20th Century Ghosts Quotes
"The best time to see her is when the place is almost full."
"He was all heart. He just wanted to be liked by someone."
"He was like a holy person in a Bible story, someone who can heal the ripped and infected parts of you with a laying-on of hands."
"You know how Bible stories go. That kind of person, they’re never around long."
"He was the most completely harmless person I’ve ever known."
"Not only would he not hurt a fly, he couldn't hurt a fly."
"There was something special about Art, an invisible special something that just made other kids naturally want to kick his ass."
"He was white. Not Caucasian, white, like a marshmallow, or Casper."
"By flexing his body he could emit little squeaks and whines."
"You make trouble, and there won’t be enough of you left to patch a tire. Think about it."
"I can’t believe you got a D- on this experiment when you did it last year—you totally know how to do this stuff!!"
"Did he? What a relief. I didn’t even know if that kid could go to the bathroom."
"The way your year is going, I figure them odds might be pretty good."
"I want to be an astronaut. I’d adapt really well to being weightless. I’m already mostly weightless."
"The advantages of sending me into space keep piling up. I don’t have any muscles to atrophy. I don’t have any heart to shrink."
"Get your head out of your ass," I said—some moments just aren’t right for a funny line.
"I didn’t know the inner me was hungry," I said to Art.
"That’s because it already starved to death," Art wrote.
"In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flies from them."
"You see what you make me do," Max said, gesturing at the inkpot.
"Who’s this letter to, that you had to go and hide somewhere to write it?"
"I still remember how I held your hand in mine."
"I know you're scared of me, but I won't hurt you anymore."
"I'm not going to make you do anything you won't like."
"None of us heard it. It rang, but none of us heard."
"She really found the balloons, John. Susannah did."
"Each jar is airtight, hermetically sealed. Each one contains someone’s dying breath."
"Some people don’t care much for what they can’t hear in the Carrie Mayfield jar."
"Some silences seem to resonate with feeling."
"The silence in a seashell. The silence after a gunshot."
"You can almost sense them trying to articulate an idea."
"The roots of a shattered tree still drink for months after death, so used to the habit of life they can't give it up."
"Something that doesn’t know it’s alive obviously can’t be expected to know when it’s dead."
"I knew it was only a matter of time before I got you in bed with me."
"There must be some reason you hang around with Luke. Besides Luke."
"You forget other things too. Jack, listen, I don’t want you to forget about"
"We’re in trouble, Jack. We’re in terrible trouble."
"It’s because there are some things a mother’s love and a father’s courage can’t keep you safe from."
"Who could fight them? You know about playing-card people. How they all go around with little golden hatchets and little silver swords."
"I wasn’t mad. I knew we couldn’t have a relationship, just seeing each other when you came home for Christmas."
"If you smile during the game, the player sitting to your left can swap one of his cards for one of yours."
"The secret to avoiding unhappy losses is to only play games you make up yourself."
"Take the path closest to the 'any-where' sign, which will take you anywhere you want to go."
"I didn’t understand it, but I had fun playing."
"Don’t forget, you get to ask him a question too."
"I knew you were crazy, but I didn’t know you were a total shithouse rat."
"There’s doors in there that only swing one way."
"I was already sealing up my memories of him behind a wall of carefully laid mental bricks."
"Your dad is in outer space half the time, you shuffle around in a trance, and your brotherI swear to God one of these days your brother is going to climb into one of his little forts and never come out."
"A whole world might be closed in there. What it might contain. A whole world might be closed in there. Who could tell from the outside? The featureless outside."
"Write what you know? The ghost in the machine wrote about the dead with great authority."
"Writing things warmed his imagination up for the work of creating an evening full of sweet dreams."
"Most said there was no market in collections by writers of no reputation, but in time she heard from an editor at a small press who said he liked it, that her father had a fine feel for the supernatural."