Ghost Face Quotes & Sayings

This is freedom. This is the face of faith, nobody gets
what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing
is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by
each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself.
Also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something
at sea. Here hands full of sand, letting it
sift through
in the wind, I look in and say take this, hurry. And if I listen
now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only
something I did. I could not chose words. I am free to go.
I cannot, of course, come back. Not to this. Never.
It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never. — Jorie Graham

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, here goes - I mean Amen,' said Ransom, and hurled the stone as hard as he could into the Un-man's face. — C.S. Lewis

I should go," I said thickly. "Let me know when you want to start practice again. And thanks for ... talking."
I started to turn; then I heard him say abruptly, "No."
I glanced back. "What?"
He held my gaze, and something warm and wonderful and powerful shot between us.
"No," he repeated. "I told her no."
"I ... " I shut my mouth before my jaw hit the floor. "But ... why? That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You could have had a baby. And she ... she was, you know, into you ... "
The ghost of a smile flickered on his face. "Yes, she was. Is. And that's why I had to say no. I couldn't return that ... couldn't give her what she wanted. Not when ... " He took a few steps toward me. "Not when my heart is somewhere else. — Richelle Mead

I was thinking that being a demon and a ghost must be very difficult, even for Charles; if he ever forgot, or let his disguise drop for a minute, he would be recognized at once and driven away; he must be extremely careful to use the same voice every time, and present the same face and the same manner without a slip; he must be constantly on guard against betraying himself. I wondered if he would turn back to his true self when he was dead. — Shirley Jackson

Okay. When he comes, you can see him?"
"Yes. I can hear him, too. And he, uh ... "
She brushed the bandage on the side of her skull. I looked at her in bewilderment. Was she serious?
"He hits you?"
"Yes."
"With his fist?"
"Yes."
John looked up from his coffee indignantly. "Man, what a dick!"
I did roll my eyes this time and glared at John once they stopped. I don't know if you've ever seen a ghost, but I'm guessing that if you did, the thing didn't run over and punch you in the face. I'm guessing that's never happened to any of your friends, either. — David Wong

When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it is your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.
If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget, part of who I am will be gone. — Frederick Buechner

I was normal, I reminded myself. Just a regular seventeen-year-old girl, about to face against a werewolf with nothing more than ... Okay, well, I did have a big-ass sword and a ghost. That had to count for something.
I glanced over at Elodie. She was staring into the woods, looking vaguely bored.
"Um, hi," I said. "Werewolf headed this way. Are you even a little concerned about that?"
She smirked at me and gestured toward her glowing body. I read her lips: "Already dead."
"Right. But if I get killed, too, you and I are so not becoming ghost BFFs."
Elodie gave me a look that said there was no danger of that happening. — Rachel Hawkins

Occasionally a car swooshed by in the rain and its headlights would swing round momentarily and illuminate the room-the pool table, snowshoes on the wall and the rowing machine, the armchair in which Henry sat, motionless, a glass in his hand and the cigarette burning low between his fingers. For a moment his face, pale and watchful as a ghost's, would be caught in the headlights and then, very gradually, it would slide back into the dark. — Donna Tartt

Sometimes you're just too close to something to see it clearly. To see it for what it really is. It's like you've got your face pressed to it, and all you can see is the small points. The things you want to see. — Scott Snyder

When I entered the kitchen, the lid of the cookie jar flew off and a cookie flung itself at me. Luckily I caught the cookie in my hand and seconds later discovered that ghost-propelled chocolate chip cookies were still delicious. I wondered if we could find a way to implement and market ghost-propelled cookie jars. The convenience factor was off the charts. Want a cookie? "Ghost, cookie me!" A cookie would fly towards you, dripping with malice, and you could pluck it from the air to feed your face. — Dennis Liggio

The camera's greedy lens sucks my image through it and splashes my pixilated ghost across his face in pale blue light. — Tyler Knight

The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face — Bob Dylan

My name is Zak Bagans. I've never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw onto video ... With no big camera crews following us around, I am joined only by my fellow investigator Nick Groff and our equipment tech Aaron Goodwin. The three of us will travel to the some of most highly active paranormal locations, where we will spend an entire night, being locked down from dusk until dawn ... Raw ... Extreme ... These are our Ghost Adventures. — Zak Bagans

When I was younger, I actually had a ghost face mask, and I stood in my sister's room in the corner for, like, half an hour until she saw in the reflection, me behind her, and she freaked out and started slapping me. — Rory Culkin

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

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

He looked at the dirty hands and elongated face and it occurred to him that this was probably the closest he would ever come to meeting a ghost. — Arnaldur Indridason

I want to be oblivious to the hurt written on her face. I want to be selfish and young and normal. M would be that way. She would need space to grieve. She would rebel because her parents were simply uncool, not because one was wearing a horrifying happy mask and the other was a living ghost. She'd be distant because she was preoccupied with boys or school, not because she's tired from hunting down the Histories of the dead, or distracted by her new hotel-turned-apartment, where the walls are filled with crimes. — Victoria Schwab

I think that 'Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance' was mentally taxing, if only because I had to go to a Christmas party shortly after I had wrapped photography in Romania at two in the morning as the Ghost Rider. The invitation had a Christmas ornament on it with Ghost Rider's face on it as a tree. — Nicolas Cage

Holly steps back. Being warned about a ghost and seeing him are not the same. 'What did they do to you?'
Some of the Anchorites laugh. Hugo looks back at his long-ago lover. 'They'-he looks about the Chapel-'cured me. They cured me of a terrible wasting disease called mortality. There's a lot of it about. The young hold out for a time, but eventually even the hardiest patient gets reduced to a desiccated embryo, a Strudlebug ... a veined, scrawny, dribbling ... bone clock, whose face betrays how very, very little time they have left. — David Mitchell

A ghost sighting is usually nothing more than your brain trying to put a familiar face on something that does not have a face at all. — David Wong

A bat flies straight towards my face. it gives me a perfect view of of possibly one of the ugliest creatures alive. It has long ears and what looks like a piece of salad on the end of its nose. I'm being attacked by Master Yoda with wings! — J.E. Fison

You are a rebellion, a useless retaliation against a ghost. And when the novelty of his vulgar bride wears thin, the earl will come to despise you as I do. But by then it will be too late. The lineage will be ruined."
Lillian remained expressionless, though she felt the color drain from her face. No one, she realized, had ever looked at her with real hatred until now. It was clear that the countess wished every ill upon her short of death- perhaps not even barring that. Rather than shrink, cry, or protest, however, Lillian found herself launching a counterattack. "Maybe he wants to marry me as a retaliation against you, my lady. In which case I am delighted to serve as the means of reprisal. — Lisa Kleypas

Love at first sight is not complicated. In our dreams we build a woman, we give her life from our own life, and then we have to wait. Through trial and error we try to find that nameless ghost that's haunting our most lonely of nights. And I felt as if I had found what I was looking for. Finally, my ghost had a name and a face. — Cristian Mihai

If the Latter-day Saints will walk up to their privileges, and exercise faith in the name of Jesus Christ, and live in the enjoyment of the fullness of the Holy Ghost constantly day by day, there is nothing on the face of the earth that they could ask for, that would not be given to them. The Lord is waiting to be very gracious unto this people, and to pour out upon them riches, honor, glory, and power, even that they may possess all things according to the promises He has made through His apostles and prophets. — Brigham Young

Under a smoky streetlamp I stood face to face with my beloved and pricked my fingers against the diamond studs of her immaculate shirt front. Being tall, she slipped her hands naturally about my hips and pulled me close. And being bold, I put my mouth on hers and this time went inside and told her all the things I'd been longing to. Dark and sweet, the elixir of love is in her mouth. The more I drink, the more I remember all the things we've never done. I was a ghost until I touched you. Never swallowed mortal food until I tasted you, never understood the spoken word until I found your tongue. I've been a sleep-walker, sad somnambula, hands outstretched to strike the solid thing that could awaken me to life at last. I have only ever stood here under this lamp, against your body, I've missed you all my life. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost ... — Gaston Leroux

None of us want to see portents and omens, no matter how much we like our ghost stories and the spooky films. None of us want to really see a Star in the East or a pillar of fire by night. We want peace and rationality and routine. If we have to see God in the black face of an old woman, it's bound to remind us that there's a devil for every god - and our devil may be closer than we like to think. — Stephen King

She rolled her eyes. "If it pleases Your Magnanimous Holiness, I shall call you by your first name." " 'Magnanimous Holiness'? Oh, I like that one." A ghost of a smile appeared on her face, and Dorian looked down at the book. — Sarah J. Maas

There is a sweet anguish springing up in our bosoms when a child's face brightens under the shadow of the waiting angel. There is an autumnal fitness when age gives up the ghost; and when the saint dies there is a tearful victory. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

While she was saying this, I was thinking, We just finished the freakin' Egypt project, now we have to start a whole new thing? And then in my head I was going, Oh noooooo! like that kid in Home Alone with his mouth hanging open and his hands on his face. That was the face I was making on the inside. And then I thought of those pictures of melting ghost faces I've seen somewhere, where the mouths are open wide and they're screaming. — R.J. Palacio

When Laurent turned to face him, his
eyes were dark. His lips were parted
uncertainly. He had lifted his hand to his
own shoulder, as though chasing a ghost
touch there. He did not look exactly
relaxed, but the movement did look a
little easier. — C.S. Pacat

Rose," she said, leaning toward me. "I'm going to be blunt with you. I'm not going to give you lectures or demand any explanations. Honestly, since you aren't my student anymore, I don't have the right to ask or tell you anything." It was like what Adrian had said. "You can lecture," I told her. "I've always respected you and want to hear what you have to say." The ghost of a smile flashed on her face. "All right, here it is. You screwed up." "Wow. You weren't kidding about bluntness. — Richelle Mead

And then there is emotional death born out of necessity and measured solely by the absence of grief it causes: the turning off the lights of oneself in order to shut down the feelings of being alive. Eventually I just checked out of the world altogether, leaving behind only my body, like a snail abandoning its shell. Sometimes I would catch myself in the mirror, surprised to see someone staring back at me, a stranger whose face I struggled to connect as my own, whose body was visible and intact despite the feeling that I moved through the world as a ghost. — Kerry Kletter

Sleep, honey. We can play later." And if she hadn't seen it with her own tired eyes, she never would've believed it. Like the snuffing of a candle, he was asleep in seconds. Burning red hot one moment, a ghost of dissipating smoke the next.

Hope inventoried his unguarded face, softer and so much younger in sleep, his enviably long lashes hiding the ever present jadedness. Fatigue pulled at her and she fought it, forcing her eyes open when they drifted shut.

"I'm not gonna fall in love with you, Beck. I'm gonna leave you in August."

She whispered the vow to a man in deep sleep. To a room cast in shadow. To a house steeped in tradition. To a woman mired in denial.

Sleep took her quickly, quicker than she wanted, and with it came the mocking sound of her surely spoken promise, echoing in her dreams like a school yard taunt. — Jodi Watters

As a librarian, saving lives and worlds isn't in my purview, although if I could put those on my resume with a straight face, I would. Saving minds, however ... perhaps it's not as farfetched. A mind can be lost without its owner's death. A mind that no longer questions only fulfills the rudimentary aspects of its function. A mind without wonder is a mere engine, a walking parasympathetic nervous system, seeing without observing, reacting without thinking, a forgotten ghost in a passive machine. — Josh Hanagarne

Will paused for a moment and then grinned, that rare grin of his that lit up his face and changed the whole nature of it. It was a smile Tessa had worried once was gone forever, gone with Jem down into the darkness of the Silent City. Jem was not dead, but some bit of Will had gone with him when he'd left, some bit chiseled out of Will's heart and buried down there among the whispering bones. And Tessa had worried, for that first week just after, that Will would not recover, that he would always be a sort of ghost, wandering about the Institute, not eating, always turning to speak to someone who was not there, the light in his face dying as he remembered and fell silent. — Cassandra Clare

His smile is a stranger resting on a haunted face, only coming out for poisons turning him into a ghost. — Craig Stone

And not there, not there, not there,
Your laughing face and your wind-blown hair
Leave not even a ghost in the garden. — Winifred Holtby

He took a ragged, impossible breath. "That would be a beautiful lie to believe," he said, and, incredibly, the ghost of a smile, bitter and sweet, passed over his face. "The fire of Glorious burned away the demon's blood. All my life it has scorched my veins and cut at my heart like blades, and weighed me down like lead- all my life, and I never knew it. I never knew the difference. I've never felt so ... light," he said softly, and then he smiled, and closed his eyes, and died. — Cassandra Clare

What happened to you?" she asked.
"Ben was feeling artistic. Wanted to rearrange my face. — Stacey Kade

Meg reached out to Erik before he could turn away. "Are you...?" He didn't let her finish. Instead he reached inside the carriage and placed his hand tenderly behind her neck drawing her to his face. He placed hi lips softly, yet passionately on her. Hardly had he withdrawn from hers then he whispered, "Forgive me, Meg. Forgive me for wanting...?" "Ssshhh. You're here. I'm here." She raised her handkerchief and wiped the lone tear that had escaped his mask. — Sadie Montgomery

The voice came again. "Stop. Set down Death's knife. I've seen your heart and that you withhold nothing for yourself. You know my face. You recognize my love for you, as you know your own for the ghost boy. You know what you would do for him, and so you understand now that, for you, my beloved, I would fix the whole world. — Emily Henry

I and everyone else in this world live in what is probably the most difficult times that have ever been. We are facing total thermonuclear destruction; and, if you can make someone believe in a ghost or a demon or a vampire in the face of that, you are doing well. From my own personal point of view, I don't think just blood and guts is enough. At least, it isn't for me. Maybe it will turn someone's stomach; but, I'm not sure that is literature or even entertainment. — Stephen King

I do miss you so much, but it gets harder and harder to keep you in my mind. You re like a ghost almost, fading in the light of dawn. Sometimes I close my eyes and try to summon up your face and I cant see you anymore. Then at other times I hear your voice so clearly I turn round expecting to see you standing there, and every time it happens there's the same pang of loss. Cant you send me a sketch of where you are? It would help me a lot if I could picture you somewhere definite, not just have letters dropping in from outer space. Paul — Pat Barker

No wonder that the ghost and goblin stories had a new zest. No wonder that the blood of the more timid grew chill and curdled, that their flesh crept, and their hearts beat irregularly, and the girls peeped fearfully over their shoulders, and huddled close together like frightened sheep, and half-fancied they beheld some impish and malignant face gibbering at them from the darkling corners of the old room. By degrees my high spirits died out, and I felt the childish tremors, long latent, long forgotten, coming over me. I followed each story with painful interest; I did not ask myself if I believed the dismal tales. I listened and fear grew upon me - the blind, irrational fear of our nursery days. ("Horror: A True Tale") — John Berwick Harwood

A ghost doesn't just move normally. They have this freaky way of zipping across the room. You see the ghost, you blink, and then it's suddenly behind you or up in your face and you scream and dig your nails into your boyfriend's knee and the he has marks there for like a week and I hope you're putting out for all that goddamn pain you put him through when you were the one who picked the movie even when you knew it was going to be scary. — Dennis Liggio

Over the years I'd lodged him in the permanent past, my pluperfect lover, put him on ice, stuffed him with memories and mothballs like a hunted ornament confabulating with the ghost of all my evenings. I'd dust him off from time to time and then put him back on the mantelpiece. He no longer belonged to earth or to life. All I was likely to discover at this point wasn't just how distant were the paths we'd taken, it was the measure of loss that was going to strike me
a loss I didn't mind thinking about in abstract terms but which would hurt when stared at in the face, the way nostalgia hurts long after we've stopped thinking of things we lost and may never have cared for. — Andre Aciman

The walls are white as the white suits, polished clean as a refrigerator door, and the black face and hands seem to float against it like a ghost. — Ken Kesey

I wanted a Fakahatchee ghost orchid, in full bloom, maybe attached to a gnarled piece of custard apple tree, and I wanted its roots to spread as broad as my hand and each root to be only as wide as a toothpick. I wanted the bloom to be snow-white, white as sugar, white as lather, white as teeth. I knew its shape by heart, the peaked face with the droopy mustache of petals, the albino toad with its springy legs. It would not be the biggest or the showiest or the rarest or the finest flower here, except to me, because I wanted it. — Susan Orlean

Karrin smiled faintly and shook her head. "He always said you knew ghosts. You're sure it was really him?"
Mort eyed her. "Me and everyone else, yeah."
Karrin scowled and stared into the middle distance.
Mort frowned and then his expression softened. "You didn't want it to be his ghost. Did you?"
Murphy shook her head slowly, but said nothing.
"You needed everyone to be wrong about it. Because if it really was his ghost," Mort said, "it means that he really is dead."
Murphy's face ... just crumpled. Her eyes overflowed and she bowed her head. Her body shook in silence. — Jim Butcher

Click. Everyone briefly gathered and posed and smiling at their future selves. Beaches and cathedrals, bumper cars and birthday parties, glasses raised around a dining table. Each picture a little pause between events. No tantrums, no illness, no bad news, all the big stuff happening before and after and in between. The true magic happening only when the lesser magic fails, the ghost daughter who moved during the exposure, her face unreadable but more alive than all her frozen family. Double exposures, as if a little strip of time had been folded back on itself. Scratches and sun flares. Photos torn postdivorce, faces scratched out or Biroed over. The camera telling the truth only when something slips through its silver fingers. — Mark Haddon

Today's ghost stories tend to be much more physically or psychologically violent. The Victorians were much more leisurely about what might or could happen, building suspense layer by layer rather than punching you in the face. — Otto Penzler

It was a woman
as pale and luminescent as a ghost, with swirling white hair. Ezra startled, dropping his pencil into the water. Her face snapped toward him. Her eyes were too large, clear green, and had horizontal, slit-shaped pupils, reminiscent of an octopus. — Elizabeth Fama

The sun rolls along up Fourteenth Street and the ghost of a habit turns Cat's face into the light. She shields her eyes and looks east, half expecting to see her father, a sun-blown shadow in the diorama box of his newsstand. — Cari Luna

It passed through his mind that if he missed this chance of talking to Katharine, he would have to face an enraged ghost, when he was alone in his room again, demanding an explanation of his cowardly indecision. It was better, on the whole, to risk present discomfiture than to waste an evening bandying excuses and constructing impossible scenes with this uncompromising section of himself. — Virginia Woolf

He's not going to flip out again, is he?" Jessie sounded scared.
"What? No, of course not," Mia said automatically.
"Uh-huh," Jessie said doubtfully.
"He wont," Mia said with confidence, looking directly at Korum. She knew perfectly well that he could hear her.
He stared back at her. His eyes still had those dangerous golden flecks in them, but one corner of his mouth tilted up, a ghost of a smile stealing across his face. Mia continued looking at him, her own eyes narrowed, and the smile became a full-blown grin, transforming his features from merely gorgeous to out-of-this-world sexy. Then he turned away and continued speaking to Edgar, as though nothing had happened.
"Holy shit," Jessie breathed, her eyes huge. "You did it! Mia, you f***ing did it..."
"Did what?"
"You tamed a K. — Anna Zaires

There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, [ ... ]; and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors. — Vladimir Nabokov

Okay, Kate, first of all, you're touching me," Vincent said for the room to hear. "So I'm not a ghost."
"And we're not true zombies," Charles said with a grin, "or he would have already eaten your face off. — Amy Plum

Guthrie handed him the mug, a wee pout pulling his pale face out of shape. With his semi-skimmed skin, faint ginger hair, and blond eyebrows he looked like a ghost that had been at the pies. "Milk, two sugars. — Stuart MacBride

All right," he said. "Ready for the moment of truth?"
Lindsay looked at him quizzically.
Fred held a wooden spoonful of fudge up in front of her, waving it lightly through the air to cool it. "Here. Time to see if I've got it right."
Lindsay looked at him over the spoon, a wonderful complication of emotions in her eyes. Did she want him to win or lose the bet? Fred wasn't sure she knew the answer herself. She turned her face up toward him as he held the spoon to her lips. And then, as she tasted it, she closed her eyes, savoring the chocolate. Her expression was one of blissful surrender.
This was the real Lindsay, her face unguarded, completely in the moment. Very much like a woman lost in a kiss.
He never should have brought the bloody mistletoe. — Sierra Donovan

I've seen a ghost in my bathroom with no face, this is true by the way, and I had a yo-yo that rolled up a hill in my apartment. My place is a little slanted. I have no idea how that happened. — Brett Dier

Ghost?" I asked.
Moon Man pointed to Valek. "Kiki's name for him. It makes sense," he said, seeing the look of confusion on my face. "To magical beings, we see the world through our magic. We see him with our eyes, but cannot see him with our magic. So he is like a ghost to us."
Valek listened to Moon Man. Although expressionless, I could tell by the rigid set to Valek's shoulders that he was prepared to strike.
"Another relative?" Valek asked.
A broad smile stretched Moon Man's lips. "Yes. I am her mother's uncle's wife's third cousin. — Maria V. Snyder

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

I've been writing more songs in my head," he said, "about being a ghost and a shade." His face turned smooth and solemn. "How I'd die all over again just to touch you. — Jeri Smith-Ready

Hapi?" I asked.
"Why, yes, I am happy!" Hapi beamed. "I'm always happy because I'm Hapi! Are you happy?"
Zia frowned up at the giant. "Does he have to be so big?"
The god laughed. Immediately he shrank down to human size, though the crazy cheerful look on his face was still pretty unnerving.
"Oh, Setne!" Hapi chuckled and pushed the ghost playfully. "I hate this guy. Absolutely despise him!"
Hapi's smile became painfully wide. "I'd love to rip off your arms and legs, Setne. That would be amazing!"
Setne ... drifted a little farther away from the smiling god.
"Oh!" Hapi clapped excitedly. "The world is going to end tomorrow. I forgot!"
"You'd never get to Memphis without my help. You'd get torn into a million pieces!"
He seemed genuinely pleased to share that news. — Rick Riordan

Your fortune teller cursed me. Foul spirits haunt every supermarket I go to. I can't show my face in Morrisons. — Steven Poore

A stone, a leaf, an unfound door; a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces.
Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.
Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?
O waste of lost, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this weary, unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. — Thomas Wolfe

And there has been no attempt to investigate it,' I said, 'to see what it really is?'

'Eh, Cornel,' said the coachman's wife, 'wha would investigate, as ye call it, a thing that nobody believes in? Ye would be the laughing-stock of a' the country-side, as my man says.'

'But you believe in it,' I said, turning upon her hastily. The woman was taken by surprise. She made a step backward out of my way.

'Lord, Cornel, how ye frichten a body! Me! there's awful strange things in this world. An unlearned person doesna ken what to think. But the minister and the gentry they just laugh in your face. Inquire into the thing that is not! Na, na, we just let it be.' ("The Open Door") — Mrs. Oliphant

There was a sadness just beneath the surface of his pleasant expression. It drifted across his face like a ghost moving through the vacant rooms of an empty house. — M. Leighton

And then it hits me like a fast, open-palmed, stinging smack in the face.
Having a ghost boyfriend
WAS
weird — Lisa Schroeder

Red Rover, Red Rover, send Ardor right over," Eliza said. They laughed. The asteroid was a little bigger now, brighter, and still they went on laughing. Laughing in the face of what they couldn't predict or change or control. Would it be fire and brimstone? Would it be Armageddon? Or would it be a second chance? Eliza held tight to her friends, laughing, and a pair of hands land soft as feathers on her shoulders, like the hands of a ghost, laughing and laughing as Ardor swept along its fated course, laughing and through that laughter, praying. Praying for forgiveness. Praying for grace. Praying for mercy.
















0 — Tommy Wallach

Don't you listen to them, Rexy," I cooed, and the cat sniffed my nose. "Rachel is a smart girl. She's not going to go out with a ghost no matter how sexy he is. She knows better. Jenkskie wenskie can just get bent." I beamed at Jenks, and he made an ugly face. "Rache, put my cat down before you mess with her kitty brain. — Kim Harrison

He looked down into Lindsay's face, and her eyes were bright once more, her cheeks flushed....
"I thought you were after the fudge." Lindsay didn't move one centimeter toward the kitchen, didn't stir from his arms.
"I found something sweeter. — Sierra Donovan

Our field is the sky,
tilled by the sweat of motors,
in the face of night,
at the risk of our dreams
... . ... ... ... ...
Who lived there? Whose hands were pure?
Who glowed in the night,
A ghost to other ghosts?
Who lives down below? Who cries ... .
Who has lost the key to their house?
Who can't find their bed, who is sleeping
on the steps of the stairs? When morning comes, who will
dare interpret the silvery trace: look above me ... When the
water pushes the watermill wheel once again,
who will dare remember the night? — Ingeborg Bachmann

Black Cat
A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:
just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.
She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once
as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I think ghostliness is a good quality. I pretend I'm dead all the time."
"What?" He stopped rummaging through his locker to look at me full in the face a last.
"It helps me go to sleep," I said.
"That shows you don't know anything about death," Jonah said.
"Do you?" I asked.
He hesitated before saying "I'm a g-g-g-ghost, aren't I?"
"I think being dead might be nice. Restful."
"Death is not restful. It's nothing."
"That's what seems restful to me," I said. "The nothing. Not being here. Not being anywhere. — Natalie Standiford

What is a look of absolute fear? Popescu asked. The doctor belched a few times, shifted in his chair, and answered that it was a kind of look of mercy, but empty, as if all that were left of mercy, after a mysterious voyage, was the skin, as if mercy were a skin of water, say, in the hands of a Tatar horseman who gallops away over the steppe and dwindles untile he vanishes, and then the horseman returns, or the ghost of the horseman returns, or his shadow, or the idea of him, and he has the skin, empty of water now, because he drank it all during his trip, or he and his horse drank it, and the skin is empty now, it's a normal skin, an empty skin, because after all the abnormal thing is a skin swollen with water, but this skin swollen with water, this hideous skin swollen with water doesn't arouse fear, doesn't awaken it, much less isolate it, but the empty skin does, and that was what he saw in the mathematician's face, absolute fear. — Roberto Bolano

Nat's face softens, her lips tilt at the corner and she speaks full of awe, "Wow."
Still chuckling, I ask, "What?"
She shifts from one foot to the other, looks to the ground and says softly, "That's the first time I've heard you laugh." She nervously plays with a ring on her finger. "That's one of the nicest sounds I've ever heard, Ghost. You should do it more often. — Belle Aurora

So what I realized when I was a child was that if I were traveling as fast as light while holding a mirror before me, I would not see my image in the mirror, because as fast as the image of my face in light moved toward the mirror, why, just as fast would the mirror be moving away ... It is a rather frightening idea, in fact, that if I moved at the speed of light, I could get no confirmation of my existence from an objective source of reflected light such as a mirror. I would be like a ghost in the universe, materially unverifiable in the stream of time. — E.L. Doctorow

Some irony. The girl who couldn't face her own bullshit . . . suddenly forcing everyone else to. — Rick Remender

You may find this hard to believe, Mr. Pinter," she went on defensively, "but some men enjoy my company. They consider me easy to talk to."
A ghost of a smile touched his handsome face. "You're right. I do find that hard to believe."
Arrogant wretch.
-Jackson and Celia — Sabrina Jeffries

I stared into his handsome face and let those feelings overwhelm me and in that fleeting time I felt the ghost of our emotional connection. It was just a mere whisper, like a scent on the breeze that blows past you too quickly, bringing with it a memory of something you can't quite grasp. I wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, a flicker of something real, or something I fabricated, but it captured all of my attention. — Colleen Houck

Rose," Alberta said, leaning toward me. "I'm going to be blunt with you. I'm not going to give you lectures or demand any explanations. Honestly, since you aren't my student anymore, I don't have the right to ask or tell you anything."
"You can lecture," I told her. "I've always respected you and want to hear what you have to say."
The ghost of a smile flashed on her face. "All right, here it is. You screwed up."
"Wow. You weren't kidding about bluntness."
"The reasons don't matter. You shouldn't have left. You shouldn't have dropped out. Your education and training are too valuable - no matter how much you think you know - and you are too talented to risk throwing away your future."
I almost laughed. "To tell you the truth? I'm not sure what my future is anymore."
"Which is why you need to graduate."
"But I dropped out."
She snorted. "Then drop back in!"
"I - what? How?"
"With paperwork. Just like everything else in the world. — Richelle Mead

I noticed that in a corner, across from where they ate with such innocent relish, sitting forlorn and abandoned, was the ghost of their son. He had lost both of his arms, one side of his face was squashed, and both his eyes had burst. He had bluish wings. He was the saddest ghost in the house. — Ben Okri

He respected the slight nervous shadow that crossed her face when he came too near her. But there arose out of this denial itself the perfume of a tenderness, that ghost of passion which, in the most unexpected relationship, can make even a whole lifetime devoted to irksome duty pass like a gracious dream. — Thornton Wilder

Holding her gaze, he sheathed his short sword and pulled the gauntlet off his left hand with his teeth. He held out his bare hand to her.
She glanced at the proffered hand before laying her palm in his. Hot strength gripped her tightly as he pulled her upright before him, so close she would've had to move only inches to brush her lips across his throat. She watched the pulse of his blood beat there, strong and sure, before she lifted her gaze. His head was cocked almost as if he were examining her - searching for something in her face.
She drew in a breath, parting her lips to ask a question. — Elizabeth Hoyt

We call them survivors, but once the vampires get you, the person you were dies, like any traumatized part of you never leaves that room, that car, that moment, and you walk forward a ghost of your former self. You rebuild yourself over the years, but the person you were isn't the person you become. The great bad thing happens, and you become a ghost in your own life, and then you become flesh and blood and remake your life, but the ghosts of what happened don't go away completely. They wait for you in low moments, and then they wail at you, shaking their chains in your face and trying to strangle you with them. — Laurell K. Hamilton

He was an Afghan Hound name Kabul. Since him I have had other Afghan Hounds ... Perhaps I am looking for his ghost. He is the only one that I sometimes think about. Often, if he comes in to my mind when I am working, it alters what I do. The nose on the face I am drawing gets longer and sharper. The hair of the woman I am sketching gets longer and fluffy, resting against her cheeks like his ears rested against his head. — Pablo Picasso

I saw your face, honey. You were more than a little flustered. You looked as if you'd gone ten rounds with the ghost of Christmas past. — Michelle Celmer

And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face. — J.K. Rowling

He spared a glance at her distressed face and knew it to be a mistake instantly.

He was momentarily arrested because...man, six feet away she was pretty.

Up close like this? Total gut-shot.

Of course, having just seen all of her unmentionables didn't help matters. Unmentionables?

Whoever came up with that ridiculous term? Underwear that fantastic deserved to be mentioned on a regular basis.

Shit, he wasn't going to think about her underwear. which, of course, only made him wonder what color she had on under those tight, distressed jeans and that thin T-shirt. Pink? Her outfit was pink. Women often matched their underwear to their outfits. At least that's been his experience. So...probably pink.

Holy shit! He was not going to think about her underwear! — Julie Ann Walker

The pain between them made me as envious as their laughter, because it was real and expressible, blood-red with passion, and not the invisible pain of a ghost like me. Sometimes my head filled with a scream that went on for hours but was silenced by the walls of the closet. My face still wearing its social smile fixed in place as if by a stroke. — Paul Monette

Annabel was, like the writer, of mixed parentage: half-English, half-Dutch, in her case. I remember her features far less distinctly today than I did a few years ago, before I knew Lolita. There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as: "honey-colored skin," "thin arms," "brown bobbed hair," "long lashes," "big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita). — Vladimir Nabokov

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

We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone (We) have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

Miss Millick wondered just what had happened to Mr. Wran. He kept making the strangest remarks when she took dictation. Just this morning he had quickly turned around and asked, "Have you ever seen a ghost, Miss Millick?" And she had tittered nervously and replied, "When I was a girl there was a thing in white that used to come out of the closet in the attic bedroom when you slept there, and moan. Of course it was just my imagination. I was frightened of lots of things." And he had said, "I don't mean that traditional kind of ghost. I mean a ghost from the world today, with the soot of the factories in its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul. The kind that would haunt coal yards and slip around at night through deserted office buildings like this one. A real ghost. Not something out of books." And she hadn't known what to say. ("Smoke Ghost") — Fritz Leiber

There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure, I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny. Each of those things are just a small part of it. I collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience. — Mamoru Oshii

He saw that for the rest of his days, frail, racked, but enduring, he would live in the face of a purifying terror. A feeble cry, a last impossible protest escaped him. But the Holy Ghost, emblazoned in ice instead of fire, continued, implacable, to descend. — Flannery O'Connor

You really miss him don't you?"
The Ranger nodded. "More than I realized," he said. Alyss urged her horse close beside his and learned over to kiss him on the cheek.
That's for Will when you see him." A ghost of a smile touched Halt's face.
You'll understand if I don't pass it on in person?" he said. Alyss smiled and leaned over and kissed him again.
And that's for you, you jaded, bad-tempered old Ranger."
A little surprised by her own impulsivness, she urged her horse ahead of him. Halt touched his cheek and looked at the slim blonde figure.
If I were twenty years younger ... he began.
The he sighed and had to be honest with himself. Make that thirty years, he thought. — John Flanagan