# Quote — Stephen King, On Writing

> I don't want to speak too disparagingly of my generation (actually I do, we had a chance to change the world and opted for the Home Shopping Network instead), but there was a view among the student writers I knew at that time that good writing came spontaneously, in an uprush of feeling that had to be caught at once; when you were building that all-important stairway to heaven, you couldn't just stand around with your hammer in your hand.

- Author: [Stephen King](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king.md)
- Book: [On Writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/on-writing.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_Writing#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/on-writing/i-dont-want

## More from this book

> We're not even in the same year together, let alone the same room....except we are together. We're close.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/on-writing/were-not-even.md)

> My mother knew I wanted to be a writer (with all those rejection slips hanging from the spike on my bedroom wall, how could she not?), but she encouraged me to get a teacher’s credential “so you’ll have something to fall back on.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/on-writing/my-mother-knew.md)

> ...reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren't prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/on-writing/reading-in-bed.md)