ghosts

For when all else is done, on­ly words re­main. Words en­dure.

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.

Listen, we__l come visit you. Okay? I__l dress up as William Shakespeare, Lucent as Emily Dickinson, and beautiful __ay_ as someone dashing and manly like Jules Verne or Ernest Hemingway...and we__l write on your white-room walls. We__l write you out of your supposed insanity. I love you, Micky Affias.-James (from "Descendants of the Eminent")

It__ easier for me to make sense of it that way than it is for me to face the other way__eality. And yet, those evil spirits that were unleashed__e they fake entities from a stupid carnival ride, or cruel malevolencies from dark spiritual chasms of our universe__ave stayed with me all these years

I will tell him that I've always thought he was a monster. And that I want to be his bride

Hello dead girl," Isola said, ever the hostess."Hello heartbeat girl," said the uninvited guest. "It's like a drum, it's so fucking loud. Turn it down, will you?

This was going to be worse than the time I table danced in the diner in high school!

He knows different now. It's the living that chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives. Thomas More had spread the rumor that Little Bilney, chained to the stake, had recanted as the fire was set. It wasn't enough for him to take Bilney's life away; he had to take his death too.

She had been his talisman, his cure for the insecurities and worries that he knew deep down didn't really matter, but somehow had always managed to get the best of him.

Trust me, you see the dead walking around, you learn not to scream, laugh, or piss yourself pretty quickly.

The rancid odor mixed with the dust, death, and confusion as they awaited those who could clean up the mess and make death official.

I didn__ know the grim reaper looked like Sid Vicious. _ Jen

If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach him to fish, he'll eat all the fish you might have caught for yourself.--Advice of Paul Slater, the evil mediator, to Suze

If the creek predates the city deep in time, then is it right to identify the creek solely with the city? The city has forgotten the creek, as it's forgotten those who walk its side, but the creek didn't need to be known all that long time before the city ever was. Maybe now Hogan's Creek is too steeped in history to claim an independence grounded in prehistory, because the city has too deeply poisoned it for far too long. Then again, there was all that time the creek flowed and had no name. Without a name you belong solely to yourself.

Look at the woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost.

This whole goddam house stinks of ghosts. I don__ mind so much being haunted by a dead ghost, but I resent like hell being haunted by a half-dead one.

Ah. Well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT... NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY... NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?

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