most terrifying lines in literature

>>9757050
that's why you must prepare for death in advance

as in, all the time, starting right now

>>9757719
holy shit thank you

>>9757050
Harold Lauder's last scene in The Stand did this for me
(although that actually plays into a grand narrative so it's a less good example)

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>>9757050
>The company that employed me strived only to serve up the cheapest fare that the customer would tolerate, churn it out as fast as possible, and charge as much as they could get away with. If it were possible to do so, the company would sell what all businesses of its kind dream about selling, creating that which all of our efforts were tacitly supposed to achieve: the ultimate product -- Nothing. And for this product they would command the ultimate price -- Everything.

>>9757721
*
>>9757719
thank-...

>>9757721
you're welcome

>>9757050
The Simpsons movie was far more terrifying then King's copy of it

I was driving once and heard a thunk ( my wheel breaking though i didn't know it). Then the tire popped about 20 seconds later and i couldnt steer. The road went up and my car rolled twice down the side, the back of my head putting out the driver's side window and my airbag didnt go off. The passenger one did. I thought oh no way impossible and as it started to turn over just oh well and peace. Then darkness. I woke up for a second with blood and glass everywhere and saw the passenger side bag like a huge rubber dangling there and I laughed and passed out again. I had two brain hemorrhages. Someone behind me saw it and phoned it in or i would have died out there, as it had just gotten dark and I was on the highway far from any town. Disbelief followed by peace. Since then I am not as scared of death. But getting hit in the head is probably key ...

>>9757050
Steven King is the worst writer of all time. There are none more odious.

>>9757050

Reads like deviantart fiction.
How can you feel terror it's hilariously bad

What's the context?
I'm guessing it's him writing his "i got hit by a car" thing into his stories yet again?

>>9758792
Worlds most famous horror author and the scariest thing he can come up with is the most pedestrian way to die.

>>9758799

Well there's a couple ways of looking at it, but if his strategy is to be a popular hack, then selling people horror that can conceivably occur in their own daily lives is a valid strategy.
But the reason he is a shit author is because writing about "scary things" is a shit premise to begin with.

>>9757050
"God is dead"
>N-dawg

The world will never be the same.

>>9758804
I just wanted to make the pun.

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I've always thought this. One day you're giving a speech and someone shoots you in the back. You think OUCH WTF WAS THAT but before the pain even kicks in you're already unconscious.

No time to say goodbye, to clear your internet history, to settle your scores.

I had a couple of OD's and I didn't even have a chance to think "what?", just a quick fade to black the anger when I was revived with narcan.

>>9757050
Hahaha no way.

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not sure if the right place to ask, but

is "the book says" even correct english?

>>9758804
>But the reason he is a shit author is because writing about "scary things" is a shit premise to begin with.

*tips my fedora verily to you*

>>9759295

>everything that hurts muh feels is fedora

>>9757050
I loved that bit, but The Dome sucks hard. I gave up 200-300 pages in. The characters are all stupid and the plot wasn't interesting. What really annoyed me a lot was that all the good guys were democrats believing in the values of good ol' Mmuricah and all the bad guys were plain dickheads

>>9759470
>What really annoyed me a lot was that all the good guys were democrats believing in the values of good ol' Mmuricah and all the bad guys were plain dickheads

Truly America's Dostoevsky

>>9757050
>I have a new book coming out
John green

>>9758916
Yes if the word 'that' is functioning as a demonstrative

>>9758916

It's degraded English.
Books don't speak.

>>9759366
>everything I don't like reading doesn't have merit to be written

*the brim of the fedora is to my jaw now*

>>9759845

Please enlighten us on the merits of Stephen King

>>9759868
First, please enlighten me on who is the arbiter of merits of writing.

>>9760035

So you've got nothing then.
Maybe next time.

>>9760041
*My fedora has been pulled down all the way to my knees by now. Your enlightenment has enriched me far more than any phony god ever could*

>>9758786
Agreed. His books are bit formulaic. But since the man basically ruled the 80's no one worth a ďamn will call him out on it.

>>9757050
Not a line, and also not an example that I don't have problems with in the wider context of the book, but the ending of Infinite Jest is fairly horrific, specifically Gately's disconnection from watching his friend's protracted and miserable death, once he's been given the drug. Really hammered home the notion of drugs/entertainment etc. as an escape into complete emotionlessness to escape suffering

One of my favourite scenes in the book, but it does make a terrible ending I think. I get the whole ending before the conclusion thing he was trying to do, but I can think of any number of scenes in the book it would have been better to end on, like the scene with Mario and Barry Loach, which hammers home the inverse themes of the book. But still a great scene

>>9760119
Which one is the Mario and Barry scene? I forget.

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>>9759868
"Stephen King is Cervantes"
-Harold Bloom

>>9760101
>But since the man basically ruled the 80's no one worth a ďamn will call him out on it.
What planet do you live on? People shit on King constantly and not just on /lit/.

The bookcase scene in House of Leaves is p. spooky.

>>9760553
Bloom shit on him hard.

>>9760553
Doesn't matter now does it? King has 3 adaptations of his books out this year. Even if people don't respect him, anymore, they aren't tired of him. The damage has been done.

>>9757725
Best thing he's ever written imo

>>9760534

Borges put forward a notion, something to the effect that anyone could be cervantes, in a universe of truly infinite chance. Funny that Bloom chose that comparison, I wonder if it was on purpose.

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>>9760715
Bloom shits on everything and everyone all the time, because his stools are so loose and unpredictable.

>>9758878
If you're in America you're in luck because lots of places are phasing out narcan and just letting druggies die

>>9757050

When did you first realize Stephen King was a terrible writer, /lit/? For me it was the first time I read one of his books (the Shining). I then realized that movies based on his books are good or bad depending on how much they deviate from the source material, with those that do not deviate being the worst.

>Muh croquet mallet

Nigger why the fuck I mean goddamn how do you fuck up an axe-murderer that badly

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>>9760189
It's the passage about the bet between Barry Loach and his brother who's going to become a priest, where the brother who's undergoing a crisis of faith bets Barry Loach that if he takes on the appearance of a beggar and stands in the street asking for people not to even give him change but just to reach out and touch him, that no one will do it. And when he takes up the bet, it seems like the brother is right because people are willing to give him change but go out their way to avoid touching him, until months later, during which he has actually become homeless and desolate, living in the street, Barry comes into contact with Mario Incandenza, who, when asked to touch him, naively and unhesitatingly reaches out and shakes his hand

Genuinely touching stuff and my favourite scene in the entire book

>>9761480
Agreed that was a great scene but please don't tell me that's what Mario looks like.