When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.

More quotes by Stephen King

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"Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them, they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure."

- Stephen King

Love

"The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time… Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers —common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words."

- Stephen King

Awareness

"People always want a reason for the bad things in life; sometimes there ain’t one."

- Stephen King

Awareness

"When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest."

- Stephen King

Awareness

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

- Stephen King

Awareness

More Determination Quotes

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"You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction."

- George Lorimer

Determination

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity."

- Amelia Earhart

Determination

"When I believe in something, I’m like a dog with a bone."

- Melissa McCarthy

Determination

"Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done right."

- Walt Disney

Determination

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

- Theodore Roosevelt

Determination