Short Ghost Quotes & Sayings

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recongize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight - perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman. — Kate Chopin

Look here, Mrs. Bradley," he said. "I feel a pretty frightful bounder telling you all this about the poor girl, but I think some woman ought to know about it. On Wednesday night, yes, last night, Eleanor came into my bedroom at about half-past twelve and--and wanted to stay there! I thought it was a ghost at first. I had terrible difficulty in getting rid of her. In fact, I had to get out of bed and shove her outside and lock the door. Choice, isn't it?"
...
"Of course you will lock your door tonight," she said.
"You bet I shall," Bertie said fervently, "and nothing short of the house catching fire is going to persuade me to open it. — Gladys Mitchell

Life is magical, there are always mysteries you won't understand, like the one that happened today. I guess that's what makes it exciting, the fact that you never know what to expect on this journey. No matter how dim the lights of life look, it can always get brighter. That's why I'm going to keep on going. Who knows? Maybe my life will magically turn back to the way it used to be. Or maybe it'll turn out even better. But I can't find any of that out unless I am strong. Strong I will be, looking on the bright side whenever possible, sailing my ship through the waters, no matter how stormy they will be. I will be brave. Always. — Chloe Gadsby-Jones

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

She frowned."You're not very friendly."
I let out a short laugh."What?I'm not friendly to a ghost who floats into my house and starts touching me?Well,excuse my rudeness but this is a little disturbing. — Abbi Glines

Our souls, that is our selves, are like a jumbled heap of pins: interests, thoughts, emotions, volitions, and feelings -- our life at work, our life of play, our domestic and social life, our life in the limelight, and our life alone -- all a heap of pins pointing in all directions and getting in one another's way. But the slow approach of a magnet sorts the jumble out in a remarkable way, confusion becomes a pattern, each pin points in the same direction, and all is achieved by the focus of magnetic power. It is superfluous to add that the only magnet which can sort out all the intricacies of the human soul is God. In short the state of perfect recollection is that most characteristic expression of the work of the Holy Ghost; the creation of order out of chaos. — Martin Thornton

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

I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen
and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other ... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies. — Emil Cioran

After half an hour of forced family fun, in which I score fifty points and take out at least seventy-five percent of my anger trying to blast Frankie with the ball, our game is cut short. Princess gets stung on the top of her foot by a teeny-tiny newborn baby of a jelly-fish and carries on like some shark just swam away with her torso. For one brief moment I wonder if it's the ghost of my journal, reincarnated after its watery death to claim vengeance by stabbing her with its thin metal spiral. The thought makes me smile on the inside, just a little bit. — Sarah Ockler

You might prove doctrine from the Bible till doomsday, and it would merely convince a people, but would not convert them. You might read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, and prove every iota that you advance, and that alone would have no converting influence upon the people. Nothing short of a testimony by the power of the Holy Ghost would bring light and knowledge to them
bring them in their hearts to repentance. Nothing short of that would ever do. — Brigham Young

There have been those who have actually said they envy me, though mostly strangers, and I doubt you'd be that short-sighted or self-absorbed. This is way more freedom than anyone should ever desire, and carries way more baggage than "freedom" can ever sustain. This is more like "desperate flight," and another name I have for myself is "The Ghost Rider." I'm a ghost, I carry a few ghosts with me, and I'm riding through a world that isn't quite real. But I'm okay as long as I keep moving . . . — Neil Peart

Let us urge on every one who exhibits new interest in religion to be content with nothing short of the deep, solid, sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost. — J.C. Ryle

I Won't Fly Today

Too much to do, despite the snow,

which made all local schools close

their doors. What a winter! Usually,

I love watching the white stuff fall.

But after a month with only short

respites, I keep hoping for a critical

blue sky. Instead, amazing waves

of silvery clouds sweep over the crest

of the Sierra, open their obese

bellies, and release foot upon foot

of crisp new powder. The ski

resorts would be happy, except

the roads are so hard to travel

that people are staying home.

So it kind of boggles the mind

that three guys are laying carpet

in the living room. Just goes to

show the power of money. In less

than an hour, the stain Conner left

on the hardwood will be a ghost. — Ellen Hopkins

There is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been copied over and over again out of Ernulphus a thousand times but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of the original! It is thought to be no bad oath - and by itself passes very well - "God damn you" - Set it beside Ernulphus's - "God Almighty the Father damn you - God the Son damn you - God the Holy Ghost damn you" - you see 'tis nothing. - There is an orientality in his, we cannot rise up to. — Laurence Sterne

I look out on my language, two days later
A short absence is enough
for Aeschylus to open the door to peace
a short speech is enough
for Antonio to incite war
A hand of a woman in my hand
is enough
to embrace my freedom
and for the ebb and flow to begin anew in my body
(I See my Ghost Coming from a Distance) — Mahmoud Darwish

They sat cross-legged on
the floor, short of lotus, lay back
between table and couch. In the
upset zone known as not
yet
there they reconvened, she
unexpected harmony's ghost,
another she recondite solace's
regret. . . They sat on the
floor
sipping herb as we looked
on,
incense an androgyne funk,
flesh crevice, book of anabatic
recess — Nathaniel Mackey

They turned on themselves, like a feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes. Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass. — Ray Bradbury

Apple of My Eye is a twisted collection of short stories by Amy Grech, including the sexy and deadly title story that makes you want to stay home with the door locked and the lights on. Grech's stories are sinister, sneaky, convoluted and dangerous - and absolutely not to be missed!
- Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award-Winning Author of
Ghost Road Blues and Dead Man's Song — Jonathan Maberry

I glanced in the first open door and stopped short. Desks. Four tiny desks. A wall of faded posters of alphabet animals. A blackboard, still showing the ghost of numbers. I blinked, certain I was seeing wrong.
Derek nudged my legs, telling me to get moving. I looked at him, and I looked at the classroom.
This was where Derek had grown up. Four tiny desks. Four little boys. Four young werewolves.
For a second, I could see them - three boys working at the three clustered desks, Derek alone at the fourth, pushed slightly away, hunched over his work, trying to ignore the others.
Derek nudged me again, whining softly, and I looked down to see him eyeing the room, every hair on his neck on end, anxious to get away from this place. — Kelley Armstrong

She had an emptiness in her eyes like a ghost tired of haunting. — Stuart Jaffe

I woke up to an ache in my chest, the smell of chocolate, and the sound of the ghost making a racket in the kitchen. Now, I'm not the sort to dwell on doom and sorrow. Life is too short for that. But I should at least try to describe the ache briefly: It is not the kind that comes from eating tacos too late at night. It's the kind that comes from being left behind. I think my heart is smart enough to know there's a place I should be filling with new memories, new jokes, and wondrous adventures with the one person I loved most of all. But that person is gone now. And so, my heart has a giant hole. I call it The Big Empty. — Natalie Lloyd

What if I never get out, what if I'm always filled with the ghost of that place haunting my dreams? The footsteps of lost feet here and there tripping to run as fast as they can. What if here is always there, where I'll always be? — Renee Thebeau

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

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 have only read very classic traditional English ghost stories, other than Henry James, who wrote some magnificent short ones as well as the longer 'Turn of the Screw.' He, Dickens, and M.R. James are my influences. — Susan Hill

Worse and somehow embarrassing affair are "ghost" dreams, from which the dreamer only remembers fragments, and very short snippets of events, after which the next morning is left only a vague feeling of a messaged received. If the "ghost" is repeated several times, it is certain that it is a dream which is important for some reason. Then the dreamer, through concentration and auto-suggestion tries to force the dream again, this time a more specific "ghost". The best result are to force oneself to dream again immediately after waking up - called "hooking". If the dream does not produce a "hook" they try and produce a vision during one of the following session by concentration and meditation prior to going to sleep. Such pressure programming is called "anchoring". — Andrzej Sapkowski

The image of the "presence," whatever it was, waiting there for him to go
this image had not yet been so concrete for his nerves as when he stopped short of the point at which certainty would have come to him. For, with all his resolution, or more exactly with all his dread, he did stop short
he hung back from really seeing. The risk was too great and his fear too definite: it took at this moment an awful specific form. — Henry James

From my earliest years I had always wanted to be a writer. It was not that I had any particular message for humanity. I am still plugging away and not the ghost of one so far, so it begins to look as though, unless I suddenly hit mid-season form in my eighties, humanity will remain a message short. — P.G. Wodehouse

The ghost-walking, the short-tempered distraction, the hurried fog. (All of this I'm just assuming, because I have no idea how I come across, my consciousness is that underground, like a toad in winter.) — Maria Semple

Long story short, ghosts just coming out of the closet sucked at communication. Probably as bad as a beginner ghost whisperer sucked at getting them to communicate. — C.C. Hunter