Lonesome Dove
Five Broken Blades
By Nightfall
The Liar's Key
The Valley of Amazement
Summer of My German Soldier

