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
They're animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote challenges the notion of what it means to be human in comparison to animals.
Stephen King's quote provokes deep reflection on the nature of humanity by contrasting it with the animal kingdom. It questions the assumptions we have about human superiority and highlights the complexities of our behavior and morality, suggesting that being human isn't purely defined by our biological status but by our choices and actions.
Themes
HumanityAnimalsNaturePhilosophyMorality
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the ethical treatment of animals, this quote can be invoked to explore the differences between humans and animals.
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
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering – for us. And calling us to share in God’s suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
Henri NouwenRead
Keep in mind that you are always saying "no" to something. If it isn't to the apparent and urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things.
Stephen CoveyRead
There is no reality of consciousness independent of the effects of various vehicles of content on subsequent action (and hence, of course, on memory).
Daniel DennettRead
Death is not an ending, but a symbol of movement along the path upon which we are all traveling. As it may be painful to lose contact with the physical aspect of one we love, the Spirit can never be lost. We have been and always will be a part of each other.
John DenverRead
They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.
Charles DickensRead
For in that universal call,_x000D_ _x000D_ Few bankers will to heaven be mounters;_x000D_ _x000D_ They'll cry, "Ye shops, upon us fall!_x000D_ _x000D_ Conceal and cover us, ye counters!_x000D_ _x000D_ When other hands the scales shall hold,_x000D_ _x000D_ And they, in men's and angels' sight_x000D_ _x000D_ Produced with all their bills and gold,_x000D_ _x000D_ 'Weigh'd in the balance and found light!'
Jonathan SwiftRead