Thinner

by Richard Bachman

but he’d had his pants on, and there had been some change in his pockets, not to mention his keyring and his Swiss army knife.

Lol

histrionics

The lie comes easily and convincingly. Why not? He has told a lot of lies just lately.

The old Gypsy man’s lips spread in an obscene grin—an ancient crescent below the rotted horror of his nose.

“What you mean is, I’m a great big hog. Say it right out if you want, Heidi. What the hell. I can take it.”

He was drinking a piña colada. One of his standard witticisms was referring to them as “penis coladas.”

tableau

In that moment he wanted her utterly, and he saw himself on top of her in the blackest hour of the night. And that want felt very old.

You know it, babe, he thought, and the hate flashed up again, hot and sour. On top of the gin, it made him feel both depressed and physically ill. It receded, leaving shame in its wake.

acrophobia.”

You were starting to sound a little like a Stephen King novel for a while there,

Pop. Highlight

But if you add Cary Rossington with his alligator skin and William J. Halleck with his case of involuntary anorexia nervosa into the equation, it starts to sound a little like Stephen King again, wouldn’t you say?”

Pop. Highlight

sanctimonious

remonstrated

expostulated;

How we see reality depends a lot more on our conception of our physical bulk than we usually think.

Pop. Highlight

expiation

élan.

prodigal,

listlessly,

He had a feeling that he could look behind things and see the lights, the cameras, the key grips, and some unimaginable “real world.”

If I was a car, I’d be ready for the scrap heap.”

Enders held up one hand—it was as white as the hand of a drowned man pulled from a well, and to Billy it seemed dimly transparent.

“But I’d talk for free. Hell, when you get old you find out you’d pay someone to listen…

but it’s hard for a man to give up all his pleasures, even when they don’t pleasure him no more.”

imprudent.

“Your wife,” Biff said, “and your doctor, and a man who says he works for an outfit called Barton Detective Services.”

Lol

The rage was back on him. He walked quickly out of Biff Quigley’s office before it could move him in the wrong direction or make his hands speak in some terrible language they seemed to know.

Emptiness as deep and complete as the spaces which may lie between galaxies.

Pop. Highlight

moue

Some guys—a lot of guys—don’t believe what they are seeing, especially if it gets in the way of what they want to eat or drink or think or believe.

Pop. Highlight

The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. And you can quote me.”

Pop. Highlight

The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn’t believe what he’s seeing.

Pop. Highlight

But Ginelli came in at a quarter to six, so fully alive that he seemed somehow too big for the place.

“Yeah, like that. You get much smarter, William, and people are gonna think you’re Italian.”

My great-grandfather says there are no curses, only mirrors you hold up to the souls of men and women.”

Pop. Highlight

hydrophobia

Because if you don’t have someone to run out of town once in a while, how are you going to know you yourself belong there?

Pop. Highlight

geniality.