Stephen King didn't say

"Symbols schimbols. Sure they're important but...Well look at Ahab's whale. Now there's a great symbol. Some say it stands for god, meaning, and purpose. Others say it stands for purposelessness and the void. But what we sometimes forget is that Ahab's whale was also just a whale."

--MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI, possibly quoting Stephen King (House of Leaves), but can we ever really know?