The Bachman books

Even in his dreams he thought he was awake, and in his dreams he commited suicide over and over: burned himself; bludgeoned himself by standing under and anvil and pulling a rope; hanged himself; blew out the stove's pilot lights and then turned on the oven and all four burners; shot himself; defenestrated himself; swallowed Vanish toilet bowl disinfectant; stuck a can of Glade Pine Fresh aerosol in his mouth, pushed the button, and inhaled until his head floated off into the sky like a child's balloon; committed hara-kiri while kneeling in a confessional at St Dom's, confessing his self-murder to a dumbfounded young priest even as his guts accordioned out onto the bench like beef stew, performing an act of contrition in a fading, bemused voice as he lay in his blood and the streaming sausages of his intestines. But most vividly, over and over, he saw himself behind the wheel of the LTD, racing the engine a little in a closed garage, taking deep breaths and leafing through a copy of National Geographic, examining pictures of life in Tahiti and Auckland and the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, turning the pages ever more slowly, until the sound of the engine faded to a fareway sweet hum and the green waters of the South Pacific inundated him in rocking warmth and took him down to a silver fathom.

Roadwork (Chantier)

'The Trained Dog Ethic, first advanced by Barton George Dawes in late 1973, fully explains such mysteries as the monetary crisis, inflation, the Viet Nam war, and the current energy crisis. Let us take the energy crisis as an example. The American people are the trained dogs, trained in this case to love oil-guzzling toys. Cars, snowmobiles, large boats, dune buggies, motorcycles, minicycles, campers, and many, many more. In the years 1973 to 1980 we will be trained to hate energy toys. The American people love to be trained. Training makes them wag their tails. Use energy. Don't use energy. Go pee on the newspaper. I don't object to saving energy. I object to training'.

Roadwork (Chantier)

The salesman that came through thought it was funny. They laughed like hell. But then if you showed a salesman a picture of starving kids or Hitler copulating with the Virgin Mary, he would laugh like hell.

Roadwork (Chantier)

He wondered how far his legs would carry him on their own - how long before his brain took them over and began punishing them, making them work past any sane limit, to keep a bullet from crashing into its own bony cradle. How long before the legs began to kink and then to bind up, to protest and finally to seize up and stop.

The Long Walk (Marche ou crève)

'Ah, I don't want to die this way,' Abraham said. He was crying. 'Not in public with people rooting for you to get up and walk another few miles. It's so fucking mindless. Just fucking mindless. This has about as much dignity as a mongoloid idiot strangling on his own tongue and shitting his pants at the same time.'

The Long Walk (Marche ou crève)