How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"When the victim dies, the marks disappear."
"I know that," Ben said. He remembered it both from Stoker's Dracula and from the Hammer films starring Christopher Lee. (8.95)
'Salem's Lots vampires are oddly eager to stay true to pop-culture precedent. After belief, the best defense against the supernatural in this novel is an enthusiasm for horror fiction. We're betting that Stephen King, who read lots of horror fiction and saw lots of horror films in his time, would do pretty well against the vampires.
Quote #5
And you couldn't explain that to your mother and father, who were creatures of the light. No more than you could explain to them how, at the age of three, the spare blanket at the foot of the crib turned into a collection of snakes that lay staring at you with flat and lidless eyes. No child ever conquers those fears, he thought. If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered. And the fears locked in small brains are much too large to pass through the orifice of the mouth. (9.220)
Childhood and the supernatural go together like vampires and sucking blood in King's books. 'Salem's Lot is in touch with childhood fears—and it's arguably articulating, or telling, them in order to conquer them. Supernatural terrors make the book go, and knowing about those terrors is how you stop them.
Quote #6
"But this… this other is lunacy, Ben."
"Yes, like Hiroshima."
"Will you stop doing that!" she whipcracked at him suddenly. "Don't go playing the phony intellectual. It doesn't fit you! We're talking about wives' tales, bad dreams, psychosis, anything you want to call it—"
"That's shit," he said. "Make connections. The world is coming down around our ears and you're sticking at a few vampires." (10.154-157)
Susan's right: comparing vampires with the Hiroshima bombing seems pretty crass. No one ever said these characters had to have good taste, we guess.