Stephen King short story Quitters, Inc.
E721821
"Quitters, Inc." is a darkly comic horror short story by Stephen King about a sinister company that uses extreme, coercive methods to force clients to stop smoking.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Stephen King short story Quitters, Inc. canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8244603 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Stephen King short story Quitters, Inc. Context triple: [Cat's Eye (1985 film), screenStorySource, Stephen King short story Quitters, Inc.]
-
A.
Elmore Leonard short story "Fire in the Hole"
Elmore Leonard’s short story "Fire in the Hole" is a crime tale featuring U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens that served as the primary inspiration for the television series "Justified."
-
B.
short story "In the Event of My Father’s Death"
"In the Event of My Father’s Death" is a short story by Roxane Gay that appears in her collection Difficult Women, exploring themes of family, grief, and complex emotional inheritance.
-
C.
short story "The Sentinel"
"The Sentinel" is a science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke that explores humanity's encounter with an ancient alien artifact on the Moon, later serving as a key inspiration for the film and novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.
-
D.
short story "The Sacrifice of Darkness"
"The Sacrifice of Darkness" is a short story by Roxane Gay that blends elements of fantasy and allegory to explore themes of loss, guilt, and resilience in a world literally and figuratively consumed by darkness.
-
E.
Short Stories (album)
Short Stories is the 1980 debut collaborative album by Jon Anderson of Yes and Greek composer Vangelis, blending progressive rock with electronic and ambient elements.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Stephen King short story Quitters, Inc. Target entity description: "Quitters, Inc." is a darkly comic horror short story by Stephen King about a sinister company that uses extreme, coercive methods to force clients to stop smoking.
-
A.
Elmore Leonard short story "Fire in the Hole"
Elmore Leonard’s short story "Fire in the Hole" is a crime tale featuring U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens that served as the primary inspiration for the television series "Justified."
-
B.
short story "In the Event of My Father’s Death"
"In the Event of My Father’s Death" is a short story by Roxane Gay that appears in her collection Difficult Women, exploring themes of family, grief, and complex emotional inheritance.
-
C.
short story "The Sentinel"
"The Sentinel" is a science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke that explores humanity's encounter with an ancient alien artifact on the Moon, later serving as a key inspiration for the film and novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.
-
D.
short story "The Sacrifice of Darkness"
"The Sacrifice of Darkness" is a short story by Roxane Gay that blends elements of fantasy and allegory to explore themes of loss, guilt, and resilience in a world literally and figuratively consumed by darkness.
-
E.
Short Stories (album)
Short Stories is the 1980 debut collaborative album by Jon Anderson of Yes and Greek composer Vangelis, blending progressive rock with electronic and ambient elements.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
dark comedy
ⓘ
horror fiction ⓘ short story ⓘ |
| adaptationDirector | Lewis Teague NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| adaptationReleaseYear | 1985 ⓘ |
| adaptationScreenwriter | Stephen King NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| adaptationType | film segment ⓘ |
| adaptedAs | Quitters, Inc. (segment of the film Cat's Eye) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| author | Stephen King ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
addiction
ⓘ
coercion ⓘ free will vs control ⓘ surveillance ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| firstPublishedIn | Night Shift NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genre |
dark comedy
ⓘ
horror ⓘ psychological horror ⓘ |
| hasFictionalCompanyMethod |
constant surveillance of clients
ⓘ
physical torture as deterrent ⓘ threats against loved ones for noncompliance ⓘ |
| hasFictionalOrganization | Quitters, Inc. (company) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasMotiveForAntagonist | enforcing smoking cessation at any cost ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
addictive behavior
ⓘ
corporate abuse of power ⓘ fear as a tool of control ⓘ smoking cessation ⓘ |
| includedIn | various Stephen King short story anthologies ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Dick Morrison NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| medium | print ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | third-person narration ⓘ |
| notableCharacter | Vic Donatti NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| partOfCollection | Night Shift (short story collection) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| periodOfStoryPublication | late 1970s ⓘ |
| plotSummary | A man seeks help to quit smoking and discovers the company he hires uses brutal, coercive methods on him and his family. ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1978 ⓘ |
| publisherOfFirstCollection | Doubleday NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| setting | New York City ⓘ |
| targetOfSatire |
behavior modification programs
ⓘ
self-help industry ⓘ |
| tone |
darkly comic
ⓘ
suspenseful ⓘ |
| usesMotif |
electric shock punishment
ⓘ
threats to family members ⓘ |
| workOf | Stephen King NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Stephen King short story Quitters, Inc. Description of subject: "Quitters, Inc." is a darkly comic horror short story by Stephen King about a sinister company that uses extreme, coercive methods to force clients to stop smoking.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.