Quotes from The Green Mile

Stephen King ·  592 pages

Rating: (203.2K votes)


“Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“Sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“It's strange how pain marks our faces, and makes us look like family.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“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.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“Sometimes the embers are better than the campfire.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile



“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?”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“He killed them with their love”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“Weird love's better than no love at all.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“I believe that the combination of pencil and memory creates a kind of practical magic, and magic is dangerous.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“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.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile



“A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures...”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“Like some dogs: kick them once and they never trust you again, no matter how nice you are to them.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“A dimwit thinks nothing is funny unless it's mean.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“I think that's what people most always do with the stuff they can't make out - just forget it.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“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.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile



“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.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“Sometimes, the embers are better then the campfire. It's strange, but it's true.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“Love among the ruins... I'll tell you something, my friend: Weird love's better than no love at all.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“... when we say, 'I don't understand,' God replies, 'I don't care.' ”.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“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.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile



“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.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“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.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“It was sweet and lovely, that smile, perhaps the more so because it wasn’t complicated by much in the way of thought.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“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.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“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? ...”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile



“The world turns, that's all. You can hold on and turn with it, or stand up to protest and be spun right off.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“Atonement was powerful; it was the lock on the door you closed against the past.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


“What our parents tell us when we are small seldom goes ignored, no matter how foolish it may be”
― Stephen King, quote from The Green Mile


About the author

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

Popular quotes

“It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream-alone...”
― Joseph Conrad, quote from Heart of Darkness


“That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.”
― Amy Tan, quote from The Joy Luck Club


“He had heard about talking to plants in the early seventies, on Radio Four, and thought it was an excellent idea. Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did.
What he did was put the fear of God into them.
More precisely, the fear of Crowley.
In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. "Say goodbye to your friend," he'd say to them. "He just couldn't cut it. . . "
Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat.
The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch


“Sully,for shame!" Jonathan said in reproach, " and don't be foolish! What are we trying to practice everyday? If our friendship depends on things like space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Cat: Where are you going?
Alice: Which way should I go?
Cat: That depends on where you are going.
Alice: I don’t know.
Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
― quote from Alice in Wonderland


Interesting books

With Everything I Am
(16.2K)
With Everything I Am
by Kristen Ashley
The Seven Sisters
(11.6K)
The Seven Sisters
by Lucinda Riley
Metaphors We Live By
(3.8K)
Metaphors We Live By
by George Lakoff
Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
(7.2K)
Simply Christian: Wh...
by N.T. Wright
Jesus Land: A Memoir
(14.9K)
Jesus Land: A Memoir
by Julia Scheeres
The Brutal Telling
(29.7K)
The Brutal Telling
by Louise Penny

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.