Stephen King has a lot to be proud of. He is the author of Carrie, The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, and IT – and those are just a few of his great horror and fantasy books that were adapted for film and TV.

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Stephen King has always wanted to be a writer. Ever since he was a child, he started sketching stories, and, by the time he was in high-school, he was writing for a weekly newspaper.

However, when King finally wrote the first three pages of Carrie, he was rather disgusted with the result and threw them away. Luckily, his wife found them and encouraged him to continue the story. The book became a horror classic and launched the career of one of the most prolific authors.

Here are 20 Stephen King quotes to help you step out of the darkness and chase your wildest dreams.

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The scariest moment is always just before you start.

Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Get busy living or get busy dying.

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You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.

I think that we’re all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better — and maybe not all that much better after all.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

We lie best when we lie to ourselves.

Alone, yes, that’s the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.

We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.

It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.

There’s no harm in hoping for the best as long as you’re prepared for the worst.

Just remember that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.

You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.

We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

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Don’t let the sun go down without saying thank you to someone, and without admitting to yourself that absolutely no one gets this far alone.

The only mortal sin is giving up.