Stephen King Quotes

There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom, for in that way one captures volition itself.

Look. I brought you here to give you a choice-" "You didn't bring us here," said Nick. "You're here," said Bod. "I wanted you here. I came here. You followed me. Same thing.

The reason the factions were evil is because there was no way out of them. They gave us the illusion of choice without actually giving us a choice.

...We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will.

It's the same with menus and men and just about anything else: we think we're choosing things for ourselves, but in fact we may not be choosing anything. It could be that everthing's being decided in advance and we pretend we're making choices. Free will may be an illusion. I often think that.

If you have to be persuaded about something, you shouldn't do it.

You can fool a person into going to see a movie with a good trailer.

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick.

Among the several cloudy appellatives which have been commonly employed as cloaks for misgovernment, there is none more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion than the word Order.

Without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel you think best.

No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet.

You're stealing people's secrets. You convince them to give up their life and imagine the life you've created is real or more interesting. If it's a good play, they'll cry or think private thoughts about their lives or laugh.

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.

If choices and decisions derive from hidden mental processes, then free choice is either an illusion or, at minimum, more tightly constrained than previously considered.

We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings.

How many shots does it take before the concept ay choice becomes obsolete?

Sorcerers are convinced that all of us are a bunch of nincompoops. We can never relinquish our crummy control voluntarily, thus we have to be tricked

When it appears that there is no choice, some form of illusion is operating.

Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality.

As I've said, freedom is really an illusion. Anytime we think we have a real choice, it just means we haven't seen the shotgun aimed at our navel.

Social Engineering - the art of replacing what works with what sounds good.

The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.

When you give false information you tend to restrict the freedom of choice to others.

To have a choice at all is to be free - even when the choice is between two terrible things.

The bird thinks it a favor to give the fish a lift in the air