Gerald's Game

by Stephen King

those shadows would begin to creep out of their places and spread across the room like inkstains, eating the light as they grew.

Let’s have an understanding, lady, the eyes said. You do your thing and I’ll do mine. That’s the understanding. Sound okay to you? It better, because if you get in my way, I’m going to fuck you up. Besides, he’s dead—you know it as well as I do, and why should he go to waste when I’m starving? You’d do the same. I doubt if you see that now, but I believe you may come around to my way of thinking on the subject, and sooner than you think.

Survival was not a matter for politeness or apology.

sometimes I can’t believe how dumb people can be. They ought to make it a law that you have to get a license, or at least a learner’s permit, before you’re allowed to talk. Until you pass your Talker’s Test, you should have to be a mute.

sometimes you behave as if she were your girlfriend instead of your daughter!

Don’t they say it’s the squeaky wheel that always gets the grease?

He had been able to face her with his lies; it was the truth which had finally caused him to look away.

If sex was even half this good, people would be doing it on every streetcorner—they just wouldn’t be able to help themselves.