It can be two things.

What some people don't know could fill a warehouse.

I knew someone was going to say that.

Even though I think the ending is far from terrible, I'm glad I wasn't drinking when I read your comment, as your skewering of its style is hilarious.

They'll probably use Derry as a word that casts no shadow at all in their minds.

As someone who has hopped off the train multiple times at Sleaford, I'm struck by how similar to Derry its structure is.

The monster isn't the spider, the monster is the deadlights.

I am a swearer by this book, but I also love Lisey's Story.

Apt point. Reminds me of Stu Redman's dream, 'It's him, he thought. The man with no face. Oh dear God. Oh dear God no.' Nothing Is Scarier (tvtropes.org).

Part of what makes it work is how it launches so early into the adult fears, such as 'Different from your peers? You may be thrown off a bridge. And it's also possible you will then be eaten by something outside civilisation'. (The bridge thing is taken from a real-life homophobic murder incident.)

I love the second half of your comment for how it draws on both primal and ancestral fears, particularly if you interpret it in terms of the fragility of the kind of human civilisation that we began building in Ancient Greece. But as for the first half, I advise you read the book. I have never personally found…

I started It immediately after finishing The Stand. 'Remember how it felt to realise the world could end? Well now realise it's full of many kinds of monsters'.

In my head, adult Bill is Mike from Veep, adult Richie is Josh Holloway, adult Stan is Terry O'Quinn, adult Ben is DJ Qualls, adult Eddie is Russell Tovey, adult Bev is Lauren Ambrose, and adult Mike is the original MCU James Rhodes.

Stan Uris's monologue about how Jesus walking on water would 'offend' him and make him 'scream and scream and scream' very much stays with me, because I understand the principle of things seeming to defy the laws of nature, particularly, as King alludes to, the laws you believe in when you're a kid such as 'everything…

King's work makes it easier to understand the existentialist philosophy that in a way, no-one else really exists, because we are all permanently alone in our own heads, like non-murderous Patrick Hockstetters.

No thanks, you've been smoochin' with everybody.

Monster, monster, burning bright in the forests of the night… (not only the smoke-hole scene but also the fact that books are made from forests and I first finished the book at 4.07am).

I wish my instanteously appearing like of this comment could be replaced by a permanently conscious immeasurable aeon of likes.

He inspired me to lose 34 pounds in 4 months last year. 12 years after reading the book.

Pennywise is less a killer clown/extraterrestrial horror-beast than an external manifestation of childhood susceptibility to persuasion and emotion-based confidence trickery.