William Peter Blatty was born on 7th January 1928 and as one of the first horror authors I ever read he scared the pants off me with his book The Exorcist.
Here are just a few quotes from his novels, be warned they aren’t pretty.
“As far as God goes, I _am_ a nonbeliever. Still am. But when it comes to a devil—well, that’s something else.”
“Do you know what she did? Your cunting daughter?”
“Earth is a homicide victim. We lose our children. There are wars. Disease. And God comes strolling by like a cosmic Billie Burke.”
“Keep away. The sow is mine.”
“All I know is that things seem to happen. And, my dear, there are lunatic asylums all over the world filled with people who dabbled in the occult.”
“Well, the Devil’s something else. I could buy that; in fact, maybe I do. You know why? Because the creep keeps doing commercials.”
“I think the point is to make us despair. To see ourselves as… animal and ugly. To make us reject the possibility that God could love us.”
Sweetness and light isn’t he, I have to say The Exorcist is one of the books from my youth that has stuck with me. Blatty has a way with his writing that truly unnerves you and I loved it, I still do.