Shakespeare Ghost Quotes & Sayings

Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. — William Shakespeare

I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please. — Erin Morgenstern

That affable familiar ghost Which nightly gulls him with intelligence. — William Shakespeare

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me. — William Shakespeare

If I were brave enough to say so, I'd like to think that I had written some poems that people are not going to forget. — Peter Davison

I decided early on that I wanted to participate in the greater American experience, rather than the parochial one in Mississippi. But I have an urge as a writer to meld the Southern experience into the larger American one. — Richard Ford

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment ... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it. — Alfred North Whitehead

I don't think somebody can just, like, wave a magic wand and make you a star. — Sandra Bernhard

In Shakespeare's world, characters cannot trust their senses. Is the ghost in Hamlet true and truthful, or is it a demon, tempting young Hamlet into murderous sin? Is Juliet dead or merely sleeping? Does Lear really stand at the edge of a great cliff? Or has the Fool deceived him to save his life? — Virginia Postrel

Imagine the same scene in HAMLET if Pullman had written it. Hamlet, using a mystic pearl, places the poison in the cup to kill Claudius. We are all told Claudius will die by drinking the cup. Then Claudius dies choking on a chicken bone at lunch. Then the Queen dies when Horatio shows her the magical Mirror of Death. This mirror appears in no previous scene, nor is it explained why it exists. Then Ophelia summons up the Ghost from Act One and kills it, while she makes a speech denouncing the evils of religion. Ophelia and Hamlet are parted, as it is revealed in the last act that a curse will befall them if they do not part ways. — John C. Wright

For the Soul of France is masterful history, brilliantly researched, and hard to put down. — Henry A. Kissinger

Of what is lost, irretrievably lost, all I wish to recover is the daily availability of my writing, lines capable of grasping me by the hair and lifting me up when I'm at the end of my strength. (Significant, said the foreigner.) Odes to the human and the divine. Let my writing be like the verses of by Leopardi that Daniel Biga recited on a Nordic bridge to gird himself with courage. — Roberto Bolano

He [Hamlet] sees ghosts and listens to dreams. And when his ghost father tells him that he (Hamlet Senior) was killed by his brother and asks Hamlet Junior to avenge his death, in the right, honorable way, Hamlet says yes, yes, yes, he'll do it.
But somehow he never gets round to it. Not like the other two young men in the play. The Norwegian Prince Fortinbras(...) has made his life [!!] pursuing the honor that his father lost when Hamlet Senior beat him in single combat. (...). When the lord chamberlain,Polonius, is killed, his son, Laertes, returns to the court immediately, demanding restitution, (...).
So there is no shortage of examples of how young men are expected to and do act in this world where honor demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. But Hamlet doesn't do it. Instead, he beats up on his girlfriend and he's cruel to his mother. — Tina Packer

Funerals consist of older generations initiating the younger into another adulthood. Filling spaces of the one passed. — Darnell Lamont Walker

It should also be remembered that the Ghost sees things differently from every other character in the play. He has the eyes of eternity. He sees things as they are and not merely as they seem from the perspective of those trapped in the tunneled vision of time. — William Shakespeare

Ghost: Murder most foul, as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange and unnatural. — William Shakespeare

I have always thought of our Service as an institution, more than any other bureau, engaged in a field essentially of morality
the aim of man to rise above himself, and to choose the option of quality rather than material superfluity. — Freeman Tilden

The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they didn't use them for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies and the women, if they were going to achieve any sort of comfort and safety, needed all the friends they could get. So, in the interest of survival they trained themselves to be agreeing machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking and then they thought it too. — Kurt Vonnegut

O all you host of heaven!O Earth! waht else?
And shall i couple hell? O Fie! Hold, hold, my heart
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memmory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter; yes, by heaven! — William Shakespeare

IN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION: WHAT SCENES ONE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE FILMED
Shakespeare in the part of the King's Ghost.
The beheading of Louis the Sixteenth, the drums drowning his speech on the scaffold.
Herman Melville at breakfast, feeling a sardine to his cat.
Poe's wedding.
Lewis Carroll's picnics.
The Russians leaving Alaska, delighted with the deal.
Shot of a seal applauding. — Vladimir Nabokov

Pound notes. Her previous pay packets had been so small she never received paper, only coins. Which she liked. Coins had heft and history. Their value was irrefutable. She liked the way they jingled in her purse. That was the song of solvency. The cheerful assurance that there would be food and comfort through the day. It was better than any hymn. — Sarah Jane Stratford

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. — Alexander Pope

Somewhere in the crowd was at least one potential friend who'd understand the fundamental value of goofing off.
Because if not, how boring would that be? — Alyson Noel

Now a Protestant confronting a Catholic ghost is exactly Shakespeare's way of grappling with what was not simply a general social problem but one lived out in his own life. — Stephen Greenblatt

You stupid fool, you know very well it's not a short novel, but something longer ... A piece of work you've got to buckle down to, that needs peace and concentration. Being able to wake up in the morning and lie in bed for a while. — Ivan Mandy