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
The worst advice? 'Don't listen to the critics.' I think that you really ought to listen to the critics, because sometimes they're telling you something is broken that you can fix.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Listening to critics can provide valuable feedback and help improve your work.
In this quote, Stephen King emphasizes the importance of paying attention to criticism rather than dismissing it outright. Critics may offer insights that highlight flaws or areas for improvement in one’s work, suggesting that constructive criticism can be a beneficial tool for growth and development. Ignoring critics might mean missing an opportunity to refine and enhance what you create.
Themes
CriticismFeedbackImprovementGrowthListening
In practice
Example use cases
During a workshop, you can quote this to encourage participants to embrace constructive feedback.
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
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
George WashingtonRead
"Softly, softly, catchee monkey," is the West African rendering of a very valuable precept. An awful lot of men fail through lack of patient persistence.
Robert Baden-PowellRead
Here and there in the ancient literature we encounter legends of wise and mysterious games that were conceived and played by scholars, monks, or the courtiers of cultured princes. These might take the form of chess games in which the pieces and squares had secret meanings in addition to their usual functions.
Hermann HesseRead
Protein was the most valued ingredient 250 years ago: It was the rarest thing. Now the rarest thing we have is time: time to cook and time to eat.
Adam GopnikRead
There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.
Colonel SandersRead
A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.
Stephen CraneRead