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Wisdom from Stephen King's It

Wisdom from Stephen King's It

Wisdom from Stephen King's It
Danielle de Wolfe
07 September 2014

Despite being frustratingly impossible to Google, Stephen King's sprawling horror novel It has aged remarkably well. We mainly say this because our fear of clowns is still entirely down to Pennywise.

But as well as still possessing the power to terrify us into leaving the hall light on, King's book has also retained the ability to offer some thought-provoking wisdom. Here are some of the best.

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“You can't be careful on a skateboard.”

“Adults are the real monsters.”

“If life teaches anything at all, it teaches that there are so many happy endings that the man who believes there is no God needs his rationality called into serious question.”

“We lie best when we lie to ourselves.”

“What can be done when you’re eleven can often never be done again.”

“God favors drunks, small children, and the cataclysmically stoned...”

“Maybe there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends - maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.”

“Politics always change. Stories never do.”

“Everything's a lot tougher when it's for real. That's when you choke. When it's for real.”

“Best not to look back. Best to believe there will be happily ever afters all the way around.”

“Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness.”

“It was easier to be brave when you were someone else.”

“Maybe, in the end it's the voice that tells the stories more than the stories themselves that matters.”

“Kids, the fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.”