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
Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that enemies are more likely to tell the truth, while friends and lovers often hide the truth due to obligations.
In this quote, Stephen King highlights the complexity of interpersonal relationships, where the expectations of loyalty and duty can lead individuals to obscure the truth. Friends and lovers may lie to protect feelings or maintain harmony, while enemies, by contrast, have less to lose and often express unfiltered truths, revealing the paradox of honesty within close relationships.
Themes
TruthLyingRelationshipsFriendsEnemiesDuty
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used when discussing the nature of honesty in relationships during a casual conversation.
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
The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Peter De VriesRead
My fans are who I am. You give meaning to my life. You will never know the connection I feel to you.
Lady GagaRead
Being gay and being a woman has one big thing in common, which is that we both become invisible after the age of 42. Who wants a gay 50-year-old? No one, let me tell you.
Rupert EverettRead
It should be our endeavor to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation . . . . Our interest will be to throw open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the vent to whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs.
Thomas JeffersonRead
If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of time. Human contact is what matters.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
It is shaming sometimes how the body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions. Who, for decorum’s sake, has ever slowed his heart, or muted a blush?
Ian McewanRead