62 Ghost Quotes

When it comes to the world beyond, few things capture our imagination quite like ghost stories. Ethereal, mysterious, and often poignant, tales of spirits have fascinated humans for centuries. Whether you're a believer, a skeptic, or simply someone who enjoys the thrill of the unknown, ghost quotes can provide a glimpse into the human experience with the supernatural. In this specially curated collection, we bring you the top 62 ghost quotes that evoke wonder, fear, and introspection. These quotes, drawn from literature, folklore, and popular culture, serve as a window into the myriad ways we come to terms with the ghostly presence in our world. Dive in and let these words haunt your thoughts, offering you a deeper understanding of the life that lingers just beyond our senses.

1. “The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.” - Neil Gaiman

2. “Scarcely has night arrived to undeceive, unfurling her wings of crepe (wings drained even of the glimmer just now dying in the tree-tops); scarcely has the last glint still dancing on the burnished metal heights of the tall towers ceased to fade, like a still glowing coal in a spent brazier, which whitens gradually beneath the ashes, and soon is indistinguishable from the abandoned hearth, than a fearful murmur rises amongst them, their teeth chatter with despair and rage, they hasten and scatter in their dread, finding witches everywhere, and ghosts. It is night... and Hell will gape once more.” - Charles Nodier

3. “Terror made me cruel . . .” - Emily Brontë

4. “Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument, remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends--the end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never die, though they blend and change, and change again for ever.” - H. Rider Haggard

5. “I tell you, my idea of a ghost is something quite different. Dead men rise up never – read even your poets. Ghosts breed in the living.” - Leland Hall

6. “There's a queer streak in human natures. Men come back to places for secret reasons, for feelings they cannot resist.'More than men come back,” I said.” - Leland Hall

7. “I assure you; while I look like a ghost, I'm no spirit or demon. I'm nothing but a girl struggling to make her way in an intolerant world. I bleed, I love, and someday, I'll die.” - Leanna Renee Hieber

8. “I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that - the ghosts you chase you never catch.” - John Malkovich

9. “I'd say we're all just ghosts on a wire seeking the prick of an electric thought.” - Robert Fanney

10. “About the library," he whispered. He took out the pencil stub from his pocket and poised it over the page."Will you write like Mr. Blake or like yourself?" I inquired.He wrote and whispered the words aloud as he did. "I am in the library. It smells like old stuff.""It smells familiar," I suggested. "It smells like words." Because his left side was to me, I couldn't easily take his hand to write."Books are boring," James said as he wrote."They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.He thought about this and then wrote with a smile, "I hate books.” - Laura Whitcomb

11. “Yet, despite all, it is a difficult thing to admit the existence of ghosts in a coldly factual world. One's very instincts rebel at the admission of such maddening possibility. For, once the initial step is made into the supernatural, there is no turning back, no knowing where the strange road leads except that it is quite unknown and quite terrible. ("Slaughter House")” - Richard Matheson

12. “He was trying to tell me something."Derek snorted. "Aren’t they all? Must be a rule in the ghost handbook—if in danger of evaporating, make sure you’re in the middle of a dire pronouncement.” - Kelley Armstrong

13. “Oh, very good,' interrupted Snape, his lip curling. 'Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. 'Ghosts are transparent.” - J. K. Rowling

14. “Materializations are often best produced in rooms where there are books. I cannot think of any time when materialization was in any way hampered by the presence of books.” - Shirley Jackson

15. “The story of my own childhood is a complicated sentence that I am always trying to finish, to finish and put behind me. It resists finishing, and partly this is because words are not enough; my early world was synaesthesic, and I am haunted by the ghosts of my own sense impressions, which re-emerge when I try to write, and shiver between the lines.” - Hilary Mantel

16. “Many African societies divide humans into three categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalised ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many … can be recalled by name. But they are not the living-dead. There is a difference.” - James W. Loewen

17. “I leave the kitchen table to bathe, and to dress for church. If only my closet held on its shelves an array of faces I could wear rather than dresses, I would know which face to put on today. As for the dresses, I haven't a clue.” - Tim Cummings

18. “He wasn’t sure why he felt so compelled to follow the singing, or why he needed to bring the foot with him, but he knew the two phenomena were connected. And in the midst of the mystery lay his father. His father’s sanity. Nicholas was sure of this.” - Kevin Wallis

19. “Ghosts could walk freely tonight, without fear of the disbelief of men; for this night was haunted, and it would be an insensitive man who did not know it.” - John Steinbeck

20. “Like most people, my views about ghosts and haunted places were traditional while growing up. I believed ghosts were human spirits. Not that I talked to many people about the subject or my experiences. I assumed people would think I was weird.” - Kristine McGuire

21. “There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun.” - Sherwood Anderson

22. “They said she killed herself.Everyone was saying It. What started out as a rumor, quietly whispered among small gatherings of polite people, quickly grew into something that was openly discussed in a large gatherings of impolite people. I was so sick of hearing them talk about It. They questioned me. Over and over again, trying to find out If i knew what happened. But my answers didn't change. Yet It never failed-someone else would ask, as if one day my reply would suddenly be different. I didn't know, but i should have...and I've been haunted ever since.” - Jessica Verday

23. “Happy Hauntings; and, pleasant dreams!” - Peter James

24. “Aura," he whispered, "I wish I could wipe away just one of your tears. Then I'dfeel like a person again. Like I'm something more than a bunch of light.” - Jeri Smith-Ready

25. “Boo: "Go talk to her."Callum: "About what?"Boo: "Anything."Callum: "You want me to walk up to her and say, 'Are you a ghost?'"Boo: "I do that."Callum: "I love it when you get it wrong.” - Maureen Johnson

26. “The popular notion that ghosts are likely to be seen in a graveyard is not borne out by psychical research... A haunting ghost usually haunts a place that a person lived in or frequented while alive... Only a gravedigger's ghost would be likely to haunt a graveyard.” - John Alexander

27. “On the ghosts in Moorehawke & Into The Grey/Taken Away:The ghosts ...are symbolic of those unresolved moments in history that linger, and affect the next generation. Sometimes this happens without that generation ever really knowing the truth of what has come before. This is so true of war, I think, where we are often only left the stories that the previous generation wanted us to hear... How much harder would the truth be to deny were it lingering about as an actual manifestation of the past?” - Celine Kiernan

28. “It bothered me that he was right. Without Sir Stuart's intervention, I'd have been dead again already.That's right--you heard me: dead again already.I mean, come on. How screwed up is your life (after- or otherwise) when you find yourself needing phrases like that?” - Jim Butcher

29. “...she knew, with all her heart that running away from the country’s top relationship coach was as good as saying, 'there’s no hope for me, ever'!” - Diane Hall

30. “In life one of Midnight’s favourite movies had been It’s a Wonderful Life, a touching story where a man called George Bailey is shown how poor the world would have been if he’d never existed, but now the young ghost of Midnight Merlot was sat imagining himself not as the kind hero of his own narrative, but, - but as the anti-George.” - Tom Conrad

31. “It was past dark when I reached the city and I’d mostly shoved my ghosts back into their graves. I let the gray mare pick her own pace and browse in the grain fields along the way.” - Deborah Wheeler

32. “For a more than miffed Midnight, fate was for emperors, fools and soppy lovers: - fate was the self-important egotism of those doing well, the sheer unbearable arrogance of the living and loved.” - Tom Conrad

33. “Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them.""I don't believe in ghosts," I said, faintly."Some people can't see the color red. That doesn't mean it isn't there," she replied.” - Sue Grafton

34. “No ghosts need apply. - Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” - Arthur Conan Doyle

35. “And I want to kiss you every day, but not just because I'm saying goodbye.” - Melissa Pearl

36. “The banana flavour of his accidental conception, and the banana theme of his accidental death, now all seemed to conspire against him and rather suggest the universe, Mr Fate or whoever did have some sort of master plan after all. Despite all his earlier conjecturing, maybe the universe, Mr Fate or whoever was laughing its fat and meddling head at him. The outlandish evidence did seem to speak for itself, truly suggesting a mocking narrative devised by some mischievous author because quite simply a banana condom had brought Midnight into the world and a banana skin had seen him out. Putting those two seeming truths together, Midnight was once again forced to ask such confused and searching questions like:What is this place, where am I heading? And what’s the deal with all the ruddy bananas?” - Tom Conrad

37. “I am not in love with him, I am in love with ghosts. So is he, he's in love with ghosts.” - Michael Ondaatje

38. “You rile this gal and she'll go wildcat on your ass. Patti (Pat) Canella- Dockland murders/Ghosts of your past.” - Alan Place

39. “Words themselves are all the ghosts we need.” - Donald Harington

40. “The vase was placed upon my desk, and there were orange-blossoms in it—orange-blossoms, in an English winter!” - Sarah Waters

41. “Some ghosts or felt presences may simply be the essence of another living person projected outward while sleeping.” - Doug Dillon

42. “Southampton's barrage balloons floated gleaming in the moonlight like the ghosts of elephants and hippos.” - Elizabeth Wein

43. “Allow the power to flow through you. Don’t try to capture it. You wish only to borrow it.” - G.G. Collins

44. “The wolf turned to Rachel. She was afraid to run, afraid fleeing would make it chase her. Somewhere in the stored files of her mind, she remembered one should not look directly at a menacing dog, but she couldn’t take her eyes from it.” - G.G. Collins

45. “There was nothing physical she could do to stop Mario from carrying out whatever he wished. She shivered at the thought of what that sleazy, other world leftover might do should she launch an attack on him.” - G.G. Collins

46. “In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.” - Laurie Halse Anderson

47. “I bolted upright in my bed, gasping for air and still feeling his touch on my hand. I could feel him watching me. I could feel him waiting for me.” - Dana Michelle Burnett

48. “Do you still believe that I am only a dream?"-Alastor” - Dana Michelle Burnett

49. “Percy glanced over. He saw the fallen giant and seemed to understand what was happening. He yelled something that was lost in the wind, probably: Go!Then he slammed Riptide into the ice at his feet. The entire glacier shuddered. Ghosts fell to their knees. Behind Percy, a wave surged up from the bay-a wall of gray water even taller than the glacier. Water shot from the chasms and crevices in the ice. As the wave hit, the back half of the camp crumbled. The entire edge of the glacier peeled away, cascading into the void-carrying buildings, ghosts, and Percy Jackson over the edge.” - Rick Riordan

50. “I can’t help but ask, “Do you know where you are?”She turns to me with a foreboding glare. “Do you?” - Nathan Reese Maher

51. “I steal one glance over my shoulder as soon as we are far from the foreboding luminance of the neon glow, and it is there that my stomach leaps into my throat. Squatting just shy of the light and partially concealed by the shade of an alley is a sinister silhouette beneath a crimson cowl, beaming a demonic smile which spans from cheek to swollen cheek.” - Nathan Reese Maher

52. “That’s a stupid name! Whirly-gig is much better, I think. Who in their rightmind would point at this thing and say, ‘I’m going to fly in my Model-A1’.People would much rather say, ‘Get in my whirly-gig’. And that’s what youshould name it.” - Nathan Reese Maher

53. “History doesn’t start with a tall buildingand a card with your name written on it, but jokes do. I think someone is takingus for suckers and is playing a mean game.” - Nathan Reese Maher

54. “What are ghosts if not the hope that love continues beyond our ordinary senses? If ghosts are a delusion, then let me be deluded.” - Amy Tan

55. “One warm morning in July, a ghost came to our breakfast table.” - Holly Thompson

56. “You hear stories like that all your life and think: cool, a ghost bus. But now we have to look at this stuff analytically... a ghost bus?! The “ghost” of a motor vehicle? A public conveyance, presumably, which didn't head towards the light, move on to join the choir invisible in... bus heaven, the great terminus in the sky, where all good buses go when they... I don't know, break down, but instead is doomed to … drive eternally the streets of Earth! How can there be a ghost bus?!” - Paul Cornell

57. “His kiss was like no other! His kiss was enchanted and fairy-tale like. He applied pressure, but just enough to feel his tenderness and warmth. I could feel his heart beating wildly as he pressed his chest against my chest all the while his loving lips brushed up against mine with a care-filled affection. His tongue lightly licked the outer edges of my mouth, and then searched for my tongue. The pursuit allowed a marriage of both tongues to meet - inspiring a mingling tango of hot and heavy French kissing to manifest profusely. We kissed like two hot and horny teenagers, our mouths moving and craving each others lips, in animalistic desires!” - Keira D. Skye

58. “Hello?” I ask. No one is there. Not a word. Not a whisper. Not a single sound resonating from the other side of the receiver. “Hello? Anyone there?” I ask again. Repeating myself. I am beginning to feel rather anxious now. Scared, would be a better word to use. Shivers have begun to creep up my spinal cord, and I can feel the urgency of goose pimples begin to line up on by frightened pale skin.” - Keira D. Skye

59. “Don't tell me how to grieve. Don't tell me ghosts fade away eventually, like they do in movies, waving goodbye with see-through hands. Lots of things fade away but ghosts like these don't, heartbreak like these doesn't.” - Anthony Doerr

60. “In the dark behind the glare of the television, like a mannequin behind it, I could see a silhouette and it wasn’t moving. It was maybe six foot high with its shoulders hunched and I blinked to make sure it was real. The TV fuzzed grey and white and black and I had a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow away. “Rory” I whispered. Clawing out gently beneath the duvet cover, reaching for his hand. But I couldn’t find it. And he didn’t answer.” - Kate Chisman

61. “The scratching came from the attic. At night, when Rory turned out the light I would lie awake and wait for it to skit, skit, skit lightly across the floorboards above our heads and down behind the water pipes.” - Kate Chisman

62. “The old are often forgotten. Life moves on without a care for those who wish to remain in the past. We tend to talk too much because it’s rare that we’re listened to.” - Tami Egonu