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.
And all that weirdness isn't just going on outside. It's in you too, right now, growing in the dark like magic mushrooms. Call it the Thing in the Cellar. Call it the Blow Lunch Factor. Call it the Loony Tunes File. I think of it as my private dinosaur, huge, slimy, and mindless, stumbling around in the stinking swamp of my subconscious, never finding a tar pit big enough to hold it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the idea that everyone has their own inner struggles and weirdness that they may not fully understand.
In this quote, Stephen King highlights the complexities and peculiarities of the human mind, suggesting that our inner thoughts and emotions can often be messy and chaotic. By using vivid metaphors like 'magic mushrooms' and 'private dinosaur,' he illustrates how these uncomfortable aspects of ourselves exist in our subconscious, shaping who we are while remaining largely hidden from our conscious awareness. The imagery evokes a sense of mystery and challenges us to confront and embrace the strange parts of ourselves rather than ignore them.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about embracing one's quirks, this quote can inspire others to acknowledge their inner complexities.
More from Stephen King
All quotes →Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
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.
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.
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He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.
It may be thought justifiable to require tests on animals of potentially life-saving drugs, but the same kinds of tests are used for products like cosmetics, food coloring, and floor polishes. Should thousands of animals suffer so that a new kind of lipstick or floor wax can be put on the market? Don't we already have an excess of most of these products? Who benefits from their introduction, except the companies that hope to profit from them?
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?