Ghost Story Quotes

Every house has a story. Ours is a ghost story. It's also a lie. And now that yet another person has died within these walls, it's finally time to tell the truth. ~ Riley Sager

You know, everything's a ghost story, eventually. ~ Cherie Priest

I wanted to write a horror story. But in some ways, I have always thought of myself as a kind of ghost-story/horror writer, though most of the time the supernatural never actually appears on stage. ~ Dan Chaon

It would be difficult to write a convincing ghost story set on a sunny day in a big city. ~ Susan Hill

He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses would want to know sooner than they could possible help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn or balancing himself on somebody's bedrail.

("Introduction" to TOLD AFTER SUPPER) ~ Jerome K. Jerome

There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas - something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

We all learn to carry so much unnecessary regret. We drag it around behind ourselves and wear it sewn into the inner lining of our shadow. I think that the heart of every ghost story ever told is awash with the soft faded autumnal color of pure unredeemable regret. ~ Steve Vernon

The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story. ~ Charles Dickens

If you were writing a short ghost story, I would say start very quietly and go, 'One, two, three jump.' Or start with a jump and make it jumpier. But with a long story, it must have rises and falls. ~ Susan Hill

I look away, but we've caught each other. And I know this wasn't just a ghost story to him, even if it was to the others. ~ Jennifer Walkup

Even if I had convict ancestry, I wouldn't be ashamed of it. As far as I'm concerned, the real criminals back in those days weren't twelve-year-old boys nicking a loaf of bread or a pair of socks to ward off hunger and blisters. No, it was those who exploited them; keeping the battler in the gutter while they sat around in their manors, sipping tea and admiring portraits of their toffee-nosed great grandfathers. ~ Cameron Trost

Possibly I was mistaken, but it seemed to me that he went pale. At last he muttered, It isn't much of a ghost story, I'm afraid, but then I didn't make it up. ~ Gene Wolfe

I already told you a ghost story," she said at last. "The one where the wife was invisible to the husband and the truth of the marriage was invisible to her. ~ Sue Halpern

Every family is a ghost story. ~ Mitch Albom

I love to be scared. Not, 'Hey, I think I smell smoke ... ' scared, but creepy, paranoid, what's-that-out-there-in-the-dark, ghost story scared. It's no surprise that I was the girl who got invited to the slumber parties because I could be counted on to tell a tale to scare the bejesus out of you. ~ Libba Bray

How to make a scary movie human, take a movie like Sinister. How can I make that guy so real so that the scary elements of it are more scary and it functions as a genre movie - as the way it's supposed to, you want to hear a ghost story at midnight, that's a good one - but how do you fill it up with humanity inside, in staying true to the genre? You know? Does that make sense? ~ Ethan Hawke

No woman will ever take care of my children but me, she said. I will not allow it, do you understand?
And after I am gone Madge Toxley, if you try to make them yours, then you will live to regret it. ~ John Boyne

To tell a ghost story means being willing to be haunted. ~ Judith "Jack" Halberstam

As a girl, I sat awestruck at the feet of Harriet Ne, author of 'Tales of Molokai'. It was she who used to say, 'I myself have seen it,' after telling a particularly hair-raising ghost story - a phrase that I borrowed for one of my titles. ~ Susanna Moore

A poll when Blair left said that 69 per cent of people reckoned Blair's legacy would be the Iraq War. I think that ignores his real record of achievement in dismantling the Labour movement. It's amazing to think that the huge effort he went to creating a massive cash-for-honours scandal will be overshadowed. Blair was said to be saddened that he hasn't managed to serve for as many years as Thatcher. Instead he will have to content himself with having killed more women and children than Genghis Khan. Ironically, for a man who is so obsessed with legacy, his memory will live on longer than most politicians - as a ghost story that Iraqi mothers use to frighten their children. That said, I do think that Blair stands a good chance of success in his new role of Peace Envoy. There's a real chance that all those different groups in the Middle East will join together to try and kill him. In six months time he could be putting an end to years of suffering as he is sacrificed on an altar in the centre of Baghdad while everyone celebrates like it's the end of a Star Wars movie. ~ Frankie Boyle

I read a lot of ghost stories because I was writing a ghost story. I didn't think at all I was writing a horror or a thriller or whatever because it is about a ghost, whereas a horror film can be about aliens or things that rise out of the marsh that have no human shape. ~ Susan Hill

His face was a ghost story: graveyard eyes, cheekbones as sharp as urban legends, a sealed-coffin mouth. ~ Allyse Near

When you read a supernatural suspense story or a ghost story, or a horror story, the evil at play is something that you can dismiss. And I wonder if, in this time, if people really want to be sitting on the subway reading a book about someone releasing a dirty bomb on the subway. ~ Michael Koryta

Every love story is a ghost story. ~ David Foster Wallace

Why a ghost story? Well, I love them. They're fun to read - and, yes, fun to write. ~ Chris Bohjalian

McGrath smoothed his hair with the flat of his hand. He was silently gazing along the copper colored pathway as though it led to a mystical place where men found answers just lying, uncovered on the warm, soft earth. A place where men knew everything and the blackness of infinity was just a ghost story told to scare children. ~ Mark Arundel

In The Second Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, Aickman elaborates further his ideas: The good ghost story gives form and symbol to themes from the enormous areas of our own minds which we cannot directly discern, but which totally govern us; and also to the parallel forces of the external universe, about which we know so little, much less than people tell us [8]. He sees that modern man has spent his time avoiding his true nature, the mystery within himself and in the universe that makes him human. ~ Gary William Crawford

Because every story is a ghost story, even mine. ~ Samantha Hunt

In a ghost story, usually you've got to hang on until daylight, and you'll be alright. But if daylight's four months away, then you have a problem. ~ Michelle Paver

I walked up the stairs and hesitated at the open door. ~ Susan Hill

I often stood and stared into those tunnels and thought about what happened there; how I was separated from it only by time. - The Procession ~ Benjamin Brindise

The lake's deep...and dark...and dangerous. ~ Mary Downing Hahn

The mad rarely know that they are mad. It's the rest of the world, I think, that seems insane to them. ~ Jim Butcher

They were all people whom I either knew too well or whom I didn't wish to know at all... ~ Marjorie Bowen

Oh," the girl said, shaking her head. "Don't be so simple. People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is, young shade? Power. Power and choice. Monsters make choices. Monsters shape the world. Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better. They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways." Her eyes became distant. "There are far, far worse things to be than a monster. ~ Jim Butcher

His indirect way of approaching a character or an action, striving to realize it by surrounding rather than invading it, is ideally suited to the indefinite and suggestive presentation of a ghost story.
(introduction to "Sir Edmund Orme" by Henry James) ~ Herbert A. Wise

Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo
... Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage. ~ M.R. James

But I think we are seeing a resurgence of the graphic ghost story like The Others, Devil's Backbone and The Sixth Sense. It is a return to more gothic atmospheric ghost storytelling. ~ Guillermo Del Toro

As she appears in the room, her face is still covered by the hood of her coat, but I can see the outline of her chin, and a faint glow that frightens me. She slowly pulls back the hood and her eyes bore into me. Eyes red with flame, it is though they are scanning my soul, deep within me."

From 'She Blames Me' (Banfield Tales) ~ Michael Braccia

But this isn't a ghost story: the ghost is in the background, where she has to be. If she was in the foreground she'd be a person. ~ David Mitchell

I think of setting as almost a character of its own, influencing the other characters in ways they're not even aware of. So much of the success of a good ghost story rides on creating a creepy atmosphere; details of the landscape itself can help create a sense of dread. ~ Jennifer McMahon

I am who I am and always shall be. ~ Laura Elizabeth

Do you like a good ghost story?"-Jonah ~ Dana Michelle Burnett

I have to say my favorite stories are ghost stories. I don't like to see these made-up monster films or scary films with ghosts. It doesn't do anything to me. But a real ghost story that someone tells me, that I like. ~ Sandra Cisneros

Parker felt, not for the first time, as though he had wandered into a ghost story. ~ John Connolly

A ghost story of which the scene is laid in the twelfth or thirteenth century may succeed in being romantic or poetical: it will never put the reader into the position of saying to himself: If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me! ~ M.R. James

Like each morning he was putting his identity on inside out while dressing in the dark. ~ Vivian Barz

While Max appears to greatly admire Wallace as a writer and feel compassion for him as a man, he is never starry-eyed, or pulls his punches. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story is as illuminating, multifaceted, and serious an estimation of David Foster Wallace's life and work as we can hope to find. ~ Elissa Schappell

Tugging her purse strap up on her arm, she headed for the
door. "You have my cell number. I'll text you. If something goes
wrong and he pulls an axe, you'll be the first person I call."
Michelle groaned. "See, this is why I worry. The first person
you call is the police. Then you call me and tell me the authorities are
on their way and you're hiding in a closet."
"Yeah, ancient wooden closet door versus axe? And you call
me the illogical one? ~ Virginia Nelson

no matter it's actual narrative content, every movie is a ghost story. A film's production forms a time capsule, becoming a static window into a particular moment of a particular era. Even period pieces tell you more about the times they were made in than the times they depict ~ Gemma Files

We ask our brain to stop worrying, stop obsessing, stop dreaming the same scary dreams again and again. But our brain rarely takes requests. ~ Dan Poblocki

History is a ghost story. My own childhood has passed into history, and the ghosts I find there are the ghosts of Heroes and dragons and Berserks and witches, and it has become fashionable not to believe in these things anymore. But I believe, for I was there. ~ Cressida Cowell

It happened during the winter of 1973, when evenings rang out stillborn from far across the weathered moorland, and snow fell hard and heavy and clung atop the peppered veins of nature's tough bracken, all picture-postcard like. ~ Jordan Mason

I believe ghost story writing is a dying art. ~ H.R. Wakefield

I ceased even to breathe. It was ridiculous, of course, but you know that ghost-story feeling. ~ H.G.Wells

The world of shadows and superstition that was Victorian England, so well depicted in this 1871 tale, was unique. While the foundations of so much of our present knowledge of subjects like medicine, public health, electricity, chemistry and agriculture, were being, if not laid, at least mapped out, people could still believe in the existence of devils and demons. And why not? A good ghost story is pure entertainment. It was not until well into the twentieth century that ghost stories began to have a deeper significance and to become allegorical; in fact, to lose their charm. No mental effort is required to read 'The Weird Woman', no seeking for hidden meanings; there are no complexities of plot, no allegory on the state of the world. And so it should be. At what other point in literary history could a man, standing over the body of his fiancee, say such a line as this:

'Speak, hound! Or, by heaven, this night shall witness two murders instead of one!'

Those were the days.

(introduction to "The Weird Woman") ~ Hugh Lamb

He knew lounging was dangerous because he could already sense depression creeping over him like a vampire's shadow. In the past, he'd found that the best way to combat this feeling was to keep moving, as if misery were a barnacle that couldn't latch on to him if he didn't sit still for too long. ~ Vivian Barz

The ghost story movie that scared me the most was The Changeling with George C. Scott. I think that's sometimes overlooked, but it's a wonderful piece of work. ~ Stephen King

beneath the stars that drift; she sighed and said
"Every tale of a love
can only be a tale of ghosts that linger
in these spaces we
can never hold," - as the wind
gave echo ~ John Daniel Thieme

So you know you're a ghost?"
I looked at my hands; they were transparent and glowed faintly. "Can you think of another explanation? ~ Christina Dodd

The lamps were lit, and a good fire crackled in the great stone fireplace. There was a discreet chink of china, the brightness of silver teapot and muffin cover, the comforting smell mingled of steaming hot water, toast and a little sweet tobacco. ~ Susan Hill

The Place would already have started the leisurely, enjoyable process of digesting her into just one more piece of local gore-lore, half ghost story and half morality play, half urban myth and half just the way life goes. It would eat her memory whole, the same way its ground had eaten her body. ~ Tana French

Before Luce could reply, a skinny, dark haired girl appeared in from of her, wagging her long fingers in Luce's face.
"Ooooooh," the girl taunted in a ghost-story-telling voice, dancing around Luce in a circle. "The reds are watching youuuu."
"Get out of here, Arriane, before I have you lobotimized," the attendant said, though it was clear from her first brief but genuine smile that she had some coarse affection for that crazy girl.
It was also clear that Arriane did not reciprocate the love. She mimed a jerking-off motion at the attendant, then stared at Luce, daring her to be offended. ~ Lauren Kate

The next morning, the entire thing feels like a dream. You never see Bill again, never get his number, never find him on Facebook. In fact, like the end of a lazy ghost story, you never find any evidence of his existence at all. ~ Dana Schwartz

Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? Are you ready? Shall I begin? ~ Libba Bray

Neither of us had lived in a house since we were kids; apartments, it turns out, are very different things, psychologically. Houses - especially old and creaky houses - are individuals, somehow; their fronts are faces, their closets are pants pockets. ~ Ben Dolnick

What was the worst thing you've ever done?
I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me ... the most dreadful thing ... ~ Peter Straub

Detective-story writers give this thrill by exploiting the resources of the possible; however improbable the happenings in a detective story, they can and must be explained in terms that satisfy the reason. But in a ghost story, where natural laws are dispensed with, the whole point is that the happenings cannot be so explained.
A ghost story that is capable of a rational explanation is as much an anomaly as a detective story that isn't.
The one is in revolt against a materialistic conception of the universe, whereas the other depends on it. ~ L.P. Hartley

The door to his room is open.his face amooth in sleep.Lips relaxed,boys lips, i remember can be so rough, so tender, so sweet.So full of lies. ~ A.M. Jenkins

I'd sooner believe in a ghost story than believe in love."
"That doesn't matter," I told her. "Love still believes in you. ~ Natalie Lloyd

The story comes, and it is pure story. That's all I set out to write. But I don't believe that we can write any kind of story without including, whether we intend to or not, our response to the world around us. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

It's also at that moment that I realize I am able to maintain the level of judgmentalness that I so cherish only because I have someone in my life who knows me so well and still manages to love me. Isn't that what love is? Knowing someone's life story and not using it against them? OK, maybe it's more like knowing someone's life story, using it against them, and still loving them. ~ Annabelle Gurwitch

Dreaming and hoping won't produce a piece of work; only writing, rewriting and rewriting (if necessary)- a devoted translation of thoughts and dreams into words on paper will result in a story. ~ Roberta Gellis

A little instruction in the elements of chartography - a little practice in the use of the compass and the spirit level, a topographical map of the town common, an excursion with a road map - would have given me a fat round earth in place of my paper ghost. ~ Mary Antin

Well, it [evolution] is a theory, it is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed. But if it was going to be taught in the schools, then I think that also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught. ~ Ronald Reagan

Overpopulated fiction can be so confusing that readers put the story down. Under-populated novels can seem claustrophobic or boring. You want the right number of characters for your particular work. ~ Nancy Kress

Writers got to pick the endings of their novels, but Beatrice wasn't living a story. She was living history, and history went on forever. ~ Katharine McGee

This is a story of an adventure in education, pursued not under the best of conditions. ~ Louis L'Amour

It's always been my hope that I would write a story that would inspire and would connect with people in a way that would touch hearts. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

No one ever tells a story to help you figure out where to go when a door closes on you. ~ Dan Scanlon

Glancing at the shadows, "Come in," I beseech. "Let me see, let me touch you. Talk to me ... And let me tell you my story. ~ Uvi Poznansky

My life story is something obviously that belongs to me very personally. And the fact of the matter is that I had choices and chances and opportunities that were provided to me, based on the way I was able to direct my own decision-making. And what I'm working to fight for is to make sure that all women have the ability to do that. ~ Barack Obama

Katie appeared as a ghost and cradled him in her arms and carried him, a frail dying version of her old husband, to heaven. The radio which was powered off suddenly comes on and played their song Follow Me. Nobody could see her only Ronan and he smiled and says "I knew you would come back for me love ~ Annette J. Dunlea

I really believe that we all have the ability to come out of our story. But you have to tell your story first in order to come out of it. ~ Mariel Hemingway

What does the story mean, then?" "It means what you want it to mean," Hoid said. "The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that." Kaladin ~ Brandon Sanderson

They didn't know that I didn't know anything, and I was hoping to use that to my advantage. The only thing I had going for me was my ignorance. This was the story of my life. ~ Paul Neilan

I think all tragedies are best told with some humor. You have to relieve the darkness to let the reader get through it. Also, that life has happiness and sadness mixed together. If you told a story that was all darkness, it wouldn't be real. ~ Alan Lightman

'Forever Evil' is my love letter to DC super villains. It's my chance to take all of the villains I've worked with and all the ones I've never worked with and put them into one gigantic, epic story that will bring together the bads of the DC Universe. ~ Geoff Johns

was it Martin Luther who told of a time when he was focused intently on the person and work of Christ? The Holy Spirit was there as if in the form of a dove, gently alight on his shoulder, and when Luther turned his attention to the Spirit and away from Christ, the dove flew away. This story may go too far in the other direction, but I believe it contains at least a modest lesson ~ Paul Basden

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels. ~ Tobias Wolff

'Macbeth' is an amazing story. ~ Andy Serkis

Not to me," I said.
Kafka wrote his first story in one night. Stendhal wrote The
Charterhouse of Parma in forty-nine days. Melville wrote Moby-
Dick in sixteen months. Flaubert spent five years on Madame
Bovary. Musil worked for eighteen years on The Man Without
Qualities and died before he could finish. Do we care about any
of that now? ~ Paul Auster

Ideas never stop, dear S, they're everywhere, in everything - all we have to do is be open to them. And stories tend to arrive with their plots intact and reveal the plots in the writing. Often you think you've got a plot only to find, once you start writing, it's doing something else altogether. And the short story is the form most suited to the spatial moment, which is why it so touches us as a form, I think, with our lives so made up every day of the momentousness of the ordinary moment. ~ Ali Smith

This book is an enhanced reprint. the original story was written in 1990. I wanted to bring it up to speed in technology and in the way men and women relate to each other in the 21st century. The book is almost 6000 words longer and the characters are much more creatures of this time now. I think the book has an edge that was not present in the orginal book, Silent Enchantment. As far as I know, treating a reprint in this way is new. That is why the book is clearly marked as an enhanced reprint and there is a letter in the front of the text to explain what was done and why. ~ Lacey Dancer

It was the idea of facing a future skimming the surface of life, winging my way in and out of other people's crises, confusions, and passages, engaging them enough to get the story, but never enough to be indelibly touched by what I had seen or heard. ~ Anna Quindlen

I always think it's interesting to switch genres, because if I read a script and I know exactly how to manifest a story, I don't really want to do it anymore, because I've already done it in my head. ~ Marc Forster

Maybe she had it wrong all this time and her empty heart could never be filled by his ingenious broken spirit. Maybe this yearning had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with her. ~ Coco J. Ginger

When did this story morph? When did it change from a tale of two to a tragedy of three? ~ Ella Frank

Whenever there's a camera around, a video or film camera, it's a great deal harder for those in power to bury the story. ~ Peter Gabriel

If Erik existed and lived life in despair,
We wish him to know we are here and we care. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri