What pieces of writing were forever seared into your memory the moment you read them?

What pieces of writing were forever seared into your memory the moment you read them?

For me it's the parts in V. where Pynchon talks about the Namibian death camps. It's so fucking vivid and such a contrast to his typically goofy self.

The Cana of Galilee chapter from The Brothers Karamazov

the sewers in this book tbqh

and the nose surgery

>And the answer, said the judge. If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. He loves games? Let him play for stakes. This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again? Aye. And again. With other people, with other sons.

The whole section where they're sitting among those ruins struck me.

>The people in Paris always look busy when all they actually do is roam around from morning to night; it's obvious, because when the weather isn't right for walking around, when it's too cold or too hot, you don't see them any more; they're all indoors, drinking their cafés crème or their beers. And that's the truth! The century of speed, they call it! Where? Great changes, they say! For instance? In truth nothing has changed.

I know it isn't anything particularly complex, but I always thought it was pretty accurate and funny, and it really made me want to read the rest of the book (Journey to the End of the Night). It's the only passage I can quote without having to open a book.

For me the most striking scene was the death of the Bad Priest. All of it, the disassembly, Fausto administering the last rites it really stuck with me.

V. is so fucking underrated. I mean, it's definitely not his best, but the second part of the book, especially the Stencil's chapters, is pure nightmare fuel. Nambian death camps' chapter is... bizzare? V's is love is nauseatic as well.

Levin's brother death in Anna Karenina.
Pierre in the firing squad in War and Peace.

>Are you real brave?
>Just medium.
>Whats the bravest thing you ever did?
>he spat onto the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning.

>V. is so fucking underrated.
This is the statement of someone who lives entirely in their own mind.