With hundreds of years of literary canon under its belt, horror literature is more popular now than ever before. Numerous subgenres, such as psychological horror, gothic fiction, and supernatural horror, there are all kinds of terrors to explore. Horror fiction finds its roots in religious stories and folklore in which death, the afterlife, and evil often transpose these concepts onto people or creatures, thereby creating many of the core tenets of horror today, like witches, monsters, ghosts, and other such staples. These creatures and spirits appear in classical Greek and Roman texts. Gothic fiction arose in the 18th century with classic books like The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. Horror as we know it took off in 19th-century fiction with the popularity of novels and novellas like Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, Dracula by Bram Stoker, and The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, generating a buzz around the budding genre. Horror fiction exploded in the 20th century, gaining new traction with the advent of motion pictures and has become an enduring staple of modern collections thanks to popular writers such as Stephen King and Anne Rice. Let's take a look at a compilation of terrifying quotes from the best books throughout the history of horror:
“Home is where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark.” It by Stephen King
“For people could close their eyes to greatness, horrors, beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they couldn't escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath, it entered human beings, who couldn't defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.” Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
“It was as though committing murders had purged him of lesser rudeness.” The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
“There was something in her, something that was...pure horror. Everything you were supposed to watch out for. Heights, fire, shards of glass, snakes, Everything that his mom tried so hard to keep him safe from.” Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
“And I think — I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love: of accepting the possibility that God could ever love us." The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
“There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.” Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
“And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part already and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they played wits against me - against me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were born - I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for awhile; and shall later on be my companion and my helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall minister to your needs. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call.” Dracula by Bram Stoker
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there walked alone.” The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
“The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball in some nameless battle during the revolutionary war.” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving
“Smells of dirt and wet and long-gone vegetables would merge into one unmistakable ineluctable smell, the smell of the monster, the apotheosis of all monsters. It was the smell of something for which he had no name: the smell of It, crouched and lurking and ready to spring. A creature which would eat anything but was especially hungry for boymeat." Coraline by Neil Gaiman
“Do you think she can see us, talking to one another now? Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?” Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
“Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
