Learn about hidden stories of the past and how it can continue to haunt a man throughout his life through this list of The Shining quotes!
The Shining is a classic horror movie based on a book of the same title written by the legendary Stephen King.
The plot followed the family problems of the Torrances and the deranging events in their lives when they moved to a secluded hotel.
Everything started when Jack Torrance’s alcoholism and anger issues ruined his career and family life.
There might have been other ways to solve his problems, but he saw isolation as a way to help him fix his life and rebuild their bonds.
So, he took on the job as a caretaker in the Overlook Hotel; sadly, it only worsened their lives.
Now, his wife and child, Wendy and Danny, have to suffer the horrors of the hotel and Jack’s madness. The Overlook Hotel and the horrors that live in it will surely keep you on your toes!
So, join us as we explore these creepy tales.
We’re sure this collection of the best quotes from the movie and book will also open your eyes to the reality of family life behind closed doors.
Let’s begin here.
And don’t forget to check out these Hellraiser quotes and Freddy Krueger quotes.
Best The Shining Quotes
1. “Some places are like people: some shine and some don’t.” – Dick Hallorann
2. Lloyd the Bartender: “Women. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”
Jack Torrance: “Words of wisdom, Lloyd, my man. Words of wisdom.”
3. “Things could be better. Things could be a whole lot better.” – Jack Torrance
4. “Your son has a very great talent. I don’t think you are aware of how great it is. That he is attempting to use that very talent against your will.” – Delbert Grady
5. “Remember what Mr. Hallorann said. It’s just like pictures in a book, Danny. It isn’t real.” – Danny Torrance
6. “Well, you know, Doc, when something happens, you can leave a trace of itself behind. Say like, if someone burns toast. Well, maybe things that happen leave other kinds of traces behind. Not things that anyone can notice, but things that people who shine can see; just like they can see things that haven’t happened yet. Well, sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago. I think a lot of things happened right here in this particular hotel over the years. And not all of them were good.” – Dick Hallorann
7. “I can remember when I was a little boy. My grandmother and I could hold conversations entirely without ever opening our mouths. She called it, ‘shining.’ And for a long time, I thought it was just the two of us that had the shine to us. Just like you probably thought you were the only one. But there are other folks, though mostly they don’t know it, or don’t believe it. How long have you been able to do it—why don’t you want to talk about it?” – Dick Hallorann
Famous The Shining Quotes
8. “White man’s burden, Lloyd, my man, white man’s burden.” – Jack Torrance
9. Nurse: “Who’s Tony?”
Danny Torrance: “He’s the little boy that lives in his mouth.”
10. “Here’s to five miserable months on the wagon, and all the irreparable harm it has caused me.” – Jack Torrance
11. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” – Jack Torrance
12. “God, I’d give anything for a drink. I’d give my g*dd*mn*d soul for just a glass of beer.” – Jack Torrance
13. “Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Not by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin? Then I’ll huff—and I’ll puff—and I’ll blow your house in.” – Jack Torrance
14. “I’m sorry to differ with you sir, but you are the caretaker. You’ve always been the caretaker. I should know sir, I’ve always been here.” – Delbert Grady
15. “I and others have come to a belief that your heart is not in this. That you don’t have the belly for it.” – Delbert Grady
16. Wendy Torrance: “Well, I’m very confused, and I just need time to think things over!”
Jack Torrance: “You’ve had your whole f*cking life to think things over, what good’s a few minutes more gonna do you now?”
17. “Well obviously some people can be put off by staying alone in a place where something like that actually happened.” – Stuart Ullman
Also read: The Silence of the Lambs Quotes, Hannibal Lecter Quotes
Scary The Shining That’ll Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat
18. “This whole place is such an enormous maze, I feel I’ll have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs every time I come in.” – Wendy Torrance
19. “Wendy? Darling? Light of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.” – Jack Torrance
20. “You got a big surprise coming to you. You’re not going anywhere. Go check out the Snow Cat and the radio and you’ll see what I mean. Go check it out.” – Jack Torrance
21. “Stop swingin’ the bat. Put the bat down, Wendy. Wendy? Give me the bat.” – Jack Torrance
22. “Wendy, listen. Let me out of here and I’ll forget the whole damn thing! It’ll be just like nothing ever happened. Wendy, baby, I think you hurt my head real bad. I’m dizzy, I need a doctor. Honey, don’t leave me here.” – Jack Torrance
23. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” – Jack Torrance
24. Wendy Torrance: “Jack! Jack! Thank God you’re here! There’s someone else in the hotel with us! There’s a crazy woman in one of the rooms! She tried to strangle Danny!”
Jack Torrance: “Are you out of your f*cking mind?”
Wendy Torrance: “It’s the truth, I swear it! Danny told me. He went up to one of the bedrooms. The door was open, and he saw this crazy woman in the bathtub! She tried to strangle him!”
25. “I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best g*dd*mn bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter.” – Jack Torrance
Also read: American Psycho Quotes
The Shining Quotes That’ll Send Shivers Down Your Spine
26. Danny Torrance: “Do you like this hotel?”
Jack Torrance: “Yes. I do. I love it. Don’t you?”
Danny Torrance: “I guess so.”
Jack Torrance: “Good. I want you to like it here. I wish we could stay here forever, and ever, and ever.”
27. Danny Torrance: “Mr. Hallorann. What is in Room 237?”
Dick Hallorann: “Nothing. There ain’t nothing in Room 237. But you ain’t got no business going in there anyway. So stay out. You understand? Stay out.”
28. Danny Torrance: “Danny isn’t here, Mrs. Torrance. Danny has gone away.”
Delbert’s Daughter: “Come play with us, Danny. Forever—and ever—and ever.”
29. Lloyd the Bartender: “What will you be drinking, sir?”
Jack Torrance: “Hair of the dog that bit me, Lloyd.”
30. Danny Torrance: “What was the Donner Party?”
Jack Torrance: “They were a party of settlers in covered-wagon times. They got snowbound one winter in the mountains. They had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.”
31. “Mr. Grady. You were the caretaker here. I recognize ya. I saw your picture in the newspapers. You, uh, chopped your wife and daughters up into little bits. And then you blew your brains out.” – Jack Torrance
32. Jack Torrance: “The most terrible nightmare I ever had. It’s the most horrible dream I ever had.”
Wendy Torrance: “It’s okay, it’s okay now. Really.”
Jack Torrance: “I dreamed that I, that I killed you and Danny. But I didn’t just kill ya. I cut you up in little pieces. Oh my God. I must be losing my mind.”
32. Jack Torrance: “I love you, Danny. I love you more than anything else in the whole world, and I’d never do anything to hurt you, never—you know that, don’t you, huh?”
Danny Torrance: “Yes, Dad.”
34. Delbert Grady: “Mr. Torrance, I see you can hardly have taken care of the business we discussed.”
Jack Torrance: “No need to rub it in, Mr. Grady.”
35. “Don’t worry, Mom. I know all about cannibalism. I saw it on TV.” – Danny Torrance
The Shining Quotes to Get a Glimpse of a Dysfunctional Family
36. Jack Torrance: “Wendy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you’re breaking my concentration. You’re distracting me. And it will then take me time to get back to where I was. You understand?”
Wendy Torrance: “Yeah.”
Jack Torrance: “Now, we’re going to make a new rule. When you come in here and you hear me or whether you don’t hear me typing, or whatever the f*ck you hear me doing; when I’m in here, it means that I am working that means don’t come in. Now, do you think you can handle that?”
37. “It was just one of those things, you know. Purely an accident. My husband had, uh, been drinking, and he came home about three hours late. So he wasn’t exactly in the greatest mood that night. And, well, Danny had scattered some of his school papers all over the room, and my husband grabbed his arm and pulled him away from them. It’s—it’s just the sort of thing you do a hundred times with a child, you know, in the park or in the streets. But on this particular occasion, my husband just used too much strength, and he injured Danny’s arm. Anyway, something good did come out of it all, because he said, ‘Wendy, I’m never gonna touch another drop. And if I do, you can leave me.’ And he didn’t, and he hasn’t had any alcohol in, uh, five months.” – Wendy Torrance
38. Jack Torrance: “It is so f*cking typical of you to create a problem like this when I finally have a chance to accomplish something—when I’m really into my work! I could really write my own ticket if I went back to Boulder now, couldn’t I? Shoveling out driveways? Work in a car wash? Any of that appeal to you?”
Wendy Torrance: “Jack.”
Jack Torrance: “Wendy, I have let you f*ck up my life so far, but I am not gonna let you f*ck this up!”
39. “I never laid a hand on him, g*dd*mn it. I didn’t. I wouldn’t touch one hair on his g*dd*mn little head. I love the little son of a b*tch! I’d do anything for him. Any f*cking thing for him. But that b*tch—as long as I live she will never let me forget what happened.” – Jack Torrance
40. “Have you ever had a single moment’s thought about my responsibilities? Have you ever thought, for a single solitary moment about my responsibilities to my employers? Has it ever occurred to you that I have agreed to look after the Overlook Hotel until May the first? Does it matter to you at all that the owners have placed their complete confidence and trust in me, and that I have signed a letter of agreement, a contract, in which I have accepted that responsibility? Do you have the slightest idea what moral and ethical principles are? Do you? Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future, if I were to fail to live up to my responsibilities? Has it ever occurred to you? Has it?” – Jack Torrance
41. Jack Torrance: “I don’t think that’s true. I think you have some very definite ideas about what should be done with Danny and I’d like to know what they are.”
Wendy Torrance: “Well, I think—maybe—he should be taken to a doctor.”
Jack Torrance: “You think ‘maybe’ he should be taken to a doctor?”
Wendy Torrance: “Yes.”
Wendy Torrance: “As soon as possible.”
Jack Torrance: “As soon as possible.”
42. “I did hurt him once, okay? Completely unintentional. Could’ve happened to anybody. And it was three g*dd*mn years ago! The little f*cker had thrown all my papers all over the floor! All I tried to do was pull him up! A momentary loss of muscular coordination. A few extra foot-pounds of energy per second, per second.” – Jack Torrance
Iconic The Shining Quotes for Horror Movie Fans
43. “Redrum. Redrum. Redrum.” – Danny Torrance
44. “The loser has to keep America clean.” – Wendy Torrance
45. “Wendy, I’m home.” – Jack Torrance
46. “Here’s Johnny!” – Jack Torrance
The Shining Quotes That Will Haunt You
47. Jack Torrance: “It’s his mother. She, uh, interferes.”
Delbert Grady: “Perhaps they need a good talking, if you don’t mind my saying so. Perhaps a bit more. My girls, sir, they didn’t care for the Overlook at first. One of them actually stole a pack of matches and tried to burn it down. But I ‘corrected’ them sir. And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I ‘corrected’ her.”
48. “My predecessor in this job left a man named Charles Grady as the Winter caretaker. And he came up here with his wife and two little girls, I think were 8 and 10. And he had a good employment record, good references, and from what I’ve been told he seemed like a completely normal individual. But at some point during the winter, he must have suffered some kind of a complete mental breakdown. He ran amuck and killed his family with an ax. Stacked them neatly in one of the rooms in the West wing and then he, he put both barrels of a shotgun in his mouth.” – Stuart Ullman
49. Wendy Torrance: “Yeah. It’s amazing how fast you get used to such a big place. I tell you, when we first came up here, I thought it was kinda scary.”
Jack Torrance: “I fell in love with it right away. When I came up here from my interview, it was as though I had been here before. I mean, we all have moments of déjà vu, but this was ridiculous. It was almost as though I knew what was going to be around every corner.”
50. Delbert Grady: “Your wife appears to be stronger than we imagined, Mr. Torrance. Somewhat more—resourceful. She seems to have got the better of you.”
Jack Torrance: “For the moment, Mr. Grady. Only for the moment.”
51. Stuart Ullman: “Physically, it’s not a very demanding job. The only thing that can get a bit trying up here during the winter is, uh, a tremendous sense of isolation.”
Jack Torrance: “Well, that just happens to be exactly what I’m looking for. I’m outlining a new writing project and, uh, five months of peace is just what I want.”
Stuart Ullman: “That’s very good Jack, because, uh, for some people, solitude and isolation can, of itself become a problem.”
52. Delbert Grady: “I feel you will have to deal with this matter in the harshest possible way, Mr. Torrance.”
Jack Torrance: “There’s nothing I look forward to with greater pleasure, Mr. Grady.”
More The Shining Quotes for People Who Loved the Book
53. “Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters.” – Stephen King, Author
54. “Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win.” – Stephen King, Author
55. “The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge.” – Stephen King, Author
56. “‘Any big hotels have got scandals. He said, ‘Just like every big hotel has got a ghost.’ Why? Hell, people come and go.” – Stephen King, Author
57. “She had never dreamed there could be so much pain in life when there was nothing physically wrong. She hurts all the time.” – Stephen King, Author
58. “Tough old world, baby. If you’re not bolted together tightly, you’re gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty.” – Stephen King, Author
59. “Small children are great acceptors. They don’t understand shame, or the need to hide things.” – Stephen King, Author
60. “We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives.” – Stephen King, Author
What Past Experiences Haunt You the Most?
No matter how hard we try to move forward, the past will always haunt us. This message has been the very soul of the hotel and the hitch of those who live in it. Do not be deceived by a perfect facade because an unflawed and perfect place or family does not exist.
The Overlook Hotel was once chosen for its secluded setting and scenic beauty until its ugly side was revealed. Guests come from everywhere, and famous personalities once visited it. But sadly, the hotel is also home to horrid cases of cannibalism, murder, and more.
As Stephen King put it, hotels—and essentially all other places—have their history. These stories of the past are engraved in the place’s walls, and sometimes, they come out to haunt the living.
This is the same as what happened with Jack. He tried to patch up his family’s wounds and overcome his issues, but to him, it seemed impossible when Wendy hadn’t forgiven him no matter how many years had passed. Through him, we see that the lingering ghosts of our past mistakes are scarier than any dark energy or horror story.
With that, let’s all understand that nothing can justify the pain we inflict on others. Let’s have self-control and think about the consequences of our actions before we lose the people important to us. Let these The Shining quotes remind you that places and people are more than what they seem; let’s be discerning and more careful of what and who we trust.
Are you a fan of this movie? Did we miss any of your favorite The Shining quotes? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below!
