What line of fiction has sent a chill down your spine?

[MrsDanversAteMyIpod]

Have just read 1984 for the first time (-aged 32 - late I know) We did Animal Farm at school but I didn't get around to reading this until now.

I was fairly gripped and enjoying it to the point where Julia and Winston are echoed with 'You are the dead' & omg, it was so chilling..couldn't put the blardy thing down till the end

Any MNers experienced any similar literary chills?

Oh Jude the Obscure. It's years since I read it but so so awful.

I am re-reading the Narnia books at the moment. There is a line in "Dawntreader@ which says something like "after September 11th, he forgot all about writing in his diary" which I must admit, in a post 9/11 world, really jumped out at me last night.

I've read Voyage of the Dawntreader recently too and noticed that Janite. That date comes up in other books too I've noticed - spooky

Re. Rebecca - the very beginning when the narrator is describing going back to Mandeley in a dream and hearing the pitter patter of the leaves on the drive which sound like a woman's footsteps running down to the cove . . . shivery!

I read some seriously disturbing horror when I worked at a library. The TV series Fallen Angel gave me the creeps when I saw the trailer - I mentioned to DH that the only other thing that had given me that feeling that was a book called 'The Four Last Things'. Strangely the TV series was an adaptation of it!

So many good ones here; I second 'Kevin' and 'Survivor Type' and 'After the Hole'.

Mine are:

The last paragraph of the prologue of The Secret History, where Richard is talking about Bunny's death..."At one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."

And the last paragraph of The Collector, which I can't quote word for word, but you realise the protagonist has selected his next victim and is preparing the cellar in readiness...

A line from one of Antonia Forest's books

'...but of course, once in every lifetime tomorrow never comes'

The Collector makes me feel sick every time I recall it.

I've only read The Collector once... and I'm determined never to read it again, as it couldn't possibly have the same chilling impact as it did the first time.