Moriston House Mystery Quotes

Trap is a four-letter word, and like so many four-letter words it can mean something entirely else.
--Hugo Anstead ~ Jennifer A. Girardin

Awareness, like wine, is always better for the vintage.
--Hugo Anstead ~ Jennifer A. Girardin

Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration before the ineffable mystery which. was accomplished here ... In This Child - the Son who is given to us - we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails - the Eucharistic Bread foreshadowed even in the name of this town: Bethlehem, the house of bread. God lies hidden in the Child; divinity lies hidden in the Bread of Life ~ Pope John Paul II

To all the ships at sea, and all the ports of call. To my family and to all friends and strangers. This is a message, and a prayer. The message is that my travels taught me a great truth. I already had what everyone is searching for and few ever find. The one person in the world who I was born to love forever. A person, like me, of the outer banks and the blue Atlantic mystery. A person rich in simple treasures. Self-made. Self-taught. A harbor where I am forever home. And no wind, or trouble or even a little death can knock down this house. The prayer is that everyone in the world can know this kind of love and be healed by it. If my prayer is heard, there will be an erasing of all guilt and all regret and an end to all anger. Please, God. Amen. ~ Nicholas Sparks

A favored bit from "A Legend of Good Men"

"My mother and I each had our routines. She taught high school, took long hikes in the state parks near our house, read mystery novels, and sometimes disappeared with explanations as thin as, "I just need a few days," or "I'm going to visit a friend."
"Which friend?" I would ask.
"That's right," she would say. ~ David Vann

Now in the earthly likenesses of justice and temperance and all other prized possessions of the soul there dwells no luster; nay, so dull are the organs wherewith men approach their images that hardly can a few behold that which is imaged, but with beauty it is otherwise. Beauty it was ours to see in all its brightness in those days when, amidst that happy company, we beheld with our eyes that blessed vision, ourselves in the train of Zeus, others following some other god; then were we all initiated into that mystery which is rightly accounted blessed beyond all others; whole and unblemished were we that did celebrate it, untouched by the evils that awaited us in days to come; whole and unblemished likewise, free from all alloy, steadfast and blissful were the spectacles on which we gazed in the moment of final revelation; pure was the light that shone around us, and pure were we, without taint of that prison house which now we are encompassed withal, and call a body, fast bound therein as an oyster in its shell ~ Plato

YESTERDAY IS HISTORY. TOMORROW IS A MYSTERY. TODAY IS A GIFT. THAT'S WHY IT'S CALLED THE PRESENT. WORK HARD, BE HAPPY, AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE IN WAYWARD PINES! ~ Blake Crouch

You don't know many friends you have till you buy a big-ass house on the beach. ~ Lois Greiman

It never was about the musician or the instrument - it was about the laser notes in a hall of mirrors, the music itself. It was going to change the world for the better and it has. Maybe not as fast or as much as we wanted, but it has and it still will. Whether your name is Mozart, or Django Reinhardt, or Robert Johnson, or Jimi Hendrix, or whoever is next; who you are doesn't matter so long as you can open that conduit and let the music come through. It is the burning edge, whatever it sounds like and whoever is playing it. It is the noisy, messy, silly, invincible voice of life that comes through the LP on the turn-table, the transistor radio, or the Bose in your new Lexus that makes you want to get up out of whatever you are stuck in and dance. It is Dionysus and the Maenads all over again. No one can control it and I pity whoever tries. I am old now and only a house cat sunning herself in the window - but I was a tigress once, and I remember. I still remember. ~ G.J. Paterson

A house isn't a home without the ineffable contentment of a cat with its tail folded about its feet. A cat gives mystery, charm, suggestion. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Nothing but trees. ~ Robert Liparulo

My earliest memory is a picnic in the park near our house, which was next to Wimbledon Common. Why on earth we went to a park when we lived so near the common is a mystery, but it had formal gardens and lawns - perhaps it was that very difference that took my parents there. ~ Martin Clunes

Whiteness of moonlight builds a house that is not there ~ Kathleen Raine

How many were the aquarelles she painted for me; what a revelation it was when she showed me the lilac tree that grows out of mixed blue and red! Sometimes, in our St Petersburg house, from a secret compartment in the wall of her dressing room (and my birth room), she would produce a mass of jewelry for my bedtime amusement. I was very small then, and those flashing tiaras and chokers and rings seemed to me hardly inferior in mystery and enchantment to the illumination in the city during imperial fêtes, when, in the padded stillness of a frosty night, giant monograms, crowns, and other armorial designs, made of coloured electric bulbs - sapphire, emerald, ruby - glowed with a kind of charmed constraint above snow-lined cornices on housefronts along residential streets. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

she came out - dancing around in a white shirt with nothing underneath, the rosy coins of her nipples visible under the thin fabric - asking for a wood saw and spackle, he'd been jumpy as a jackrabbit sniffing Easter candy. He could have looked in the bedroom when she left to sleep, to go to Brass and Bones, to go wherever sex-witch art-fairies go. She came back every day with packages from the Indian import store, bags from the pagan crystal shop, boxes that smelled like incense and old wood. But he didn't look because deep down he liked the mystery, that a woman had claimed a space in the house he'd designed, made it hers to reveal on her terms. ~ Kira A. Gold

At night, the house thick with sleep, she would peer out her bedroom window at the trees and sky and feel the presence of a mystery. Some possibility that included her
separate from her present life and without its limitations. A secret. Riding in the car with her father, she would look out at other cars full of people she'd never seen, any one of whom she might someday meet and love, and would feel the world holding her making its secret plans. ~ Jennifer Egan

What will people say, you running off to Memphis like you don't have a house to look after?
Shug say, Albert. Try to think like you got some sense. Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.
Well, say Grady, trying to bring light. A woman can't git a man if peoples talk.
Shug look at me and us giggle. Then us sure nuff. Then Squeak start to laugh. Then Sofia. All us laugh and laugh. ~ Alice Walker

Grandfather, there's something we want to talk to you about."
Grandfather looked concerned. "There's nothing wrong, is there?"
"It's about the Roth house," Benny said. "It's a funny house."
"Funny?" Grandfather asked.
"Well," Violet began. "Benny is right. There are funny things in the house and funny people outside the house."

The Mystery of the Singing Ghost ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner

In Haven, old houses didn't settle. They carried a life of their own, and Blackwater farm was no exception. This was a house that would never be a home. The best they could hope for would be to co-exist with the ghosts of the past.
- The Silent Twin ~ Caroline Mitchell

It was in a large window--a sort of hybrid between a shop and a private house--and consisted of a hand-written placard executed in bold Roman capitals announcing that these premises were occupied by no less a person than Professor Booley, late of Boston, U.S.A. (popularly believed to be the hub of the universe). ~ R. Austin Freeman

DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was; but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium - the bitter lapse into every-day life - the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as ~ Edgar Allan Poe

I decided, long ago, back-room negotiations with a nine iron and a pen, witness tampering, and suppression of evidence weren't for me. That's
what was expected of an independent lawyer hired by Louis Fernoza.

I wanted the corner office overlooking a
cityscape, the fine car and house, and the ability to sleep at night with a clear conscience. I'd say I achieved it all but not without a price. ~ A.E.H. Veenman

I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don't. It's the great mystery. (Steve Jobs) ~ Walter Isaacson

I had spent four years propped on the front porch of the fraternity house, bemused and dreaming, watching the sun shine through the spanish moss, lost in the mystery of finding myself alive at such a time and place. ~ Walker Percy

She was the most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from one story to another was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea. ~ Charles Dickens

Once I knew, then I forgot. It was as if I had fallen asleep in a field only to discover at waking that a grove of trees had grown up around me.
"Doubt nothing, believe everything," was my friend's idea of metaphysics, although his brother ran away with his wife. He still bought her a rose every day, sat in the empty house for the next twenty years talking to her about the weather.
I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
My friend's empty house with every one of its windows lit. The dark trees multiplying all around it. ~ Charles Simic

Come in." The kid turned and walked toward the house. "I'll help you if I can." He paused, his brown eyes turned toward Stacy who now stood open-mouthed. "But you'll have to do something for me in return."
I frowned. "Like what?"
"Hide me from my mother," he said. His eyes were shiny with fresh tears.
I snorted. "Do you mean your mother, the beauty queen?"
"No," he said softly. His face suddenly seemed older. "I mean my mother, the monster. ~ K.D. Wood

Will all you children come and visit and tell me more about the house?"
"If you'd like," Jessie said. "Someday maybe Grandfather will bring you to your old home so you can see it again."
"That would be my pleasure," Grandfather said.
Mrs. Collins stood and walked to the door with the Aldens. "Someday I will call you, and my housekeeper can drive me to the old house. I would like to see it again and to meet your cousins."
She kissed each of the children and shook Grandfather's hand. "I can't thank you enough for giving me back my father."
The Aldens got into Grandfather's car and rode in silence for a while. Then Jessie said, "I'm so glad we found Celia."

The Mystery of the Singing Ghost ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner

She had no doubt the man would kill her. Stupid things went skating through her mind
she'd never told her mother how much she loved her chocolate cupcakes ... or Felicia what a kind friend she'd been ... or Keith that it was cool and mature that he owned a house, even if it was in Brooklyn. ~ Stephanie Bond

She would love to think he was reluctant to leave her, but she realized he was waiting to make sure she got safely into the house before he drove away. Zane might be the most frustrating man on earth, a paradox she couldn't figure out, but he was the type of guy to make sure a woman was safe before he left her in the dark. Just as he was the type of man who'd chosen the best knife for her to carry to Nigeria. He was also the type to kiss a woman breathless and leave her alone and confused. With a sigh, she turned and made her way to the front door, digging for her key as she went. One sleepless night pondering Zane and this odd day definitely wouldn't be enough to figure out the mystery of the man. But, it would be a start ... ~ Cat Johnson

Her mind was as destitute of beauty and mystery as the prairie school-house in which she had been educated; and her ideals seemed to Ralph as pathetic as the ornaments made of corks and cigar-bands with which her infant hands had been taught to adorn it. He was beginning to understand this, and learning to adapt himself to the narrow compass of her experience. ~ Edith Wharton

Now is rather a questionable one. And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Do you realize it's been only a century that we've been able to go from house to car to office to car to wherever, with the heater on, and the defroster on, protected from the rain and the cold? It hasn't been much longer than that we've had lighting for streets. Think of all that darkness, all that world out there, all that mystery that we've turned into well-lighted concrete bunkers, safe and warm and dull. ~ Sheri S. Tepper

Moriston House is really quite beautiful. No wonder everyone wants to be murdered here.
--Roberta "Bobbie" Aldridge ~ Jennifer A. Girardin

Woman is a beam of the divine Light. She is not the being whom sensual desires takes as its object. She is Creator, it should be said. She is not a creature. Great Fatima-ul- Zehra ( Means of Fatima the Radiant, Brightest Star, Star of Venus, The Evening Star), the daughter of the Prophet, is the secret in Sufism. She is the Hujjat of Ali (JJ). In other words, she establishes the esoteric sense of his knowledge and guides those who attain to it.



Through her perfume, we breathe paradise. Though she was his daughter, the Prophet Muhammad (SAWW) called her "Um Abi'ha" (mother of her father). What mystery was the Prophet hinting at by this statement? While Fatima Zahra ( Salam -ullah – alleha ) was Muhammad's (SAWW) daughter. The spiritual Fatima Al-Batool ( the divine virgin) her house is the living Ka'ba. ~ Rumi

And in those moments where the sun is setting and the house is quiet and you are weary from the day, may you know that there is grace for you in that space, and no amount of heaviness or loneliness can take that away. And because of that grace, you are free to slow down. You are free to breathe and rest, no matter the things not sorted out. There might be some mystery here and there might be longing, wondering, and waiting. But there will also be boundless peace that goes beyond any understanding, running wild like a river through everything, no matter how heavy these moments feel. So rest easy, when everything is approaching. Tomorrow is surely coming, but in the hours in between, you are free to rest till then. ~ Morgan Harper Nichols

I struggled to sit up, feeling stiff, but rested. "Where?" "Ted's house." I sat up straighter. Ted's house? Edward's house. I was finally going to get to see where Edward lived. I was going to snoop and strip some of his mystery away. If I didn't get killed, finding out Edward's secrets would make the entire trip worthwhile. If I did get killed, I'd come back and haunt Edward, see if I could make him see ghosts after all. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

Alarmed and bordering on terrified, Frankie reached for the closest thing she could find that might work as a weapon – which in Louise's house was a curling iron – and tiptoed downstairs to confront the intruder - Chapter One ~ Kerri Thomson

I had a feeling that Harvey wore his shotgun around the house like a pair of holey underwear. ~ Ann Charles

He guessed the NKVD didn't even know that Waffen-SS men could be identified by the blood-group tattoos on the underside of their left arms, usually near the armpit. Richter didn't have one. He'd been classed as a non-combatant, as he'd said, at least for a portion of the war. He decided it could be weeks before they found out who he was.
But Volsky's confidence appeared to have been restored too, now. He said, 'And the vat of incense?'
'I had the incense brought from the remnants of a Christmas smoker factory. Silly little hollow figurines invented by toymakers in the Ore Mountains. Cone incense burns down inside the figurines and the smoke emerges from the open mouths. There was a glut of them,' Richter said, truthfully. 'Berliners were shocked and saddened after Stalingrad. But they lost the will to celebrate after the Battle of Kursk. They knew the Red Army was coming. The puerile little incense smokers were redundant, together with the incense they were to hold. Except it didn't go to waste. The vat was taken from a merchant's house. It's from Hong Kong, I think.'
Volsky leaned back in his chair. He said, 'Why go to all the trouble?'
That's a good question, Richter thought.
He stifled a smile. 'To mask the smell. ~ Gary Haynes

This is m-me." I indicated the lonely track.

"Really? What's up there?" He peered over my shoulder in genuine curiosity. "Is there a house up there? You're not a sylph or something that really does live wild, are you? ~ J.A. Ironside

Later that day I went back to the old turf-house door and drew back the ivy. There between the stones was the dried-out bird's nest that was no longer in use because its owner was on her foreign holidays. I eased my letter to Santa out of my pocket and tucked it into the nest. I considered this the ideal resting place because the owner and Santa both belonged to foreign places and came here across the sky. There was the mystery of the unknown about the worlds they both came from; they belonged in the sky and my letter was destined to join them there when the time was right. ~ Alice Taylor

Simon opened the door and was not surprised to find Jace standing outside of it.
"Here," Simon said, handing him the letter.
"Took you long enough," Jace said.
"Now we're even," said Simon. "Go party in the Herondale house with your weird family."
"I plan to," said Jace, and smiled a sudden, strangely endearing smile. He had a chipped tooth. The smile made him seem like he was Simon's age, and maybe they were friends after all. "Good night, Wiggles."
"Wiggles?"
"Yes, Wiggles. Your nickname? It's what you always made us call you. I almost forgot your name was Simon, I'm so used to calling you Wiggles."
"Wiggles? What does that . . . even mean?"
"You would never explain," Jace said with a shrug. "It was the big mystery about you. As I said, good night, Wiggles. I'll take care of this."
He held up the letter and used it to make a salute.
Simon shut the door. He knew most people on the hall had probably done everything they could to make sure they heard that exchange. He knew that in the morning he would be called Wiggles and there was nothing he would ever be able to do about it.
But it was a small price to pay to get a letter to Isabelle. ~ Cassandra Clare

Religion was at it's best when it emphasized spiritual experiences rather than received dogma. "The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith, rather than living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it," he told me. "I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don't. It's a great mystery. ~ Walter Isaacson

I am absolutely enraptured by the atmosphere of a wreck. A dead ship is the house of a tremendous amount of life-fish and plants. The mixture of life and death is mysterious, even religious. There is the same sense of peace and mood that you feel on entering a cathedral. ~ Jacques-Yves Cousteau

I always tell my writing students that every good piece of writing begins with both a mystery and a love story. And that every single sentence must be a poem. And that economy is the key to all good writing. And that every character has to have a secret. ~ Silas House

I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect. ~ George R R Martin

The northern star changes its position every ten thousand years, but friendships can last for all eternity.
- RJPeters ~ R.J. Peters

I've been a little cranky since that house fell on my sister. ~ Lois Greiman

Scattered among these things are reminders that sound once existed: a metronome, a drumming pad, a guitar pick, a trumpet mouthpiece, a music stand, a tuning fork, a block of rosin ... The older instruments bear the marks of those who have already played them, the scuffs and bites and dents that are the mysterious scars of sound. In their midst the house hangs, tenuous and enveloping, a sounding board waiting to be struck. ~ Geoffrey O'Brien