Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
Stephen KingRead
We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why. Not until the future eats the present, anyway. We know when it's too late.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our impact on others is often unknowable until much later, highlighting the importance of our actions in the present.
This quote by Stephen King reflects the idea that our actions and words can significantly influence others' lives, even if we are unaware of it at the time. It suggests that the effects of our influence may only be realized in the future, and often we recognize the consequences only when it's too late to change them, emphasizing the need to be mindful of how we interact with those around us.
Themes
InfluenceImpactAwarenessPresentFuture
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a graduation ceremony might use this quote to inspire students about the importance of their future actions.
More from Stephen King
All quotes →Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Stephen KingRead
Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.
Stephen KingRead
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
Stephen KingRead
That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them.
Stephen KingRead
Late last night and the night before, tommyknockers, tommyknockers knocking on my door. I wanna go out, don't know if I can 'cuz I'm so afraid of the tommyknocker man.
Stephen KingRead
Similar quotes
I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.
William JamesRead
The secret to freedom from enslaving patterns of sin is worship. You need worship. You need great worship. You need weeping worship. You need glorious worship. You need to sense God’s greatness and to be moved it — moved to tears and moved to laughter — moved by who God is and what he has done for you.
Timothy KellerRead
Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.
Bruce LeeRead
When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill. If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets - He is out of his mind! His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting- And the need to win drains him of power.
ZhuangziRead
I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
Maya AngelouRead
Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.
Thomas A. EdisonRead